far too much writing, far too many photos Friday, July 03, 2009 During my last couple of days in Montreal, the city closed off most of Boul. Saint-Laurent, one of the main drags that cuts across the Plateau. Booths and tents appeared in front of stores, restaurants, bakeries (mmmm, bakeries....), cafés, but with the weather turning gray and wet, they mostly remained empty, a street usually alive with traffic and pedestrians looking a little sad and ghostly. That changed on Friday, as rain stopped and people slowly began creeping out into the open, blinking hopefully up at skies of a lighter, more benign-looking gray. A long, long stretch of the street had been closed to traffic (except at intersections, where one had to watch one's ass if one wanted to continue on without getting clocked by passing cars). Music got cranking at different spots along the avenue, food and drink appeared, happy humans began eating and drinking. And I walked, searching for a production that was part of the fringe festival happening then. Walking and walking and walking. Found the show, slipped into my seat just as the lights went down, nearly ran out the door an hour later, beating the other six members of the audience out into the fresh air (all of us practically sprinting toward the exit the moment the lights came up, leaving unspoken editorial comments on the performance drifting in the air in our wake). Back out on the street, sky still gray but, happily, rainless. Aimed myself up the boulevard, walked as far as traffic had been closed off, well into a Portuguese area, banners indicating a 40th anniversary related to the neighborhood's ethnicity, that somehow related to the weekend's street fair. Turned around at the limit of the street's closing, wandered back down the avenue, picking up food an drink along the way, then more food and drink (then still more). Enjoying music, people-watching, passing conversations in various languages. And finally stumbled across this gent seated by the curb in a folding chair, wailing out a great blues number, gradually collecting a small crowd. The blues number came to a close, a few people drifted away, then the performer launched into a down-and-dirty version of "Billie Jean," more people stopping to listen, faces reflecting the realization that they were present at something special. And as the musician began picking up steam, three women done up in identical pink outfits, carrying pink parasols, wandered by, lined up behind the performer. The singer knew a great, slightly surreal moment had taken shape, asked for people to take pix -- cameras immediately appeared everywhere, the street suddenly awash in the sound of photos being taken. At one point during the number he aimed a stage whisper at the women in pink, asking if they knew how to moon-dance. They couldn't deliver, and it was a genuine shame -- this guy deserves a bona fide concert venue, real production values, a larger audience. Next morning I was up and out at an ungodly hour, across the border, back in Montpelier, where I've been ever since. The days slowly unfurl, June gives way to July, I watch it all pass by. Next up: July 4th hooha. My current squat is close enough to the route of Montpelier's Indy Day parade that my concern is not getting run down once the event starts up. We'll see how it goes. España, te echo de menos rws 11:53 AM [+] Monday, June 29, 2009 Yesterday morning: late June air soft and mild, mist clearing slowly away. Made the short drive out to the storage compartment where most of what passes for my worldly possessions are currently crammed together. Marveled at how many spiders and bits of cottonwood fluff manage to insinuate themselves inside a locked storage unit. Did what I needed to do, closed the place up. And stood outside listening to the sweet call of a mourning dove, realizing all over again how much I miss the wildlife that hung about outside the house that I let go of close to a month ago. Have not heard a mourning dove since driving away from that sweet place on the first of June. But another bird, a kind that begins warbling with the very first pre-dawn light and continues blathering away for hours, that feathered blabbermouth I hear every morning in my current squat. And heard in Montreal. Every morning, early, and every evening as daylight waned. During the two weeks north of the border, in my rented 23rd floor squat, I could hear that same song coming from one of the tree-lined streets that surrounded the high-rise. And while I may bitch about it starting up at 4 a.m. (hoping it's obvious that my tongue has been shoved firmly into my cheek), hearing that music way the hell up at the top of an apartment tower in the middle of a major city felt so good. Same goes for the sound of swallows streaking across expanses of blue sky, their song sounding like expressions of pure joy to me. Different cities -- Montpelier, Montreal -- same sight, same sounds. Anyway. Montreal. The days rolled by, I carried out my usual hunt for the right morning caffeine joint. And given the shameless abundance of caffeine pushers in Montreal, it was not a fast process. I thought I'd found one soon after arriving, a café at the intersection of a busy, funky boulevard and a busy pedestrian way. But the combination of the music being spewed from the in-house music system (oldies. and why the mania for oldies? i would much rather hear less well-known, more interesting music, would much rather hear just about anything than the constant regurgitation of the same pop tunes over and over and over and over. that's just me, though, and i'm not in charge (probably a good thing for the world at large).) and a 20-something counter-guy who seemed to have some real attitude toward me re: me sticking to English.* Which sent me off to try out other joints, until I found one closer to my squat, with the right combination of positive aspects, that became my default wake-up haunt. Leaving me happier, with more of a feeling of being at home in the neighborhood. What I experienced re: the tolerance and kindness of the local Francophones seems to be the general rule -- the spirit of inclusion overshadows the pushing by a minority for purity (meaning Quebec sovereignty, exclusion of non-French speakers, all that). And there is a thuggish minority that pushes in that way. While I was there, a minor flap quickly grew to much larger, noisier proportions when two bands composed of Anglophones (who had been included on the roster of groups playing an alternative celebration of the St. John Baptiste holiday) were unexpectedly dropped from the roster after pressure from one of the event's sponsors, an organization that apparently had ties to hardline Francophone/sovereignty elements. The media got wind of this and gave it major exposure, resulting in big expressions of outrage from all over the political and social map. Two days later, the bands were back on the roster and not at all displeased with the mountain of free publicity the hooha had produced for them. Which just goes to show, there's something to that old show-biz saw that any publicity is good publicity. (The even itself had its moments of tension, but they passed.) Me, I love hearing the blend of languages that are encountered out on the street in Montreal, in shops, cafes and restaurants -- French, English, a surprising amount of Spanish and Chinese, now and then eastern European languages. Plus, there is something about females speaking French that is outrageously attractive to my ears (and provides major craven incentive for developing some facility with the language). *I started every exchange with a friendly 'Bonjour!', then switched immediately to English, having essentially exhausted my French with that first volley. Yes, I can mumble 's'il vous plaît,' can spout a few random words, but not enough to string together a coherent sentence, and don't like sounding like a total incompetent. So I depended on the tolerance of Montreal's francophones. And everyone, apart from that single impatient, dismissive counterperson -- no matter their age, no matter their gender, no matter where we had our dealings -- treated me well. Hard not to love a place so consistently kind. One of the original goals of this trip had been to spend two weeks studying French. Once there, however, I discovered that every language school I investigated would only allow rank beginners like myself to begin classes on a specific date, at the beginning of a four-week cycle. And none of them began that cycle at a time that would allow me to get two to four weeks of study in. So despite me wanting to get a teeny bit of a grip on basic French, it didn't happen. Now and then, when someone I was talking with realized I knew no French, I'd speak a little Spanish, which sparked their interest. One woman commented in a friendly way that when I started out with 'bonjour,' they assumed I spoke French. I wondered aloud what would happen if I started out with '¡hola!, she said that when they say 'ola' (no idea re: the spelling) they mean 'chill.' