by chance today I was looking right at my neighbor’s downspout when it fell off. I had actually been examining it for maybe 15 seconds or more for unrelated reasons and it showed no signs of detaching prior to when it detached. it fell directly towards the window where I was standing, but I was on the first floor and it came to rest on the bars of the window directly above.

that project I got is 25% bigger than the previous biggest project I’ve had. it’s very much like the kind of project I’ve wanted and that I have been training myself to do in my downtime. it’s quite strange when I apply myself to something and there is an appropriate and fortuitous result. it’s a little like watching an aluminum downspout fall toward you. an aluminum downspout falls in a slow, funny sort of way. it is very light and it seems to fall through the air like something sinking in water. there was quite a bit of water infiltration of various sorts in the basement, as we had very, very heavy rain today. it is raining right now and I can hear the rain hitting the side of the fallen downspout and can also hear the water dripping from the neighbor’s gutter or rather hitting the ground below it. I can’t hear it dripping from the gutter because that makes very little sound and can’t be hear over top of the water hitting the ground and the side of the aluminum. I actually went out front to tell someone over there, but there were so many people out front of the house at the time that I got overwhelmed. I didn’t want to ask “does anyone live in the house” or some such. no one present was recognizable to me as a resident. the older matriarch whom I’ve often spoken to was not present.

I’m not stressed about the water infiltration. it happens at rare intervals when there is a lot of rain. it comes through the walls and in a few places appears as drops coming up through invisible holes in the floor. it has the appearance of a drop materializing for no reason and growing until it starts to stream to low ground. hydrostatic pressure from below. there are some deficiencies in the brick pointing outside and inside that are a factor in some of the infiltration so I’ll fix all that in the next year or so. it takes a lot of rain in order for water to come through the wall. I presume that the few small streams that come out of the brick walls are indeed water that has worked its way down through the wall after entering the wall four or five feet above grade. though perhaps it’s unlikely that water would erode its way down through 4 or 5 feet of wall. it may be from below grade. it’s no big deal except it will eventually erode too much of the mortar if allowed to continue. for that reason the brick must be pointed up a bit in the basement, which will be easy for me to do, and a little on the outside wall. the basement will never be waterproof on a day like this and there’s not much reason for trying, but the processes need to be slowed down.

seems I have my most venti project ever. just now, klient says my pric/e point is spot on, spot on, on, the spot.

not tall. not grande.

it is some arts-related e-commerce stuff that will start in one city then replicate.

I slept like the breakfast of champions last night. after sleeping barely at all the night before.

last night at that fanny reading, I was… I don’t know if it was the sleeplessness or my body odor or the excessive perfume of the woman sitting next to me, but I had this strange itchiness in my head, like a crazy person.

her voice is like a claw, I thought.

I tried leaning forward to get away from the perfume, but ya know what happens when you lean forward the people sitting next to you lean forward and then their perfume leans forward.

after fanny we went to that weird room and seth katy mel and me had a very above average talk about poetry and the unknown and randomness.

everything. I didn’t get to sleep until like, tomorrow. that late. but I’ve nonetheless been sharp qua worker.

thoughts of couch, late in the night. need couch. need to at least harbor thoughts of getting a couch. at least set things up so that there is a plausible location for a couch, and then a couch may come. even if I have to put a tarp over it for weeks and/or years still it will be there. a couch-shaped lump beneath a tarp. just as importantly I need to order some sheets of drywall. delivery. since I can’t get them in my camry.

indian summer is over.

