and… I mean, AND!.

and

pretty odd word, and. I don’t mean, what it means. nothing like that.

an’d.

sigh. si’gh.
OHHh

these oldsters. this life. chained to the earth.

I’ve been to the gym 3 times in 5 days and feel very solid. I’ve begun stretching again at odd times in the last couple weeks, something I had somehow stopped altogether for several months, which is odd because typically I am a habitual stretcher. tho not flexible. I count that nearly total cessation of stretching as an indicator of some kind of mostly unnecessary emergency state.

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time the last few days reading a ginsberg biography I’ve had for years and sometimes will read just a few pages from. it’s by barry miles. tho I hadn’t looked to see who the author was until sometime this afternoon. it’s good and reads well out of order. it’s easy to pick of the thread of whatever is underway on a page.

for days now I’ve sat up in my bedroom at night, when I’m home. I’m home most nights lately. I have been feeling privileged up here, just to have a chair and a fan and more books than I can read. and a rug and a computer. wireless internet. two fans actually. and enough of the A/C makes it up here so that it’s pleasant enough with the fans blowing, tho not cool. speakers. windows.

no demolition on the weekend, ok? I think that’s a good policy. a time of rest. chillaxing for the wicked.

I took a walk around the block. I like to see women in their nightgowns smoking and talking on the phone on their front porches at noon. publicness.

when I got up this morning there was a guy passed out on his front porch across the street, somewhat awkwardly, with his legs on the stairs and his body up on the porch. he was lying on his side. some of him was. I can see from where I’m sitting that he’s not there anymore. I guess I don’t know for sure that he lives there, but I believe so.

it’s friday.  no matter how recent the last friday was, it’s still friday.  there will never be a point in history when the fridays come so quickly that we stop recognizing them as such.   there will not be a point where only every other friday is a friday.

I went out there.  it’s hot.

for me the two pop bands of consequence in the last 10 years.   radiohead and arcade fire.  that’s not a personal statement.  it’s not that they’re my favorite bands of that period.  but they’re bands that have had pretty substantial commercial success, enough to quit the day job, and then some.  and that meanwhile can be taken seriously, and that have done an admirable job in depicting something particular to their generation’s consciousness, or their moment’s consciousness.  and, as cheney liked to say, they have a post-9/11 mindset whereas pop music in the main was not the least bit deflected by developments in the earlier part of the decade.  arcade fire is more convincing and able to get at the moment in oblique ways that project particular lives during the moment, noting that people meanwhile continue their particular lives in any moment.  radiohead perhaps winds up at something a tiny bit cartoony at times, tho I think that could be debated.

I think it was jesse jackson who first said, “the” is a feeling that recipes a plan for a meal.  that fully emptied.

Committee members wrote in a letter Thursday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that they were responding to an Associated Press investigation released last week on the 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf. The AP reported that the wells are not routinely inspected when plugged or subsequently monitored for leaks.

thus ends the most trying period of my life.  a period during which I did not have internet access for more than 24 hrs.  but verizon man came and climbed the pole.   and then climbed another pole.  and replaced the line.   a new line for me.

I ate another of the tomatoes.  I cubed it and simmered it briefly, then ate it with salt and pepper.

I spotted two bean pods, one of which had a bean in it.  I ate it.

since I was without internet today, I did a good bit of demolition.  I see that one of the walls is an original wall. I know this because the 2x4s inside are actually a full 2 inches by 4 inches, and they are ruddier than what you get these days.    also, inside the drywall cavity, the slats that formerly held plaster are still on the studs, sandwiched between the old studs and some modern “2x4s”.

I will save the old ruddy lumbers.  I will not throw them out.

wow, I just went into my bedroom and it looks like a real human being lives there.  amazing!  I’m going to go have another look.

quick edit on a little notebook I found.  probably the notebook was written earlier this year and maybe blogged I don’t know.  edit tonight:

I did one thousand things today:

• a little work then took the rest of the day off to beautify the upstairs, as I was facing a psychological crisis re: visual things and lounge capacity.
• I have created a historical replica of my living room in my bedroom. everything is here except bookcases.
• featuring deeply re-organized and vacuumed closets throughout.
• I also have created an ornamental lounge area in the 2nd bedroom. there are no comfortable chairs in there but for psychological reasons I have set it up to look like a place where people could hang out.
• the rugs are upstairs.
• I haven’t used A/C in a couple days, as the temps have been low 90s and it’s not too bad up here with the windows wide open.  we had that storm and some wind blew in while I was making tostadas.  that was nice.
• the bedroom no longer seems like a room in an abandoned crack house.  it has a fullness and some colors.
• there are many tomatoes out there.  the watermelon plant is huge but no signs of fruiting there.   same with the bean plant.  huge w/ no beans.  pea plants died.  too much sun I believe.  or they just didn’t want it bad enough.
• I watched the world cup championship.  I was satisfied with the game.  had been rooting dutch.  they did all they could.  bit of a brawl.  was nice to see a game that both sides wanted to win.  last game I had watched all of was that Ghana-USA game where it was clear the USA didn’t want to win except for during a few minutes at the start of the second half.
• I had the foresight to buy some iced cream on my way back from lunch today.
• I find lindsy lohan attractive tho I recognize she is a flawed person.  what the fuck is wrong with mel gibson.   jon bon jovi hurt his calf while closing out a show with his megahit living on a prayer, a song that explores xenu’s paradox.  like a true star, he will finish out the tour on a strained calf, no excuses.  in all my years covering the industry I haven’t met a nicer man nor known anyone so committed to his craft.  never satisfied, he is always looking to take it up a notch.  cheers bon jovi.
• today was one of the greatest days in my life, a day when I overcame psychological adversities, a broken family and negative trends affecting our society to beautify  my upstairs so that I could have better parties.
• jesse jackson is a straight idiot.  just dumb.  the lebron decision thing was already the dumbest thing that has happened in the history of the USA and jesse jackson looked at it a couple days after the dumbness had already overripened and had begun to rot and he said wait, it’s not too late for this to be dumber.  and his PR staff’s writing is atrocious.  ”His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality.”  really?  his feelings personify a mentality.  say what.  lebron james is an idiot and he did quit during the cavs series.  gilbert is an idiot for saying the cavs will win a championship before the heat.  not likely.  kobe bryant is smart, possibly the only smart man in america other than bon jovi and is a better player than lebron.  always will be.
• importantly, I fashioned what I’m calling a shoulder skirt by cutting away most of the fabric from a tee-shirt, except for the top shoulders and neck hole and a little below the pits.  this way arnold has some fabric to grip and I don’t have to wear a full tee shirt indoors when it’s hot.