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Graffiti along Monkland Avenue, Montreal: España, te echo de menos [this entry in progress] España, te echo de menos rws 8:09 PM [+] Tuesday, June 23, 2009 When I arrived in Montreal, the city felt like the warm season had not fully established itself yet. Unsettled weather, air with a cool edge to it. Somewhere during the ensuing days, a corner was turned. Springtime fluff drifted everywhere, cool weather coats were no longer needed when stepping out in the mornings. And bugs were suddenly around in abundance. One evening in my high-altitude squat as the sun neared the horizon, the changing light illuminated spiderwebs outside the windows -- lots and lots of them, where none had been a day earlier. And as the sun slipped below the horizon, a fair-sized spider revealed itself, coming out of hiding from the window's edge, making the trip out to the middle of a pretty extensive web for a night of hunting. Spiders are mostly okay with me. If I find them in my living space, I cover them with a glass, slip a sheet of paper under it, escort them outdoors. And spiders that are outside the living space, as this one was -- so that they require no relocating -- are especially okay with me. So. A couple of nights after the season made its decisive turning: me in bed reading, sprawled happily across the covers. Lamps on either side of the bed shedding soft, comfortable light. Now and then a breeze found its way through the window screen. A relaxed evening, me obnoxiously content. At some point, I lay the book on my chest and spent some time thinking about nothing in particular. Just drifting, at peace. And during those quiet moments, something up on the ceiling caught my eye. Looking like an shadowy indentation in the plaster, with a couple of wire filaments sticking out, as if a plant-hanging hook had been there at some point, or wiring of some kind. I hadn't noticed anything like that before, took a more focused look. And realized it was a big damn spider, huddled up above the bed, an oversized arachnid with long, pointy legs. Then I noticed another, above the opposite corner of the bed. Two bigass spiders lurking high above my extremely comfy sleeping spot. Two of them. Just waiting for the lights to go off so they could start doing what spiders do at night: go places they really shouldn't be going, dropping from ceilings on web-threads to scare the bejesus out of humans trying to get a good night's sleep. The windows in that studio flat were not easy to open, the ceiling was high enough that trying to get the spiders down to get a glass over them would be a huge amount of strenuous work. I didn't even consider that, found myself getting up, grabbing the day's newspaper from a nearby table. Got up on the bed, opened the paper, began waving it about, arm stretched upward as far as I could stretch it, leaping up and down with each attempted swat. The first target huddled itself more tightly, the paper just missing it, my swattings becoming determined flailings, feet and legs trying to propel me high enough to knock the critter down. A couple of minutes later, I connected, knocked it to the floor, saw it collect itself, look around, trying to determine which direction would take it to shelter. My hands rolled the paper up, I found myself whacking away at the little bugger before it could disappear. Then began the same routine with the second one, that one immediately moving off toward the center of the ceiling away from the bed. Toward safety, it probably thought. But also toward the ceiling fan. I found myself leaping to floor, skidding to fan switch, cranking it -- the motion and breeze as the paddles got going stopped the spider in its tracks, I got up on a chair, started more flailing with the paper, knocked it down. Jumped to floor, hands rolling up paper as spider began zipping toward furniture, caught it before it reached cover, whacked the hell out of it until it stopped moving. The result of all that: two unnervingly big corpses, long legs all curled sadly up. I scanned the ceiling for more intruders, saw only bare plaster. Checked out the windows, trying to locate the point of entry, discovered nothing. Tossed paper on table, returned to bed, resumed relaxing (casting the occasional wary glance at ceiling). Had a night of sleep unmolested by invaders. Two spiderless days later: sitting at my laptop midway through the afternoon. Lost in thought. Some movement catches my attention off to my left. I look around, find one more bigass spider hanging at eye level, about twelve inches from me, descending slowly, legs extended. My bod leaped to its feet, my hands found a newspaper, rolled it up. The spider had gotten the idea that this excursion had been a bad idea, had begun a panicky ascent. But not fast enough. Newspaper flailings knocked it down, I whacked the hell out of it, leaving a third oversized corpse (legs curled sadly up). All that in the big city where I did not expect to be having adventures with mammoth representatives of mother nature. Since I've been back in sweet, rustic Vermont -- four days now -- where big armies of bugs erupt out of nowhere once the warm season takes hold to invade all living spaces in aggressively wanton fashion, no bugs have disturbed the peace. Not a single blessed one. Go figure. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Graffiti galore, Montreal: España, te echo de menos rws 5:54 PM [+] Sunday, June 21, 2009 Sometimes I don't sleep much the night before a journey. Hardly got any shut-eye at all two nights ago, found myself awake at 2 a.m. Had intended to be on the road horribly early, could feel I probably wouldn't be drifting off to sleep again soon, so turned on the light. Read for a while, then tossed in the towel completely: turned on more lights, cranked the laptop, spent a while online. Stumbled into the kitchen alcove, grabbed some food, devoured it. Stuffed things into bags, cleaned up, was out of the room by 5 a.m., on the road soon after, heading south toward Vermont. (One immediately apparent difference between early-morning life in downtown Montreal and life in Vermont: plenty of people out carrying on life. Couples walking together, taxis everywhere cruising for business, other drivers like me up early, bleary-eyed.) Why traveling so goddamn early? Had reached the end of my two-week rental. Wanted to avoid the Saturday morning lines that accumulate at the border. Had things to do back in Montpelier. All of which is to say I was up and attempting to function at a hideous hour, part of me wishing I could stay, put down roots, develop a community, enjoy this lovely city. In recent days: made a few visits to a small (and I do mean small) Indian restaurant a few blocks from the flat. A modest joint, serving good, unpretentious fare at exceptionally reasonable prices. Situated next to an anarchists bookstore, just down the hill from a comedy club, just up the hill from a raggedy used-clothing emporium that has the legend YOU PROBABLY LOOK BETTER NAKED ANYWAY painted on one of its doors. And a fine spot for people-watching, all kinds of souls walking by as I sat inside and inhaled excellent chow. Also in recent days: Attended two shows happening as part of the Montreal Fringe Festival. Both out there enough to qualify as fringe-worthy. One so outrageously loose in so many goofy, good-natured ways that it barely qualified as anything but a bunch of sweet wackos doing whatever came to mind. The other had more focused, rigorous intentions, but didn't manage to pull them off. And given the velocity that all six of us who were in the audience (at the second show) achieved as we streaked exit-ward the nanosecond that the applause petered out, I think I speak for the entire motley handful of attendees. Ah, well. [continued in following entry] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sunset, mid-June, Montreal: España, te echo de menos rws 7:15 PM [+] Wednesday, June 17, 2009 From the last few days in Montreal: Walking along a neighborhood street on a spectacular June afternoon, bits of fluff swirling quietly ahead of me along the sidewalk, eddying around my feet as I go. A 20-something couple pass on bikes, stop at a traffic light just ahead, talking in French. As I come abreast of them, he gets impatient re: waiting for the light and takes off, she calls out plaintively, remaining where she is. He continues on, calling out an answer in curt, impatient tones. (What a smoothie.) The light turns, she follows. Yesterday, outside the entrance to McGill University's campus: a crowd of one to two hundred people, holding Iranian flags, chanting, 'Where's my vote?' I pass a couple sitting in a doorway, kissing, that makes me smile. Another woman seems me smiling because of them, we smile at each other. At La Ronde Saturday evening, invited to see a fireworks display, part of the Montreal Fireworks Festival, though this show not part of the official competition. Lovely, with brilliant, intense moments. I'm told the display received an evaluation of 6.5 out of 10, my friend E. (she who finagled my invitation) assures me this display hardly compares with the festival's usual fare. At the Museum of Fine Arts' exhibit re: John Lennon/Yoko Ono, a crowded, lively, emotional show. Cameras are not only allowed, they're encouraged, leading to impromptu photo-ops everywhere. Overheard on the street this morning: "You can't go around attacking people with an angel!" Truer words were never blathered. