Things Too Innumerable To Mention

Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

6:50 AM

I lost my writing space. I'm trying to create a new one, in this new house. The Fiend was afraid I would hate this house; I don't, but admittedly, it's been an uncomfortable place to live these last couple months. There were more problems than we had realized. Problems with greater priorities than making for myself a place of separate peace. Problems like leaks in the roof and termites in the floor and mice in the walls and bats in the furnace flue. Luckily for the bats, the furnace didn't work. There was no hope of fixing it and there was series of delays before we could get the new furnace installed. We lived the first month here without heat except from fires we built in the living room fireplace. No bats in the chimney. Maybe they were frightened away by the ghost of the cat who died there�the sweep found animal bones and an unmistakable feline skull in the tangle of soot-encrusted debris he cleared out of our chimney.

I'll have time later today to work on my writing place. Right now, this morning, all I have is a room with dusty corners and bare walls, filled with boxes filled with books awaiting shelves. The shelves are stacked along the baseboards, disassembled but ready to be built. My computer is here, wounded* but valiantly slogging along, swamped by piles of paper and surrounded by an intimidating crowd of things. Like stone eggs and Band-Aid tins full of erasers, like a ceramic horse and a plastic seal pup, like a basket filled with pens, a vase with paintbrushes, a teacup with business cards, and Other Things Too Innumerable To Mention. Opposite the computer is my oak schoolmarm desk, also surmounted by Things Too Innumerable To Mention, where I'm writing this on the back of my bank statement in a small cleared oasis of oak grain polished by years of elbow grease.

I must go now. I've got a lawn to mow and three neglected apple trees to prune for a new customer�I want to be early and make a good impression. I hope to post this when I get back.

10:30 AM

I am writing this in my truck parked in front of the house of Mrs. Sharon Goscjke. I am annoyed. I arrived twenty minutes before the appointed time. I mowed Mrs. Goscjke's lawn. I pruned her apple trees. According to the venerable and chivalric traditions of gypsy gardeners, while I was mowing Mrs. Goscjke's lawn and pruning her apple trees, Mrs. Goscjke (or a duly authorized representative of her family) should have emerged from her house to speak a few pleasantries and pay me. No one emerged. I was forced to ring the bell at the front door, which is, according to the venerable and chivalric traditions of gypsy gardeners, a minor affront to my dignity. No one is home. I am not paid. In ten minutes, if no one arrives to pay me, according to the venerable and chivalric traditions of gypsy gardeners, I am permitted to be pissed.�

4:35 PM

I found this while sorting through my books. Issue 13, from the Fall of 1994. I opened it to the first paragraph, by C. E. Shue:

"The magician did all of the usual tricks: coin tricks, card tricks, rope tricks, escape tricks, tricks with hoops and balls and cups and brightly colored scarves. "Everything I do is a trick," he warned us, palming a quarter and making it vanish into thin air. "Even my telling you this is a trick." The magician straightened his cuffs, tapped a deck of cards on the table. The tricks were hardly spectacular; we had seen them all before. The magician smiled and told tasteless jokes. He wore the regulation black tuxedo. He made animals out of balloons. He was nothing special. We tried to see beyond the magician, but we couldn't. We tried not to look where the magician wanted us to look, but we were never entirely sure where that was. We tried, but we could never see the trick behind the trick. And in the end, the magician stole my watch, even though I knew full well he was going to do it."

An apt illustration of the relationship between the American people and their current president, dontcha think?

~

*The local power supply is capricious. During the storms earlier in this month, we had five black-outs; during the fair weather, we had two. The fluctuating power has evidently done physical damage to my computer's hard disk�the computer crashed earlier this week, but I was able to recover it without having to reformat the hard drive. I suspect the surge protector is not providing a strong enough defense and I'm trying to remember to unplug the computer whenever I'm not using it.

� Mrs. Goscjke returned in a flurry of apologies at 10:57 AM. She had gone out for breakfast and went to church and had forgotten all about me. Her apologies were very pretty, but she didn't tip, so I won't be giving up time on my weekends to work for her again.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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