The trumpet vine is creepin’.  This is a plant that is supposed to attract hummingbirds, but it’s failed in that regard.  It *is* successful in taking over everything it can get its inquisitive little tendrils on. It’s like a vegetable Cthulhu.

In two days I will be on a plane.

I had riff stuck in my head. Jimi playing Hear My Train A-Comin’ in that strange, self-conscious little film where he appears with an acoustic 12 string.  Just one succinct, beautiful, emphatic little riff where he breaks the time signature for one bar.

-I like the way German speakers manage to enunciate both the “c” and “t” sounds with precision in words like “section” and “reflection”. There’s a tricky little dipsy-doodle that happens on the back of the tongue.

-I’m tired of having no one to talk to.  I *am* very much an introvert but it seems clear that I’m not getting enough input from people who share my interests.  I could rant or wax rhapsodic about a number of topics that literally no one I know in my daily life could relate to. 

– I miss the smell of the freezer case in the corner store where my dad used to take me after baseball games for popsicles.  They don’t package frozen treats the way they used to.

I am sitting in a half-empty bar watching a guitar I just assembled put through its paces for the first time. (It is currently playing a raucous version of Summertime.). The table is long and thin sheets of metal have nailed on over cracks and fissures in the wood by what must be a hipster craftsman. I disagree with his methods.

The door is open and rain is falling outside in the street, making glittering puddles under the streetlamps. It’s one of those moments when I am both very alone and particularly alive.  Maybe that’s just the beer.

A series of observations:

1.  I’m so anxious. A frenetic kind of anxious.  I have two big guitar events this month and though I haven’t left things ‘til the last minute – I keep *adding* things to my to-do list.  For some reason I need to push myself to the point where I’m overworking.  I wish this wasn’t an integral part of my character.

2. One of the guitar events is Tacoma WA.  PNW friends, if a person has a couple of days to spend in Seattle – which museums do you consider most important? 

3. A stray cat pooped right in front of my machine shed’s door this morning.  I thought I was going to get along with this particular cat. We’d exchanged greetings and it had spent time creeping about in the lilies, all stalky-cat like. But this?  Blatant disrespect. 

The bowhead whale
(Balaena mysticetus)  lives in arctic waters. It is among the longest-lived of mammals, surviving more than 200 years in some cases. (In 2014 a whale off the coast of Alaska was discovered with the head of an explosive harpoon lodged deep within its neck blubber.  The harpoon had a  manufacturer’s stamp from the 1890′s…)

They spend a lot of time in the deep, dark and cold.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, finding clothes that fit is never an easy thing for me.  I’d like to support local brick and mortar stores, and was kind of excited to see one of the few national chains that carries extended sizes was having a BOGO sale. I did my homework too, and checked to see if things I wanted were available instore.  Of course when I got there I realized that I could never get the free item, because if something was my size there would never be more than one in stock…