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From Saturday evening's finale: España, te echo de menos rws 11:24 AM [+] Saturday, June 13, 2009 Two streets over from where I am right now is a tree that is the source of the white fluff that's been drifting through the air in this neighborhood. Not sure of the kind of tree, but it is bursting with fluff right now, weightless feathery bits of white coming off it in swirling waves, the slightest breeze producing a soft, soundless blizzard of swirling white. To the point that -- and I am not exaggerating here -- walking past, for a block in all directions, is like passing through a springtime snowglobe. Could be it's not so wonderful for those living nearby, but for me on this lovely, mild June day it felt positively dreamlike. Returned briefly to Vermont a few days back. Had found myself spending too much time solo here, felt the impulse to head south for a couple of days. I tend to trust my impulses when they're clear like that (ignoring the common wisdom re: the geographic cure), so stuffed some bags into the car, hit the road. Had only planned to be there two days, but it felt like coming back early this morning instead of yesterday would be a good idea, so made it three. A clear feeling, that, and I trusted it. Got to enjoy Montpelier looking and feeling its warm season best -- a day predicted to be gray, rainy giving way to blue skies, radiant sunshine. Took care of matters needing attention, soaked up fine weather, watched two real damn good DVD's, crawled out of bed excessively early this a.m., was back in Montreal by 10. Clouds and blue Canadian sky trading off, air soft, day feeling lazy and sweetly relaxed. Have not been back to the house since clearing out on the 1st of the month, a day so intense and hectic that it slid past in a vivid blur of constant, high-speed labor, me watching what had been my living space morph into an empty collection of rooms, the world outside shining with sunlight, greens impossibly green, birds everywhere. At one point, during a pause in the process (the three 20-somethings who were wrangling my possessions -- what I hadn't already stuffed into a storage space during the previous month -- taking a breather in the truck), I wandered outside, sat on the front stoop, stared out at the valley. A meadow lark in the nearest tree began producing song, going on as I listened -- on and on and on, pausing, singing, pausing, singing more -- almost as if saying a sweet 'see ya!' before finally taking off, disappearing into greenery down the hill. Made the trip into town with the moving dudes, they wrestled my stuff from truck to apartment, then I returned to the house to collect what remained. Managed to cram two carloads of assorted hooha into my little vehicle (it remains a mystery how I managed it; there must have been some bending of the laws of physics involved) when I finally drove away, going slowly up over the hill -- the view, the house, the expanse of green land, the small barn, all receding and disappearing -- it was one of the more difficult shearing-aways I have ever experienced, leaving me half-numb for the ride into town. And it was a blessing that there was a mountain of labor to be done in the following days, leaving me without the time to feel too deeply as I worked at settling in to the cramped perch that will be my base in the coming months as I begin moving on, heading toward whatever the hell comes next. I've been trusting my feelings and instincts, relying on impulses and all that. And they have not let me down. I haven't had the desire to go back out to the house, have not questioned that. Instead, I've waded through the stream of present moments, making my way through the ocean of details that life consists of. And not only have gradually begun feeling better, more focused, have found myself experiencing a growing sense of freedom and lightness, at times so voluptuous and all-enveloping that all I can do is surrender to it, experiencing pure, simple happiness. Have made a friend here who was a judge two years ago for the Montreal Fireworks Festival, an event that is just cranking up. That individual remains connected to the happening, I will be attending tonight's installment via their generosity. Will drag my camera along, we'll see what comes of it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Inexplicably yiddisher graffito, Montreal: schmaltz, also schmalz (shmälts) n. 1. Informal usage: a) excessively sentimental art or music; b) maudlin sentimentality. 2. Liquid fat, especially chicken fat. España, te echo de menos rws 4:40 PM [+] Tuesday, June 09, 2009 Montreal. Rain coming down, dark, raggedy clouds hanging low in the sky. A good day to hibernate. Or, you know, avoid being productive. Have slipped into a morning routine of pulling my sorry adorable carcass out of bed, dragging on clothes, making the hike to one of the many coffee pushers that are strewn around the landscape here. Read, sip at a vat-sized cup of pretty good high-octane brew, watch people, slide gradually toward something approximating full consciousness. (The single downside of all this: the music blaring out the cafe's speaker system, an endless stream of golden oldies. Fortunately, my protective state of dazed pre-consciousness makes it easy to ignore the cavalcade of hackneyed tunes, except at moments when an especially horrifying one pierces the fog. This morning's low point: Cher spewing out Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.) (Not that I have anything against Cher. Just that one godawful track.) Making the walk yesterday morning: reached the corner of St. Urbain, found myself nearly flattened by a woman in a wheelchair who barrelled along at near light-speed. Heard a chortle of amusement from the open window of a passing car. This morning at that same location: reached the corner, a slim woman pushing a stroller appeared next to me. She wore a full-length yellow rain slicker, the child in the stroller (I'm assuming it was a child -- all I could see were two motionless, slightly-pigeontoed red shoes) was covered by an umbrella placed to that the handle must have gone through the child's mouth and out the back of its neck, where it scraped on the sidewalk. No passing vehicles leaked laughter -- they were probably as creeped out by the scene as I was. This city is a near free-for-all of festivals and big events once what passes for the warm season takes hold. My squat looks west toward Mount Royal and the park the spreads out around it. Sunday morning -- far, far too early -- my eyes opened, I heard music being played. Live music, vaguely marching band style, drums pounding away. Tried to ignore it, it persisted, when I finally gave in and levered myself into something close to an upright position, I saw big crowds packed into that green spread of land, the boulevard that stretches through it closed to motor vehicles. (I'm assuming that last bit -- no cars/trucks/etc. were in sight, only and thousands of humans.) A festival, turned out. Kind of. The Tour de l'Île. When I'd dragged on clothes and stumbled down to the street, I discovered many local streets were closed to traffic. Many, many local streets, in what could easily pass as haphazard fashion. And two streets over, people on bikes headed in the direction of the massed gathering. Hundreds, thousands of people, lots of them families. I fell into a cafe, ordered a container of caffeine, sat at a table and watched the scene outside, the endless stream of bicycling Montrealers passing by. I passed a lot of Sunday walking through the Plateau district, discovered more and more streets blocked off to motor traffic, endless thousands of people biking along those avenues, many of them small, narrow backstreets that stretched through funky neighborhoods. Everyone seemed to be enjoying it except for the unhappy souls trapped in cars, long lines of traffic backed up most along the few thoroughfares not commandeered by the city for the Tour. Lots of unhappy motorists. Who have been venting their unhappiness in the newspapers for the past two days. And venting and venting. Ah, well. Life goes on. I have the feeling I lost some weight during the last weeks of dealing with house/moving back in Vermont. Since arriving here on Saturday, I have been packing away food at a rate that would be disturbing for many humans. Just part of regaining equilibrium, I guess, after all those months and months of so much fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bike rack/mural wall -- Montreal: España, te amo rws 2:46 PM [+] Saturday, June 06, 2009 And after weeks of silence -- the longest stretch of blessed quiet for this journal since its start nearly eight years ago -- I'm back. In Montreal, released from the weeks months endless process of fixing up/emptying out house, the work that's been the focus of my sorry existence since returning to northern Vermont at the beginning of May 2008. No details now about the final weeks re: house/land, nothing at this time about the closing and its aftermath -- too tiring and angst-ridden. This morning I fled north, crossing the border into Quebec with no fanfare at all (Canadian customs dude casting an uninterested glance at my passport/drivers license, asking a few perfunctory questions, waving me on, me happy to go). An hour later, Montreal -- me in a studio flat on the top floor of a high-rise building just off Sherbrooke (a building with no 13th floor, the numbers after the 12th all painting a picture of a structure one-storey