This tree is a douglas fir I planted two years ago. It’s not really doing that well, but it’s not dead. It’s being protected by a pink, plastic yard flamingo, which I’d placed last summer to protect it from Richard’s excavator.
“If a child refuses to take a nap, are they resisting a rest? Or are they preventing a kid napping?” – the internet.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
ㅁ Sometimes I despair. There's no satisfaction, now. It's just plodding through.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree (perhaps the one in silhouetted foreground?) was beside a lake under a full moon in the part of northwest suburban Seoul known as Ilsan (Goyang), where I lived for many years. I took this picture in June, 2011.
I’m not happy these days. I feel too overwhelmed: the store (work), complicated family issues (mother’s health), my uncle’s cantankerous Spring restlessness…
[daily log: walking, 1km;]
ㅁ
On the bus, today, …
… I saw fields green with the young spring barley.
… I saw a man kneeling beside the tollway next to his SUV, which had a flat tire.
… I saw a banner with a Japanese flag and the words (in English): “Don’t give up, Japan.”
… I saw a motel designed to look like a Russian Orthodox Church.
… I saw a single broad patch of snow on a hillside of brown grass, near Gongju.
… I saw a shed on fire, in a field, with a great billowing cloud of white smoke.
… I heard “Aguas de março” sung by Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim, on my mp3 player.
… I saw a cow sleeping in some dirt.
… I saw a reproduction of a watercolor painting of Paris’ St.-Germain Square on the wall over a urinal at a tollway rest area.
… I heard grumpy old people with thick Jeolla accents pronouncing Yeonggwang as Yeom-gang.
… I saw a tall young man with tight jeans and shiny purple combat boots yelling into a cellphone and dropping his iced coffee onto the pavement.
… I heard Talking Heads’ “Found a Job” on my mp3 player.
… I saw brick farm houses with solar panels on their flat roofs.
… I read 50 pages of Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.
… I saw many, many pine trees dancing under the sky, their roots sunk in the red-gold earth, looking like ink-drawings.
… I heard The Cure’s cover of David Bowie’s “Young Americans” on my mp3 player.
… I saw tiny villages packed up into narrow valleys, limned with leafless trees, where all the houses had blue tile roofs.
… I saw an angry-looking euro-dude with Miami Vice sunglasses, spitting onto the sidewalk like a Korean.
… I saw a giant statue of a squirrel.
… I ate something vaguely resembling tater-tots, with a spicy sauce.
… I saw a bridge over the tollway that had trees planted on it.
… I saw hundreds of plastic greenhouses, filled with hothouse vegetables growing, looking like large worms swimming in formation through the still wintery fields.
… I heard Juanes’ “Fijate bien” on my mp3 player.
… I saw families having picnics at the graves of their ancestors at random locations on hillsides alongside the tollway, and there were many children hopping happily, too.
… I saw a crow perched on the sign that indicated the Yeonggwang County line. I was almost home.
– a “prose poem” I wrote long ago, in March, 2011. It memorializes a bus trip from Seoul down to Yeonggwang, South Korea, where I was living at the time.
This tree experienced some wind, and waved its many branches uncommunicatively.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
ㅁ Let's consider this proposition that he says: "It's never so good, that it couldn't be better." It's my uncle's mantra... quite pessimistic, a performance to forestall risky joy.
– a nonnet.
This tree was between a Buddha and a cell phone tower, in Seoul in November, 2010.
[daily log: walking, 4km;]
ㅁ I hang some sentences in a row, like the tanned pelts of animals. You can wander among them, hoping to find nice ones, but each is less fine than previous, and at last they're just dumb.
– a nonnet.
This tree stood around as some small progress with the little shed on lot 73 was made.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
ㅁ Dead. Dull days. I'm alone - no customers - in the store all day. So I have a theory: people have paid their taxes, now they don't have any money to spend in retail establishments.
– a reverse nonnet.
This tree lives in a temperate rainforest. So it got rained on.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 9hr]
ㅁ I photographed our bright galaxy, while I wandered as a chilled ghost through the paths of our forest, noting, but not fearing, a bestiary of creatures: bears, deer, otters... in my dream.
– a nonnet.
This tree appeared in my past – at a small hermitage along a mountain trail day hike, in southern South Korea in October, 2010.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr;]
ㅁ I can dream a map with surprising precision, but it fades too fast.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was really good at looming.
“If you’ve been led to believe that you deserve free money for doing absolutely nothing… You may be entitled to compensation!” – the internet
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
ㅁ My dream processor presents a blank screen to me... but still, I'm dreaming.
– a pseudo-haiku. It might be possible to have a lucid dream with no content.
This tree stood aside.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
ㅁ winter's inertia insists on persisting, here, inside my small brain
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was on a mountain in South Korea. I took this picture while on a day-hike with a friend in southern Jeolla province, in August of 2010.
“I am as unmotivated as someone who is so unmotivated they can’t even come up with a colorful simile to describe their lack of motivation.” – the internet
[daily log: walking, 1km;]
ㅁ I express silence with seventeen syllables that all cancel out.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree noted the neighbors’ new house-construction project was advancing.
[daily log: walking, 4km;]
ㅁ Kiamon noted the grim atmosphere. Several looked up. She could understand fear. No one, however, decided to fight. Here she would stay, on edge for the night.
– a quatrain in a dactylic tetrameter. The nonsequential snapshots into this fictional being’s life continue.
This tree is down by the river.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr]
ㅁ You have something you meant to achieve? Then life introduced obstacles? You just procrastinated? Consider that all past. Disregard failures. Instead, live, now: contemplate random things.
– a nonnet.
This tree (the one photobombing from the top) was on the north side of the bay.
I’ve never managed this view before. There’s a wide spot in the road, where you can stop, and a little trail down to the rocky beach, and you can look across the water at the City of Rockpit, which is my home. Currently the City hosts 4 residents – double its population only a few years ago (which is to say, our neighbors Brandt and Kim moved in next door, about a year ago).
Humorous quote found online:
To all the people that always said I’d never amount to anything because of my procrastination: / Just you wait.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
ㅁ Dogs chase cars - exciting! - with bad results. The car is unforgiving when it's caught.
– a tetractys.
This tree failed to pay any taxes whatsoever.
Taxes stress me out so much. And I have to deal with taxes not just for myself, and the excitement of now being “self employed” and all the bonus paperwork that comes with that, but also, I have to make sure Arthur’s taxes are filed and in order. I’m quite annoyed with a thing called “DocuSign” – it’s a service used by accountants, financial institutions, etc, to do “online signing” of documents (e.g. tax returns). DocuSign asks verification questions to verify your identity. These are based on things like previously lived-at addresses, previously owned cars, etc. Well think about how this works for someone with memory issues (e.g. Arthur). It’s an accessibility nightmare! So for DocuSign, identity resides with memory, and loss of memory is a loss of identity. I’m not sure this is how it works from a legal standpoint, and it’s certainly not how we want things to work from an ethical standpoint, I don’t think.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
ㅁ Spring annoys with its bugs and buzzing bees... it's like, "c'mon, world, really, this again?"
– a tetractys.
This tree witnessed a thermonuclear explosion.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
ㅁ No words can survive an assault by the weather. It's raw qualia.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree anticipated spring, but six years ago, in April, 2018, along my walk to work in Goyang, South Korea.
[daily log: walking, 1km;]
ㅁ Two ducks swam to the mouth of the creek. One duck was cleaning its damp wings. The other stood and walked out. It looked around the beach: gravel strewn with stones. Quite unimpressed, it turned back, swimming north.
– a nonnet.
This tree noticed fresh green leaves appearing on some salmonberry shrubs.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