ps I’ve been watching a show about the universe. what have we learned. the universe is effing huge. it’s really old. it’s about three times older than the earth. some quasars are more than a trillion times brighter than the sun. the milky way is going to collide with the andromeda galaxy not very long from now relative to the age of the universe, but it’s possible that things are spread so far apart in each galaxy that none of the stars in the milky way will bump into stars in andromeda. “collide” means that the stars will intermix and the shapes of each galaxy will get distorted by the other galaxy’s gravity. small galaxies orbit large galaxies, but both the milky way and andromeda are large galaxies that apparently do not orbit other galaxies. the universe is getting bigger and the rate at which it is getting bigger is increasing. it is thought that space itself is expanding. this is perhaps what allows the rate of the universe’s expansion to increase. because the universe is expanding, but the space that contains the universe is also expanding. we know there is dark matter because we can observe how its gravity distorts the path of light. just before a star is sucked into a black hole it emits rays so bright that they could be seen using only binoculars from the other side of the universe. the galaxy andromeda, the closest to the milky way, was first observed by persians a long time ago with the naked eye. the wikipedia entry about the universe contains about 11,700 words, about one for each jedi in centaurus. if a star were as big as a period, all the stars in the milky way could fill up the land area of the united states and we could use the stars to stop sentences.

here it is

http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/index.jsp

this is on netflix.

small but manageable amount of dread this morning. mostly has lifted. gas workers are here. gas has been off since friday. cold showers not so bad this time of year. but glad it’s ending today. they are going to jack hammer the sidewalk out front, etc. it’s not costing me anything. there was a leak between the main and my house.

toaster oven waffles

very little dread for most of the weekend.

the bdowns and eileen show was a good. eileen is the best reader of prose that I can think of right now. I also think she has the most natural relationship with her writing of anyone I can think of. she’s constantly available in her style.

kayaking on the brain. a kayak trip was hatched last night. it will be to blackwater refuge in md. con 1-2 other people.

I’m more than a little thoned and am not watching football, which feels quite liberating. it’s like having an extra night in the week.

Not to brag, but I made a salad. A large one. I’m eating it. I’m not going to do anything imprudent like eat all of it in one sitting.

Not to brag, but I went to the grocery store. I got grapes. I don’t remember the last time I got grapes. Maybe never. I ate some of the grapes this morning. They were very good. I got them because I read an article about grapes. I’m impressionable.

Viva circuit training. I think I’ve gained about 5 lbs in the last couple of months and I have basically no body fat. Pretty close. I found some muscles in my neck that I didn’t know I had. I wasn’t even looking for them. I went to scratch my neck and I found this thing there which I determined to be a muscle. Not to brag. I don’t do circuit training in any prescribed, formal way. I just move through my sets quickly.

There is a very silly but effective 7-11 grand opening underway right now on H. A very spunky, racially ambiguous woman dancing around in the parking lot with a wireless microphone, talking up the grand opening with great enthusiasm and persistence. Michael Jackson’s PYT was blaring from the speakers when I was there. I could hear the emcee and Michael Jackson music from 4 blocks away. Lots of people standing around, not quite dancing but standing around, perhaps drawn by… some kind of coupon giveaway or free raffle. Something with a table and a line. Inside, the 7-11 is packed. I have never seen so many people in a 7-11. So clearly it is working.

I was at the mall. I had stayed the previous night at a nice hotel inside the mall. walking around in the mall, I got shot in the head a couple times at close range by a former coworker, but it didn’t kill me. after the first time he shot me, I tried to talk to him about it. I tried to explain that it wasn’t necessary to shoot me every time he got a little annoyed with me. he could just talk to me instead. after the second time he shot me I continued to think about how I might explain to him that it was rude to shoot me and was unnecessary. this was the day before thanksgiving, so there was a long line of people in the mall who were waiting to check into the hotel. I had missed my checkout time by several hours. I was sure I was going to be forced to pay for that night even if I didn’t stay. someone in the mall warned me that hotel rates were higher the night before thanksgiving. I went to the checkout window, which was accessible from inside the mall. the hotel receptionist said don’t worry about it, just go ahead and clear my stuff out and bring the key, and they wouldn’t charge me. I was relieved. by this point I had a very long nose hair that protruded several inches out of my nostril. I was sure the receptionist had noticed it. I figured I could find some way to trim it in my room while I was clearing my stuff out.