taller than its actual height). Mid-afternoon clouds slipped away, the afternoon turned summery. I walked local streets, bits of fluff from trees drifted in the sunlit air, specks of golden light. Lovely women seemed to be everywhere, light, warm weather clothes moving gracefully as they walked. Bits of conversation in French, English, Spanish, eastern European languages came and went as people passed. I had a camera case slung over a shoulder, carried a Spanish-language novel in one hand. Overhead, swallows cut across the late afternoon sky, singing as they went. I bought groceries, took photos, walked familiar streets. Dinnertime rolled around, I ducked into a Chinese joint on St. Laurent. The owner gave a friendly nod, took my order. A short time later one mean-ass plate of deep-fried tofu landed on my table. The kind of dish that would wipe the smirk off the face of anyone accustomed to spewing derogatory remarks about tofu. Big, crispy dark-brown cubes, awash in onions, garlic, flakes of red pepper. Maybe the single greatest batch of tofu I've ever dug chopsticks into (disclaimer -- this writer is not a tofu fiend; the dish was ordered on impulse, the menu being short enough, lacking in options to the point that bean curd seemed like a risk worth taking). The main course showed, not what I'd ordered. I sat and contemplated, finally gestured to the waiter, let him know I'd ordered something else. He stared at me perplexed, took the plate hesitantly, turned to the owner who stood watching. The waiter explained the sitch (in Mandarin, sounded like), the owner made amazed, outraged noises, barked out a few statements that sounded like they might have been expressing genuinely unkind sentiments about me. The waiter veered off to get what I'd actually ordered, the owner stared at me, expression unfriendly. I stared back calmly, repeated what I'd told the waiter, not really giving much of a damn about his puffed-up show of... whatever it was. The owner continued staring, finally looked away. I re-commenced enjoyment of deep-fried bliss, a short time later the correct main course appeared, balance was restored in the universe. Through all of that, soul music pulsed loudly on the in-house stereo -- Barry White, James Brown. When 'Kung Fu Fighting' started up, the owner began dancing, singing, all unpleasantness forgotten. Beaming, cutting some 70's dance moves. Another James Brown anthem followed, the owner shouting joyful Hey!'s, cavorting goofily. (I am not making this up.) I demolished my main course -- good, but not the towering monster of low culinary satori the appetizer was -- enjoying the entertainment. Finished, paid up, headed out into an evening as beautiful as one cold ask for, sidewalks crowded with people. Made it back here in time to grab camera, head up to the rooftop terrace for a fine sunset. I've been liberated. Or that at least is how I'm feeling. Next up: a good night's sleep. Later. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moonrise, Montreal: España, te echo de menos rws 11:19 PM [+] Thursday, April 30, 2009 There have been recent days here of unbelievably beautiful weather, spectacular enough to send me right off into an altered state. Tuesday, for example, may have the single loveliest April day I've ever experienced in Vermont. This morning was more modest -- cooler (after a night of widespread frost), quiet, awash in sunlight, a soft breeze coming and going. The woman who's buying the house came over this morning, we sat and talked, mugs of espresso in hand, then once sufficiently caffeinated began going through the house, through the barn, around the yard, me providing all the information I could think of that might help when she's the owner/resident. Trying my level best to do the opposite of what the previous owners did when I bought the place (no information, leaving some unhelpful, unpleasant surprises to be stumbled across along with a fair amount of trash). After she'd gone, I drifted around outside taking care of things that needed attention, soaking up the sunshine, the quiet -- slipping into that altered state. And I realized that when I reach that quiet, blissful place I'm feeling part of what I experience when I fall in love. The warm season here: it's potent. I fell off the wagon during the last couple of days when it comes to sorting, packing, all that. Am attempting to refocus. 'Cause the closing happens a month from tomorrow. (A month! From tomorrow!) Time to get my adorable hinder in gear. Meanwhile: my laptop -- my four-month-old laptop -- gave up the ghost on Saturday from an apparent motherboard swoon. The local 'puter shop supplied a loaner while my machine goes back to the factory for tender, loving care. The loaner: an old Gateway laptop, with a small hard drive, less than a gig ram, no sound card. Old, relatively primitive. And with all that, it takes care of the most basic internet hoo-ha pretty nimbly. Which has me thinking seriously about buying a current Gateway and selling my laptop once it's back from intensive care. 'Cause this is not the first difficulty the new laptop has had. And I'm all for simple and reliable. It's a teeny bit scary how central my 'puter has become to what passes for my life. The loss of that laptop means photos won't happen on this page until the machine's return. Should any readers of this journal who might have some pull with the gods/goddesses of webpages and photography feel the generous impulse to intercede on my behalf, that would be most excellent. España, te echo de menos rws 6:39 PM [+] Saturday, April 25, 2009 In this part of the world, where a long, slow, cool turning of the seasons is often the case, the kind of weather that has taken hold here in the last couple of days is beyond blissful, approaching orgasmic. Yesterday brought, essentially, the year's first shot of summertime conditions, and my bod liked it just fine. T-shirt, jeans, bare feet. Birds everywhere making happy noise, carrying on as if on a nitrous oxide binge. Greenery beginning to poke out everywhere. The insect world waking up (in benign ways, so far). Over the course of the last few days, I've seen lightning bugs everywhere -- not putting on a nighttime show yet, just hanging around warm surfaces, moving sluggishly. Acting like I do when waking up, basically. And yesterday afternoon, as I walked down the driveway, I noticed a sizeable collection of honeybees, flying in circles just about the surface of the large gravel apron near the garage. I stepped into the middle of all that activity, they cleared away from my feet. I stood still, after a minute they seemed to forget I was there, moved back into the space, flew all around my feet. The way wading into a river or stream will make minnows clear away -- stand still for a minute, they seem to forget there's any danger then slowly return. Yesterday morning, a clear-out dumpster was delivered, left planted on the drive in front of one of the garage doors. I pulled on gloves, dragged out the wheelbarrow, began clearing away the last of the trash left by the previous owners in garage and barn. The weather so sweet my bod didn't mind hauling trash at all. When done with that, I found myself grabbing pruning tools, clearing sticker bushes from the slope that slants down the hill from the drive. The kind of work I loathed when forced to do it as a kid by the family slavedrivers 'rents -- yesterday, the work provided one more good reason to be outside in all that weather perfection, I found myself laboring away with no resentment whatsoever, feeling all adult and productive and content. Amazing. It felt just fine to see rubbish accumulating in the dumpster, space opening up in various places as a result. If the kind people in the weather biz aren't jerking our collective chains, today may be even warmer. Perfect for continuing the purge, for pruning back bushes, for sitting on the stoop reading. Mmmm, springtime.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This morning, far too early: España, te echo de menos rws 10:55 AM [+] Wednesday, April 22, 2009 This morning -- Cambridge, Mass.: Awake early, bod still on European time. Sky outside showing the first traces of light, the sound of birds doing their morning racket making its way through the flat's closed windows. Up and out by 7:30 to meet with a possible roommate re: a possible summer sublet. Driving streets that I know from earlier years, flowers blossoming around the edges of lawns now warm-weather green. Traffic surprisingly tranquil for the going-to-work hour on a weekday morning. Air cool, but warming as sunlight strengthens Post-meet-up, returned to G.&S.'s, left car, hopped the T, got out at Central Square. Skipped up the front steps of the post office, when I skipped back down them 15 minutes later I had a p.o. box, one concrete step in moving my existence in a different direction. Returned to G.