Jan 28, 2021 Global pandemic, midwinter. My woodpile, berm-shaped, is longer than the house. Cold nights I’m working my way along through it, a very hungry caterpillar. It’s been a year now, of everybody’s solitude. After all these unsociable dull months, there accumulates a physical yeast sensation. An unfitness for society anymore. It’s one yearlong [read more]
Nov. 18, 2018 No wind. Sunny silence in mountains all around. Getting out of a chore, I tell Brett I’ve got to go back in my trailer and “make tracks.” Unproductive morning so far, I got roped into helping remove hardware from mobile office for Brett, and having got thoroughly sidetracked, I told her I’ve [read more]
Sitting on beach, San Carlos, bare feet in sand, beer, in shade of palapa, [this American diversion is not my style, but it’s a patient father’s job] eating great Veracruz snapper in unwrapped foil. I’m reminded of Oakley, who in his latter days, 80-some years old, sat in precisely such a situation saying happily, “My [read more]
January 3, 2016 Sunday morning. To bookseller Eric’s house, his famous weekly Brunch. Eric is explaining the predicted (to arrive in 2020) union between consciousness (human) and artificial intelligence (robots’). Such a union is called, by the author he’s reading, The Singularity. Across the kitchen, Julie is talking about her elderly friend with dementia [read more]
December 31, 2015 The accidental-pregnancy scene in “Assistant” improves, via indirection and via removal of late-added rank schmaltz. The rest of the felled oak at bottom of woods. Couldn’t face mixing fuel, gassing up saw. But at least I went down and, via lever-and-fulcrum, lifted the sections of trunk and rolled them on forest floor, [read more]
December 30, 2014 Pre-dawn airport run. A well-learned Life Rule: After dropping off somebody you love at an airport, a shapeless formless dim day will ensue. Wonderful how the NY Times is so skimpy today and all this week. (Everything the skimpiness means about where people’s attention is, during the darkest, shortest days. Everybody’s on [read more]
December 31, 2013 New Years Eve. Brett must go all the way down to Manteca, in the pickup, to buy a kitchen stove. The old Wolf oven in Squaw Valley has been “red-tagged,” i.e., condemned, by the local gas provider. I hate it when she’s on the road alone, and of course I should have [read more]
[october 24]* * * * December 31, 2012 Home again. Squinting. At this lattitude sunshine is low in the windshield and sour. Split wood in the afternoon. (these English-speaking lattitudes, these heavily forested, rich-soiled lattitudes) Helped H. with grad-school applications. Read. Collected thoughts on Clark’s paintings for his book intro. Tonight is the last night [read more]
December 27, 2011 Barbara will have surgery on the thirtieth. Needs an artery in her neck unblocked of plaque. She’s not being very brave about it. We try not to bring it up at all. * * * * December 26, 2011 An affluent Christmas. Like everybody, we’re spending money we don’t have on stylish black boxes [read more]
12-29-10. Went with the cordless phone out to the mud room, which is freezing cold, to sit in the old couch and talk by long-distance to the nice lady at “Iowa Cremation,” to make the arrangements beforehand for my mother. This is advised by the nurses at Crestview. The price, $1675, includes death certificate, medical [read more]
Oct. 2009. Brett and Barbara in SFO for the week. Dash and I here live as bachelors and struggle along just fine. Came home today from school pickup, w/backpack, w/bags of groceries. The usual. The cat was on the table eating remains of eggs, the cold front was arriving from the south, the wheelchair had [read more]
Dreary winter days. To lighten up Brett: Go into her office in the cottage where she’s always slaving over her laptop, and say: “Come on, let’s go monkey with the chickens.” * * * * In the week of Superbowl and State-of-the-Union Address, I’m in the shed today, sorting seeds. In corn, “Platinum” hybrid. “Cheddar” cauliflower. Early Girl tomatoes. Varmints invariably get [read more]
September project. Needing a studio to work in, I was planning to choose a spot in the woods to put up a “pole barn” (two-by-fours, 4×8 plywood, a dozen bags of cement, rolls of tar paper, a space heater – all available at B&C Lumber). All one needs is a little place far from the [read more]