The tree supports a gray sky that wishes to snow but only drizzles.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Month: December 2019
Caveat: Poem #1233 “Some habits”
Coffee and oatmeal. Seems boring. Really? Daily? Habits can be good.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #347
Do you wonder if it’s Christmas yet? Some people do. Now there’s a website with answers.
Meanwhile, this looks a bit like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1232 “Brought to you by the letter ‘D'”
Deleuzian dreams demarcate doubts, deriving daily delusions.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #346
Here is another guest tree – a picture taken by my mother in Australia.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1231 “The moon out of place”
The moon seemed misplaced. I looked at it in the night. Why is it there, so bright?
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #345
I went into town today. With just me, and not Arthur here, going in on Thursday isn’t necessary – he goes on Thursday for the Senior Discounts. I decided to go on Friday. Also, I didn’t actually need many groceries – I am eating more in my bachelor style: I just made a big pot of rice and beans and have that every day for lunch. I have salads for dinner. I don’t run out of food as fast, when it’s just me.
I didn’t take a picture of a tree. Here is a tree from when I was at Juli and Keith’s in Oregon, over Thanksgiving.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #1230 “The sandbox”
I made a sandbox. The sides were not square, at all. I added some sand.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #344
I worked outside during a break in the rain. Perhaps that means I’m feeling better.
I saw this tree. Go figure.
[daily log: walking, 2km; shoveling, 1.5hr]
Caveat: Poem #1229 “The stars don’t care”
Dawn is hard to like when the sleeping wasn't good but anyway there are stars.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #343
A guest tree – another picture taken by my mother in Australia.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Train Canon
I found this video, below, mildly entertaining in a weird way. I suppose I’m not feeling very productive. I’m still in a funk about the residency problem from Univ of Alaska, and meanwhile the stormy weather and my flu-thing are also keeping me from doing much useful otherwise. Recovering from my trip, I guess, and feeling like I shouldn’t have taken the trip in the first place – spending money I don’t really have and accomplishing very little.
Caveat: Poem #1228 “What you believe”
When it's dark, it hides? No. The world just disappears. That's what you believe.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #342
I think I finally turned the corner on this flu-thing that hit me hard after getting back here. I’ve been using it as an excuse (I think a valid one) to not yet start some projects I’ve had in mind now that I’m back home, including updating my interaction with the school district (in hopes I can move up the potential substitute list). I coughed and sneezed less this evening than previous recent days. Knock on wood.
For example, this tree is made of wood.
NOTE: The last day or two, my blog site has been under a pretty intense, sustained effort to hack. So far it seems to be resisting, though the blog’s automated emailer has been spamming my email inbox with notifications of failed logins and junky comments (100’s to 1000’s per hour). This all may impact the performance of the blog. I am trying a few different security measures to tackle the problem, but I’m not very experienced with this. If the blog disappears for a while, please don’t be alarmed – I’ve created a full back-up, and worst case, I’ll take it down and rebuild it at some point. Thank you for your patience.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #1227 “Soundbringer”
And then, and always, the rain came to render sound and tap on the roofs
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #341
Do you get tired of trees? I don’t. I find solace in them, and company. It’d be nice if my life was more interesting. What am I doing? I’m still sick with my never-ending flu-thing. But it seems to be getting better. I have been cleaning and rearranging the attic – that’s a big job. I have been doing some work cleaning up my server, too. Trying to consolidate things so I can start a new project, there. I’m staying busy.
To supplement the tree, here is the hill across the inlet.
To supplement the hill, here is a fleet of some ducks disturbing the still water – mostly you can see their wakes.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Caveat: Poem #1226 “Acausalility”
Some days my fires work, other days they sputter, fail... no causality
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #340
This is the rising, almost-full moon, at 4pm (! – yes it gets dark early right now). I took the picture with no flash, it ended up blurry and the foregrounded tree on the left is only barely visible.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: a Garrison Keillor skit with no punchline
I went to a Christmas Concert in Craig today. All the “neighbors” were there – the people who live up and down Port Saint Nicholas Road: Jeri and Karl, Mike and Penny, Gary and Sandy. They’re all retirees. I felt like a youth brigade of one.
Before the concert, Jeri, Karl and I had a late lunch at their friends-in-town, Scott and Mike, both widowers I think. Scott is quite a cook. We were joking that their houses, side by side, were the “gourmet district” in Craig. We had venison stew that Jeri and Karl had made, and fresh home-baked brown bread, cornbread, lemon pie. Scott had home-made kimchi, too – it’s the best kimchi I’ve had in a long time.