&S.'s flat, where I'd spent the first night back stateside. Dragged S. out to keep me company while I got caffeinated. As we sat talking in a preferred nearby caffeine pusher's café, a lovely slender woman sat at the table next to ours. A neighbor of S.'s, it turned out, a dancer. I mentioned to S. that my one and only wife had been a dancer, the slender neighbor turned and asked if I said I'd been a dancer -- I repeated my comment more clearly, we exchanged pleasant looks, she turned back to her table. S. and I continued talking -- about my ex, about the mountain of work waiting for me in the coming weeks, about experiences using freecycle.com in the process of ditching possessions. And then our slender neighbor got her coffee from the barista -- a colossal cuppa joe, steaming, with a fine-looking film of foam on top. S. and I watched with mouths open, I said something about ordering the vat of coffee, S.N. responded that she thought of it as following the more european tradition of a.m. joe. When it came out that in the ensuing exchange she'd lived in Spain, I switched to speaking Spanish and we were off, S. enduring it all with patient grace, me thinking that talking with a lovely, intelligent woman who speaks Spanish would be very easy to get used to. If I didn't have to drive north, I would have asked her out on the spot. But I restrained myself, was on the interstate speeding north within the hour, up into New Hampshire, then Vermont, the road winding between long, rolling mountains, their slopes and contours clearly visible through trees still bare. And now: back at the house, windows open to let in air mild enough to boost the indoor temperature. Grass outside turns slowly from brown to the rich green of spring. In the garden, a few brave flowers have thrust themselves up and blossomed, shoots from lily-of-the-valley and wild chives are pushing up, streaks of rich green against the powdery brown of the dirt. I sit writing at the dining room table, laundry from this last week's trip hangs on the line out by the small barn, billowing gently with the occasional breeze. Chickadees come and go at the feeder outside, the sky gradually grows overcast, the world outside is quiet. My thoughts turn to moments from this last week -- walking familiar streets of Madrid's city center; taking photos at the wedding of a friend in the English midlands; wandering through the airport at Dusseldorf, the halls and shops sparkling clean, employees and official types outnumbering travelers by a serious margin, rain falling outside in sharp contrast the blue skies of Madrid, left behind that morning as I headed north to the U.K. For the next six weeks, Vermont will be the backdrop as the season gradually turns toward summer. After that, other places await. España, te echo de menos rws 5:37 PM [+] Monday, April 20, 2009 Well. Here it is, the final day on this bizarre, week-long high-speed visit to Madrid and the English midlands. A beautiful early-spring day, turns out, in one of my favorite places on this miserable planet of ours, me actually remaining in one spot for an entire 24+ hours, not skidding off to catch a plane, head toward the horizon. The daylight hours to relax, eat, get some air, skip down the sidewalks in leisurely fashion, get a couple of errands done. Then the evening/nighttime hours to get all social and meet up with two -- count 'em: two -- different friends, one Spanish, one American married to a Spanish type person. Just the prospect of such a perfect day had me happy like you would not believe. And then they bailed. Both of them. (Bastards.) One claimed work, one sent a sketchy text message offering lameass excuses ('doctor's visit,' blahblahblah). Damn these people who don't keep me at the very center of their existence -- didn't they get the memo in which I made it very clear that you (meaning everyone but me) are supposed to keep me occupied at the very least, though you (again, meaning everyone but me) should make a serious effort to go well beyond the minimum and keep me entertained? (Pause to grab a copy of that memo, underline key words with aggressive, jagged pen strokes, run off a few copies and shove in the proper mailboxes, grumbling the entire time like the kind of cranky old man who scowls at passersby on the street and has thickets of hair poking out ears and nostrils, wearing beat-up house slippers and ancient, urine-stained plaid pants.) My response to being abandoned: hike a few blocks to a local turkish-food joint, jam some tasty chow down my throat, watch locals and tourists parade past the door in the ongoing show that characterizes life here. Then take a long, therapeutic walk. And then come back here to my comfy hotel room and bother people online. Not as much fun as the original agenda, but provides loads of time to bitch and moan at great, obnoxious lengths in both English and Spanish (both languages generously lace with profanities). A strange week. Wonderful, joyful experiences on the one hand; on the other hand one entire night and two entire days spent dragging far too much luggage through public transport, waiting in deadly boring air terminal holding pens, crammed in teeny, tiny seats in big metal tubes hurtling across the sky (to the frequent soundtrack of children exercising their lungs). On the flight over from Boston, the five center seats in my row were occupied by an exceedingly short, 40ish Arab couple and their exceedingly young children. Which meant several hours of screaming and hyperactive behavior, parents attempting futilely to keep their progeny quiet and contained, followed by a sudden post-sugar crash, all three kids passing out at the same time. Didn't get much sleep that night. Add that to the minimal shut-eye in the couple of nights before leaving and I dragged my sorry (though adorable) hinder around Madrid in a shell-shocked funk that first day. Didn't get a full eight hours that night, but what there was came deep and sweet, leaving me in a whole different frame of mind on the second day here, a nearly radiant state of pleasure at finding myself in the city that feels in so many ways like home. Liberated from winter, liberated from house and big-change-on-the-way concerns. (And liberated from screaming, undersized fellow passengers. Though car horns and the sounds of the ubiquitous, ongoing construction and public works that plague Madrid sometimes replaced the vocal work.) Today could have been like that. Radiantly wonderful, I mean. But no, friends decided they had lives that needed their attention. (Grumble, grumble.) Tomorrow: the trip back across the Atlantic, touching down in the Boston area, spending the night with G.&S. before stuffing adorable bum into trusty car, making the return slog north to deal with all that needs dealing with. (Pause for a moment of pathetic sniffling.) Time to begin packing bags. Later. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today, along la Calle de Fuencarral, Madrid: España, te amo rws 3:48 PM [+] Thursday, April 16, 2009 This afternoon along Gran Vía, Madrid: rws 5:52 PM [+] Monday, April 13, 2009 Friday: around 9:30, the local septic-tank-cleaning dude pulled in the driveway, piloting a truck nearly the size of a Tonka vehicle. Small, neat, kept in shiny, impeccable condition. He jumped from the cab, pulled out several lengths of big black hose (why does that sound vaguely obscene?), dumped one end into the septic tank's open port, turned on the truck's pumping system. We stood and watched the tank's slurry level slowly recede, talking, enjoying morning sunshine. At job's end, he disassembled the hoses, attaching each one to the pump spigot, sucking them as clean as possible before stowing them on the truck. I scribbled out a check, he took off. Closed the garage door, went inside, discovered that as a forget-me-not, I'd been left a basement smelling like... raunchy septic unwholesomeness. Went back out into the garage, found it smelling every bit as tangy as the basement. Opened all doors, let the cold wind get to work. (Note to self: never, ever let a septic-tank cleaning dude park his truck right next to garage, house, barn, or any other structure that you might have to live in, pass through, lean against or otherwise have close encounters with.) Two to three hours later, all foul odors had disappeared, life resumed (minus hair-raising surprises). Saturday: Sunny. Cold. The few remaining shrinking patches of snow stopped shrinking. Spent that afternoon hanging the last of the lovely doors I'd begun hanging a few years back (replacing ugly hollow-core thingies). Hadn't done that kind of work in three or four years, my concentration was not at its best, my thoughts floating all over the place. Was a miracle I didn't trash both doors. As it is, one bears the scars of my distraction. Sunday: Snow. All day long. Flurries, squalls. With no accumulation, for which I gave fervent thanks. Pulled on thermals, tried to get a teeny bit of work done. And got a teeny bit of work done. Today: Packing. Laundry. Attempting to impose order on, well, not chaos exactly, but my own personal approximation of it. Tomorrow I drive down to the Boston area, hop a flight back to Madrid for two brief days to deal with some practical stuff. Will then fly up to the U.K., attend a friend's wedding. Return briefly to Madrid, fly back to Boston on Tuesday of next week. A whole lot of miles in a short time. Should bring some fun though. Details will be provided along the way. España, te echo de menos rws 3:39 PM [+] Thursday, April 09, 2009 [continued from previous entry] Meanwhile, the sweet mild days that drifted through this part of the world in recent weeks have given way to more winterlike fare -- gray, cold, raw. Heavy rain for two, three days, shifting to quiet, ethereal flurries. Recently arrived warm season birds carry on unfazed, setting