It's the end... in These titles mean nothing.

.. of my time off.

I go back to work tomorrow. If I go. I am not certain. I dislike that in myself. I dislike a whole bunch of stuff about myself. But I see no need to change. I just want to keep on keeping on doing the stuff I don’t like.

Oh hell it could be worse. Oh hell it could be better. Oh hell.

So anyway. As my friend with the ten points says:

1. Went to our second ball game of the season. It was hot. At first. Beauty of a baseball game is that time goes by and the sun goes down and the lights come on and it cools off. It had a tremendously exciting ending. Bottom of 10th, score tied of course, Lorenzo Hampton Jr. bunts. Ball bounced right in front of plate but stays in play. Lorenzo is put out at first. Well so.... But there had been a runner named Justin Wylie on first who was now running. To second. To third? To home!!!! Wow the crowd can make noise. The whole team did one of those all run together mass hugs in the corner of the field by third base, a tub of ice water was thrown on them. The question of where the ball was, where the opposing players were, was kind of only vaguely answered.

2. I am living on the net. I read twitter. I chase links. I comment rarely but pithilty. I do the same on facebook. I do the same here. I chat and play trivia. I browse youtube. I am sincerely engaged in spider solitaire which is not on the net, it’s just on my computer. Though my computer has cloudiness so maybe everything is on the net. Except no, I can play solitaire with I don’t have a computer connection. I just realized I have not played solitaire in at least 24 hours and now my fingers are itchy for the click and slap and frill of the electronic cards.

3. I am eating a lot. A lot of whatever I can reach. I am not cooking. I graze. I toast bread and make sandwiches. French jam is peach this week. Peanut butter is still crunchy. Pizzas frozen and town both come and go. Bing cherries have such a short season I might as well indulge. I eat corn chips, good and bad. I drink sugar pop and orange juice. Nothing alcoholic because there is nothing alcoholic. Not because I’m virtuous.

4. It rained on Jim’s oats. It was not supposed to rain until Tuesday when they would have been picked up. He has bad luck with rain. Rain is good. Any rain is better than no rain because we depend on rain to make things grow. But in the best of all possible world there would be time between rain for hay and oats to be cut and dried and baled. It seems like every year is this way anymore. There will be second crop and third crop and maybe they won’t get rained on. Sometimes rain doesn’t hurt the hay (or oats) especially if it falls soon after it’s cut. But when it starts to rain and keeps on going it is not good. Oh well.

5. The little Asian lawn tractor’s mowing deck broke and had to be taken to town to get welded. One of the Buick’s new tires was suspiciously low, repeatedly. I took it to the tire shop and they checked it out and said it was ok. So now it’s ok. Not bad news. Just news.

6. I spent some time with Edna O’Brien on youtube the other night. She was born in 1930 in the west of Ireland. She has lived most of her life in England. I’d read her new novel about refugees and the hidden Bosnian leader who became a healer before he was caught and tried. O’Brien is well up in her 80s and she is a talker. Pretty voice, awareness, someone doing what she can. I saw parts of several interviews. In both she was wearing the same necklace of turquoise beads.

7. My college town library books are still overdue. I could have called to renew them but I was sure I was going to get there to return them. I though that up until now - 5:15 pm on Sunday. I haven’t really gone to much effort to find the books. Oh my am I less than responsible?

8. What do I want out of life? How much distance is there from here to there? Who is bored with me? Who has had enough of these purposeless questions that keep dripping from the ceiling? What ceiling? You’re not saying the roof is leaking too, are you? No the roof is not leaking. The Amish roofers sealed it up tight. It’s a metaphor. Will and I discussed metaphor when we were reading Donald Hall and my poetry. I wonder if he remembered what a metaphor is. I will have to ask next time I talk to him.

9. It’s been a rough week, newswise. Way too much shooting. By cops, of cops. Yet the stats say there are fewer police being killed than in the 1980s. Fewer Americans killed by guns also. Is that possible? Is it just that we hear about it more now? We comment about it now. We are all creators of information. We are all on the same plane/plain? I know the difference. I thought I knew it. I could look it up, easily. But I’m not in the mood.

10. So this is ten.