Caveat: Poem #1225 “Dry”
I wake up at four. Dark waits outside the windows and my mouth is dry.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #339
The three hundred and thirty-ninth tree is covered in frost.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Poem #1224 “The word from on high”
The place spoke to me: through trees and rocks and the sea, it said, "Yo, whatup?"
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #338
It was a busy day of getting water restarted, cleaning things up, getting resettled. Not helpful that my head-cold, seemingly on the mend, reasserted itself. Of course, I could attribute that to the airplane – there’s a strong correlation in my experience between head-cold symptoms and airplane travel.
Well anyway here I am. I didn’t take a picture of a tree, exactly. Here is Sunnahae at dawn – it has trees.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #1223 “An astanzaic interlude”
Kiamon's soul was abandoned, adrift. She had decided on change, more controlled, Reining in aimless and angry desires. Now she just stood, and surrounded by trees, Body at rest, both contained and enclosed, Mind sought to grasp the unreachable sky. Movement, just then, made her glance at that sky. Eagles sketched circles, with wingtips adrift. One of them turned, and then dove, so controlled, Swooping down. Kiamon felt its desires. Tilting, the bird made a feint toward some trees, Darkness obscured what might be there, enclosed. Gripping the hem of her coat that enclosed Pockets of fugitive warmness, the sky Shared bits of nothing, like signs set adrift. Yes. Apophenical dreams, uncontrolled. Truth becomes burdened by lazy desires. Greenery elevates angels as trees. Kiamon thought on those infinite trees. Naked and stark, their wide branches enclosed Negative fragments of daydreaming sky. Mist slanted groundward. Some clouds were adrift. Water met heaven: embracing, controlled, Tossing out wishes, suggesting desires. Self-analytically, she then considered desires. How did they differ from yearnings of trees? Down in the earth, their bold roots are enclosed. Raised up above, their arms hug the sky. So many seedlings they send out, adrift, Thusly ensuring the future's controlled. What is a heart if it can't be controlled? What is the use of unending desires? Why? she sighed, shrugging, sad. Let's be like trees. They're self-assured, with their feelings enclosed. Pausing, she gazed at the gray-visaged sky. Birds volunteered for the wind, souls adrift. Still, all adrift, she controlled her desires. Trees clothed the slopes, all enclosed by the sky.
– this is a sestina in dactylic tetrameter; I think sestinas are difficult to make non-monotonous, because of their rigid repitition of words. They are just plain difficult, too – especially with a meter. I made this one killing time waiting for the ferry yesterday.
Caveat: Tree #337
I was traveling all day. I don’t have a tree picture. But I took this picture of boats in Ketchikan. Maybe there’s a tree in the far distance to the right behind the boats you could select? Or imagine the masts of the boats are trees.
[daily log: walking: 6km]
Caveat: Poem #1222 “Sacred unbeing”
Wholeness has no existence - the fragments Spin and foment their silence And roar hymns of transience
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Tree #336
A tree seen at sunrise.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1221 “City”
Dawn over Portland There are cars and airplanes here and early traffic
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #335
This tree is a guest tree. My mother took some pictures of trees and sent them to me for days when I failed to collect my own tree picture. So my mother told me this is a lemon scented gum tree in Australia.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #1220 “Those that lurk at the edges”
we drove to Portland we saw the doctors lurking we waited a lot
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #334
This is a tree up at the tree farm.
Today, we went to the VA hospital again with Arthur. This time, it was a one-year follow-up with the polytrauma team. They lauded his recovery, but expressed concern about the possibility of ongoing “mini strokes” as some post-accident MRI’s seem to indicate – but VA internal documentation doesn’t seem well enough organized for them to be sure what’s going on (problems in communication between “Alaska division” and “Portland division”, etc.). Arthur remains quite resistant to even the idea of the initial stroke, much less the idea of mini-strokes that don’t necessarily feel like or seem like what we normally think of as a stroke. So it all seems like just talk, at some level, if it’s not going to impact behavior or self-concept.
For dinner I went to my cousin’s son’s pub in Forest Grove and talked with my cousin and her husband for a few hours – mostly about what it means when one’s elders become senescent and you have to deal with that.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1219 “An uncartography”
Words are not like maps; you can lose your way with words; they show no way out.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #333
Today’s tree felt chilly.