a stoic example for someone like me (jonesing for sunshine and higher temperatures). E. -- she who is buying the house -- has been bringing inspectors through these last couple of days. I leave for town, super-handy individuals race into the house, poke around for a while, disappear before my return. Kind of strange. But given that it's all for the benefit of a lovely peson, it's okay. I'm hearing the word 'spring' in conversations quite a bit in recent days. I hear 'spring,' I look outside, what I see often does not compute. Until I remember what January/February was like and I remind myself it's all relative. Compared to hellishly cold temperatures and getting pelted with snow, snow and more snow, the current conditions are a joy. Now and then sun pokes through, the air immediately warms enough to allow sitting on the stoop. Songbirds make springtime music. Daylight now extends well into the evening. This is all good. And I continue gearing up for the big coming change. Giving away stuff (books, clothes, a queen-sized futon bed). Hanging doors. Clambering up onto the roof, caulking chimney flashing. Going back and forth by email re: a possible summer sublet in Cambridge, Mass. (where I would pull myself together, as far as such a thing is possible, while wrapping my teeny brain around concocting my next likely step) (that next likely step, btw? dumping most of my remaining possessions into storage, maybe. heading back to Madrid, trying to get serious about putting down roots. maybe.) Tomorrow a truck will pull up the driveway, and a stalwart individual will empty out the house's septic tank. Yee-ha! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sunrise, early April, Vermont: España, te echo de menos rws 4:20 PM [+] Monday, April 06, 2009 At the gym this afternoon: some staff person had set the in-house stereo to a satellite radio station of '60's music. The result:: 1960's top-40 AM radio, complete with horrible d.j, horrible channel i.d.'s, and tunes that could drive unprepared gym clientele to desperate tears. Made me so happy to step back out into the gray, chilly (but AM-radio-less) afternoon. Was asked recently if I've told the person who is buying the house about the household ghost. Answer: yep, that and much, much, much more. Have undertaken this transition with a policy of full disclosure, meaning supplying all information that I can about the house and its state, and answering all house/land-related questions to the best of my ability. (Which at times has resulted in a gross overabundance of information for the owner-to-be to absorb.) Why, a sane person might wonder, have I undertaken this excessively free-flowing stream of information? Because I want to do the process of passing the house on to happen differently than it did with the previous owners. The p.o.'s: a 40ish couple in the middle of a messy separation, him no longer living in the house. It may be they had no energy or emotional resource to help me out with information/advice about the place, I can't say. What I experienced was serious attitude from her, including what seemed like purposeful choices that went beyond a simple lack of information, crossing over the line into acts that felt like deliberate fuck-you's, leaving me to face a few unpleasant surprises during the first few weeks in the house. (In addition to dealing with shoddy work done inside and outside.) The new owner is a lovely person who is making a serious financial move in taking on this place –- whatever I can do to make it easier, happier, kinder, will make the experience feel better to me. Meanwhile, I was struck by the question about the household ghost -- it was posed as if asking about a personality, a being. Which is not how I've experienced the phenomenon. It's always felt more like echoes of life lived in the house, like the wake of a boat passing through water, or the ripples from pebbles or raindrops on water. Gentle, not intrusive, mostly quiet -- briefly audible, then gone. Always benign. And about the last thing I expected to find in a raised ranch, built around '73. [continued in next entry] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One more sign of spring: crocuses poking up through a lawn on a gray early-April afternoon -- Montpelier, Vermont: España, te echo de menos rws 9:46 PM [+] Thursday, April 02, 2009 Within the last few days, warm weather birds have begun passing through on their trip to more northern climes. Three mornings ago, a female cardinal poked around the ground below the window feeder. (The aroma left in the wake of a wandering skunk lingered in the cold morning air.) Two mornings ago, a crowd of robins foraged in the yard, moving between patches of snow, hunting in the growing expanses of open ground. This morning, stepping out of the house between 6 and 6:30. Heard a songbird off in the trees across the road singing its heart out. Four wild turkeys wandered slowly about in the yard, watching me cautiously. Two cars passed (drivers waving good morning), lights on, heading downhill to join the traffic moving toward Montpelier. Overcast beginning to break up, pre-sunrise light growing in strength. Mist swirling slowly in the valley. In Montpelier, overnight rain left roads damp, eliminating the dust of recent days (dirt from winter months everywhere, drying out from daytime sunlight, passing cars creating dustclouds that seemed to be everywhere). During the drive in, someone on the radio complained about daylight savings time, about daylight starting an hour later than it "should." Me, I am grateful beyond words for the evenings of light the time change created. Have begun refocusing on going through stuff in the house, trying to get serious about cutting into what I have. Trips to Goodwill, handing off bags of stuff to friends. I can feel myself resisting it all, so do what I can, trusting I'll have the time to finish what must be done before June 1. Have no concrete idea yet what comes after that. Will get to it. And that describes my life at this moment: moving through the days as they unfurl. One at a time. España, te echo de menos rws 11:18 AM [+] Tuesday, March 31, 2009 So. To review. A year ago: me, in Madrid, realizing that my life felt like I'd been treading water for the previous year (or so). Deciding that big changes had to be made. Giving up the flat I'd had for several years, packing up my life there, leaving things in a teeny storage compartment. Returning to northern Vermont on May 1st, intending to begin a process of sorting through my belongings with an eye toward getting rid of lots of it, at the same time working on the house, getting it ready to sell. The house went on the market in mid-October. Just in time for big market slow-down. Found myself slogging through deep northern Vermont winter, waiting for the worst of it to pass so that potential buyers would dust the snow off their clothes and re-commence house-hunting. I never doubted that someone would go for the house -- I knew it would sell itself if people came to see it. And last week, as if the melting snow that's been in process all month finally hit a threshold, home-buyers woke up from their long winter sleep, began coming to see my modest hilltop palace. One couple seemed very interested, but held off on pulling the trigger. While they vacillated, someone else came along -- a wonderful woman (single mom w/ five-year-old boy), who clearly was reacting to the place the way I did when I first saw it as a potential buyer. She and her realtor stayed an hour and a half, all of us talking on and on. Next morning, she left a message on my answering machine letting me know they were making an offer. They did, I accepted, that was that. I have two months to organize, pack and prepare for what comes next. The closing happens June 1. España, te echo de menos rws 4:34 PM [+] Tuesday, March 24, 2009 [continued from previous entry] The trouble with taking FOREVER to relate a happening -- like I've been doing here these last few weeks -- is that big honking piles of other stuff happens as the days square-dance by and some of it never gets chronicled. I realize that in this case the lack of chronicling likely will not have anyone in their right mind shedding bitter tears. But still. Let me have my delusions of importance. From the last three weeks: -- Sitting on the back stoop during afternoons of radiant sunshine and temperatures mild enough to allow lounging outside without picking up frostbite. One afternoon, almost two weeks ago now, the day grew so astonishingly mild that I needed no down vest, no coat or jacket. (Thermal underwear, yes. I'm not completely whacked out.) There have been a handful of other days since then beautiful enough to get me sitting outside, but none that mild. Soaking up sunshine, the world around so quiet. The only sounds: birds at the feeder, the occasional sound of vehicles passing on the two-lane down in the valley, the noise drifting up with the breeze. The narrow, curving path I'd kept shoveled between stoop and driveway grew slowly wider as snow cover began giving way before sunlight. Within the last few days, the snow has thinned enough that some of the big lynx pawprints that parallel the house have melted down enough to expose dormant grass -- the first patches of faded green visible in the yard. -- Pulling back in on days when cold weather