So the early wining took me over to Kendra & John's house-sitting gig. I would have to say I was pretty well on my way by the time I got there. (No, I didn't drive there if you have the impertinence to ask such a question. I was chauffeured there.) They are sitting it for Tif & Chris who have the luxury of taking trips to Mallorca. I used to house sit for Tif back in the day, but for whatever reason I haven't done it since. I guess I or she thinks I am too old for it. I think it is me, actually, since I told her no once and haven't been asked since. Perhaps I said it in the strong, declaratory style I am known for: "NO" as in "I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT HOUSE SIT FOR YOU, YOU ANNOYING PERSON YOU." In reality, like most things with me, it is a misperception. I don't really mean it so strongly. People take me the wrong way, of course, and it is my fault. I'm just too damn tall and have too big of a voice.

I love the disconnected old lady out back of my place. She rents a duplex that abuts my back yard. I was throwing out some chicken that had gone decidedly bad when she said "How are you?"

"I'm fine," I said backing away from the garbage can that had taken on that sickeningly sweet smell of rotting chicken.

"Are you working?"

I choked back of laugh. "Yes!" and I told some details.

"You've finally made it!" she said, holding her unfortunate dog that looks and acts like her. I didnt' have the heart to tell her I made it years and years ago. Ah perceptions. What does one think of others? How inaccurate it always is.

"Yup!" and I trondled off to more wine and housecleaning.

Crazy, crazy old lady.

You know it is funny. I remember sitting with her up a Geppeto's by the University talking about how we wouldn't lose each other. Well, we've lost each other.

I was going to write some encomium to Summer, but lost all momentum after a long walk and a skitch of template fiddling. Summer is still good here in mountains. As Del Gue, the bald guy who was buried up to his neck and left to die by the Blackfoot in Jeremiah Johnson shouts "The Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world!" Damn straight.

And now is the time on Sprockets when we drink wine. Hey, I know its only 2, but hell, it is Summer and it is Fridee, shuckidarns!

Over at the Great American Cheese Snack Idea, proprietor Ben found an old notebook of his. A while back I found an old journal of mine (my guess is that the rest of mine are down in my Mom's--strike that--my brother's basement moldering away.) After finishing this journal back when I was 16, I decided that it was decidedly uncool to keep a journal, so I only kept "notebooks" from then on.

Now I'm not going to get all nostalgic on your asses, simply because the journal is not that interesting and, in fact, quite pretentious. I think I was pretty insecure about the writing and myself back then and felt that everything I wrote should sound "proper." Ultimately this isn't an uncommon thing to happen. You see it all the time in people who are learning to write. A lot of freshmen students in college write the most longwinded and bloated prose you've ever seen. It is just a stage that writer's go through when feeling things out. You see those Freshmen think that is what is expected of them. I suppose the same was for me in my careful (but often illegible) journal entries.

I was just this lonely farm kid whose Dad had died the year before, trying to make sense out that and why I was empty and hurt wrapped up with a burning desire to write. Writing was an escape mechanism for me. The year before while my Dad was being eaten away by cancer, I sat in my room typing and typing and typing. It was better than facing him, I should think, and easier to just let the words take me out of there.

Well Stacie from The Vast Dairy State Conspiracy, conspiring with Ben, went and put up a new blog where you can post your juvenalia: The Youthful Rhetoric Collective. I am the humbled owner of the first real post (aside from the test post.) What the hell does it mean, do you think? I think I should have been on drugs.

Finally there is a use for all those notebooks that you've been hanging on to for years (and yes, I know you have been too.)

I had a strange dream last night. Being the secret agent that I apparently was did not secure me from being chewed out by an overbearing boss who thinks that my mild-mannered cover personality is not working hard enough. "You need to try harder," the boss said from behind his big mahogany desk. He was an old boss I previously had who was Dutch and liked to draw conclusions off of very little evidence. "You'll have to try harder or we're going to have to get someone else." This guy always put me on edge. He could squint in incredulity like no one I've ever met--even when he was hearing the most credulous of things: "Two plus two equals four? Eh? How's that? You can't expect me to believe that, eh?"

Whatever good I would do was ignored and only the problems drew his attention--and that attention was exaggerated to extremes. I once took two days in vacation time and even though he had previously approved it, he drew up papers to fire me because I was "missing." Of course to keep my job I had to put up with the "hard work" lecture he loved to throw out--especially when he was clearly wrong. So basically what you had with this guy was someone who was never wrong, someone who exaggerated anything and everything to drastic ends, and someone who never saw anything positively.

My dream, I suppose plays off the anxiety one (or perhaps it is just me) has that what you are doing is not good enough and sooner or later the Dutch boss is going to come and pick on you even if you are a top-notch secret agent doing a mundane every-day job as a cover.

At least the Dutch boss never snuck up behind me and whacked me on the noggin.