reasserted, especially the ones that came paired with nights of arctic conditions. Feeling my focus narrow down, my overriding concern getting through it until more moderate days brought relief. -- Dragging a lawn chair out on that first amazingly mild afternoon -- relaxing, reading, my near fishbelly-white skin picking up the teeniest bit of color. All that with eight or ten inches of snow close by. When the sun began dropping behind the trees and a cool breeze started up, I retreated inside and found that among the insects that had come to life during those hours of near springtime temperatures, a green lacewing had found its way into the house -- big and delicate looking, poised on the glass of the kitchen door window, the last rays of sunlight making its wings shine. -- Waking up in the wee hours on two or three occasions, once hearing the sound of a door closing off in another part of the house, once or twice hearing footsteps. The household ghost (you heard me) reminding me it was still hanging around. That makes two of us then. (Hanging around, I mean.) For now. España, te echo de menos rws 5:48 PM [+] Sunday, March 22, 2009 [continued from previous entry] I'd only intended to inflict the first ten or fifteen minutes of the last bit on them. No, really. I hadn't planned to hijack so much of their Sunday, especially with G. beginning to feel antsy about getting the exercise part of her day going, heading out into the cold, being a fit, responsible human type person. And there was me, the devil on her shoulder, inflicting entertainment on them, encouraging slack, dissolution, lack of discipline (and feeling a teeny-tin sense of guilt about it). I also knew I had to hit the road sooner rather than later, being that the liars on all the weather reports were warning that a sizeable blizzard was moving in, one that would dump a whole lot of snow on the Boston area that night. The prediction for northern Vermont appeared less alarming -- two to three inches, no big deal. So as far as beginning the slog north I felt no terrible urgency, was happy to procrastinate, had no problem at all, really, with the video-fest that taken shape. The first ten or fifteen minutes of Buffy gave way to half an hour, then an hour, snowflakes flying outside, flurries coming and going. When the story finally came to a close, I packed up, gave G.&S. back their day, got going. Two hours later, approaching the New Hampshire-Vermont border, I slipped north of the cloud cover, its edge stretching from east to west, a clean, curving line across the sky -- gray, nasty weather to the south, blue sky and late day sunlight to the north. The sun slipped behind the Green Mountains as the interstate took me toward Montpelier, a long, radiant sunset unfurled, gave way to twilight, then frigid, late winter darkness. Next morning, I discovered that the weather fibbers had actually been lying this time around -- yes, two to three inches fell overnight, along with a bonus ten to 12 inches. The snow cover once more hip-deep. And fresh lynx tracks extending along both sides of the house. Big round pawprints, as if the cat had been issued snowshoes (explaining their ability to walk on top of powdery snow). One trail stretched across the hillside in front of the house, disappearing into the windbreak of pine trees along the end of the house. Anther trail appearing at the other end of the windbreak, extended back toward the road, the tracks disappearing where the cat jumped down onto the driveway, moving off across the gravel lane and up into the woods. Once the storm moved by, temperatures skidded way the hell down into minus numbers, me praying that those kind of cold spells would be ending soon, hoping March would make nice. And two or three days later, it began to. All of a sudden, days of lovely above-freezing weather began rolling past, the music of snowmelt water in the house's rain gutters becoming a part of the days' soundtrack. March barging in like the proverbial lion, then shifting to something more user-friendly. Not a lamb exactly, since each few days of kinder weather give way to some backsliding, to two or three days of something way colder, not so cuddly or user-friendly. A groundhog maybe. Or a wombat. Possibly a hedgehog. You get my drift. [concluded in next entry] España, te echo de menos rws 4:06 PM [+] Thursday, March 19, 2009 [continued from previous entry] Sunday morning: woke up in the wee hours, the first hint of a.m. light diluting the darkness. Outside, for the second morning in a row, mourning doves called softly. A sound of hope. Found myself conscious for real around 7:30, staggered out of bed to find no one else awake (except the kitties, who slinked about, apparently weighing the idea of mugging me for food). Felt myself jonesing for espresso, pulled on clothes. Looked outside, saw a cold, gray world. Pulled on another layer of clothes. Headed out into the cold and gray, found that winter had reasserted itself, a frigid breeze blowing, the occasional snowflake slanting down. Made the trek along Mass. Ave., collar up, hands buried in jacket pockets, thinking comforting thoughts of warm, caffeinated goodness. Arrived at café, reached for door handle, pulled. Door surprised me by remaining firmly closed. Pulled handle again, more emphatically -- same result. A glance inside showed lights on, figures working behind counter. A scan at the business-hours sign in the window revealed the place remained closed until 8 a.m. on Sundays. Hadn't even occurred to me that the joint wouldn't arrange to be open real damn early to serve barely-conscious clientele like myself (this being the big city and all). Collected what might laughably be called my wits, glanced at cellphone, saw ten minutes remained until the caffeine palace would allow the rabble in. Continued walking down the Avenue, watching the few cars passing, glancing at store windows. Stopped in front of a record store that had an impressive collection of truly cheesy record covers from decades back. Wrung what entertainment I could from that, turned and looked around at the gray world, shoulders hunched up, breathmist dispersing with the breeze as soon it left nose and mouth. Headed back to café at the stroke of eight, found myself the first customer there. Ordered, found a table, opened a book, sat reading and sipping, beginning the slow process of rejoining the human race. Other people began trickling in, my attention wandering between espresso, book, human-watching. At some point -- my head resting on a hand, staring at book with unfocused eyes -- I found myself imagining looking up and seeing someone I knew, an individual I hadn't seen in several years, saw them look over and see me. And knew for a certainty that I was going to see them for real. Looked up from book, saw the place slowly filling with customers and life, looked back down at book. Looked up a 30 seconds later, saw the individual I'd imagined a minute earlier. She turned, saw me, pointed at me with a is that really you? expression. I nodded, she approached, we chatted, the interchange a bit formal -- in part because neither were at full consciousness, in part because she had once been a friend but seemed to take sides when a relationship I'd been in broke up back when. I kept it cordial, we talked, it was fine. She was en route somewhere, left after a few minutes. I watched her go, pondering life's twists and turns. Back at the flat, I found G.&S. up and doing breakfast stuff. Told them about the encounter at the café, ate a little. Laptops appeared, wifi life got slowly got underway. We talked about Dr. Horrible, that led to snooping around YouTube, watching Christopher Walken dance (S. trying to do her morning crossword, losing concentration as G. and I played and replayed the clip, finally giving up, joining us), watching Christopher Walken sing and dance (there really is nothing like watching Himself lip-sync 'Delilah,' surrounded by dancing cops), watching babes behind bars singing and dancing. Which led me to inflict Buffy The Musical on G.&S. (the morning giving way to afternoon, G. wanting to get active, go out and run, me being the devil on her shoulder, presenting one video temptation after another). [continued in next entry] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Evening sky, mid-March -- Vermont: España, te echo de menos rws 1:06 PM [+] Thursday, March 12, 2009 Sowa (South of Washington Street) turns out to be a neighborhood down near the Southeast Expressway. Real damn urban, and not an area I'm familiar with. G. did an excellent of navigating Sat. afternoon traffic and getting us there, a teeny parking spot presented itself. So teeny the Subaru didn't quite fit. The driver of the car in front was there, G. got out and asked him nicely if he would inch forward enough to allow her to park. He did, me enjoying an example of urban cooperation instead of a display of urban indifference (or personal combat). Once out of car, it became clear that the temperature had dropped, the day getting colder, more raw. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I'd been dressed for Vermont. (The previous day's balmy weather had lulled me into leaving my thermals back in my temporary squat.) But we were quickly inside heated places, so what the hell. Galleries, artists' lofts, all that. Artiness everywhere. After spending a while wandering through an impressively oversized building of artists' studios, hallways stretching on and on, finding the occasional studio open for intruders like us to poke our collective noses into, we headed back out into the cold. Moved the car (me and S. standing in a spot down the street to hold it, shooing away a couple in an overgrown SUV (her looking like she might be ready to fight for the spot until I pointed out that we were abandoning one down the street to move to this one -- ahh, urban life)). Hiked to a crowded eatery in the South End, managed (with the use of guile, patience and the occasional well-placed elbow) to get a table G. wanted. Inhaled a light meal of pretty good turkey chili, leaving space for the evening's main attraction: a Chinese meal at a joint near G.&S.'s flat, a place that produces a fine plate of spicy eggplant. As we ate, I watched a gent outside in the street, dressed in old clothes, a worn thermal vest, wearing a knit cap bearing the Patriots logo. Sweeping up garbage strewn in gutters and sidewalks, dumping it into a wheeled trash can, doing a careful, thorough job. I commented on him, appreciating that someone was out there cleaning up rubbish in the cold. On the way out, G. spoke with him, he said without work like that he'd be home receiving disability pay, said he'd rather be out doing something productive. Seemed like a good guy -- I hope he's being paid a pile of $$$ for his labor. A few hours later, after a pit-stop at the flat for relaxation and kitty-tormentingentertaining, we slid into a booth at the Chinese joint, a sizeable flat-screen TV across the aisle from us playing a grade B (maybe grade C) fantasy movie, sound turned off. Actors doing their best with the material, trying to emote believably -- your handsome warrior, your beautiful female in flowing, medieval outfit, your gray-bearded wizard trying futilely to put across a version of Gandalf (the kind of role that must now be a bitch, post-Ian-McKellan-making-Gandalf-his-own) In a cavern, carrying torches, dealing with magical traps and like that. ("I've got you," said one of them, "with my magical trap!" Another character said something about magical powers, I immediately overrode conversation between G.&S., repeating, "Magical powers! Magical powers!") The restaurant had the subtitles turned on, producing info-bits between lines of dialogue that seriously undercut the story's earnestness, like [both grunting], [both moaning], and [chuckles]. "Why," I said after that last one, "is he calling her 'Chuckles'?" "Huh?" replied S. "He's not. It means...." "R. knows," G. interrupted, putting a hand over one of S.'s hands. "Remember who you're dealing with." Which made me feel obnoxiously pleased. [continued in next entry] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ March snowfall, northern Vermont: España, te echo de menos rws 1:06 PM [+] Saturday, March 07, 2009 [continued from previous entry] Here's an interesting truth: writing that last entry was the most fun I've had since returning to northern Vermont last Sunday. Hmmmmm.... My frequent m.o. when staying with G.&S. is to wake up during the wee hours, crank up the laptop and have quiet, wholesome wi-fi fun in my guestroom/hidey-hole. Not this time. Woke up, grabbed a book of S.'s that I'd glommed onto, plowed through a bunch of it. Went back to sleep. Didn't touch my laptop -- why does that make me sound chaste and virginal? -- didn't go carousing around the net. (And before drifting back off to sleep, heard the soft sound of mourning doves coming from outside, a sound of the warm season that felt like a gentle affirmation of the local world having turned a seasonal corner.) Woke up later, found G.&S. starting their day, being quiet about it so their guest (that would be me) could snooze. G. had plans for the morning, I immediately browbeat convinced S. to accompany me to the nearby café to begin the process of rejoining the human race, me offering to pay (in a pathetic attempt to compensate for the previous afternoon when I'd offered the same but managed to leave all $$$ in my temporary squat, forcing S. to cover everything). Where the previous day's visit had been like a bit of café springtime -- open windows, wafting curtains, caffeine-inhalers looking carefree in a springtime way -- cold weather had reasserted during the night, bringing a dose of hard-edged, late-February reality (me hoping the mourning doves wouldn't wind up frozen to the ground in an alley somewhere). Back at the flat, waiting for G., to return, S. & I resumed our places on the sofa, laptops open and running. More good, clean wi-fi fun. G. appeared at some point and joined us, me pausing now and then to torment entertain kitties with laser pointer, getting them to run all over the room, up and down furniture, even up walls in pursuit of that elusive point of red light. (The best part: their undeniable inability to actually capture it never seems to discourage them. They're not rocket scientists, but they are mighty cute.) G.&S. suggested a field trip to the Sowa district of Boston to nose around, traipse through galleries, do the arty thing. In short order, I found myself in the back seat of their Subaru, watching Saturday afternoon Cambridge spool slowly by (Mass. Ave. traffic keeping progress to a modest crawl). Being chauffered around gets me happy like you would not believe, a kind of overdone happiness that could easily spill over the line into out-and-out obnoxiousness for anyone not sharing my simple-minded joy. G.&S. seem to handle it astonishingly well. In fact, they deal extremely well with my displays of goofy bliss in general which, sadly, propels me into even more cheerful states of being. Their ungrudging acceptance of the undiluted, excessive sunniness I often slip into when I'm in their company is one of the reasons I worship them -- not everyone has the constitution to bear up to that kind of perky, near-relentless contentment. Their ability to deal with it is one of those mysteries I prefer not to question or probe. I'd rather just slip into fun mode and exploit that near saint-like forbearance. (Another tendency of mine you may have noticed: overstating things well beyond the point of common decency.) [continued in next entry] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gray afternoon, early March: España, te echo de menos rws 6:55 PM [+] Wednesday, March 04, 2009 Last Friday morning, through light rain, beneath skies that cleared as I headed south, I followed the interstates down to the Boston area for a fast two-day getaway. Staying once again with G.&S. in Cambridge, taking over G.'s teeny office/guest room. Cambridge: wind blowing, mild temperatures, sun slanting down through fast-moving clouds. And apart from the remains from mounds of plowed/shoveled snow melting away in sidestreets, no snow. Anywhere. A huge contrast with snow-slathered northern Vermont. S. welcomed me, the two household cats hovered cautiously in the background. Dumped my stuff in my temporary squat, S. pointed out that the b&w photo I remembered as a guy and a goat [see first paragraph of Feb. 7 entry] was actually a pic of G.'s brother tending to a sheep. An image with disturbing ramifications for anyone with a perverted imagination (though not for me of course, being an individual as pure as the driven blahblahblah). Unpacked, blabbed with S., found laser pointer and began tormenting entertaining the cats. Realized that a good café was a mere three blocks away, dragged S. outside and down Mass. Ave. to keep me company while I got caffeinated. (S. bought a vat of fancy-ass, la-de-da decaffeinated brew, I thoughtfully kept any smirking, superior, derisive comments to my increasingly hopped-up self. Because we're friends, and I accept my friends' flaws and silly errors with affectionate and only slightly condescending tolerance.) Despite my thoughtfulness, once we were back outside into the mild, windy afternoon (and once we'd ducked into a beauty salon, of all places, to see a nice exhibit of a local photographer's work), S. pointed us down Mass. Ave., mumbling something about taking a "walk." Which turned out to be code for "forced march." Down the Avenue, through the Common, over to Brattle Street, through the Square, into the Holyoke Center, back out and across into and through Haaahvahd Yard, up Oxford Street, back over to Mass. Ave., and finally back to the flat where I could pull off my pointy boots -- not made for hikes of any distance, and certainly not made for interminable slogs walked at near light speed -- sobbing uncontrollably as I massaged my throbbing, abused feet. (Note: the teensiest bit of artistic license has been taken re: my emotional state in that last bit.) I pulled out my laptop -- why does that sound vaguely obscene? -- and retreated to the internet. S. did the same. We sat on the living room sofa together, swapping ongoing commentary as we each stumbled around various corners of the net. I'd intended the high point of that evening to be a showing of Dr. Horrible, me having brought along my copy of the dvd, intending to give G.&S. a shot of entertainment/culture, after which they intended to watch Friday Night Lights. G. returned from work, they decided to make dinner, a dinner whose preparation went on and on and on until only enough time remained to see the first 15 minutes of Dr. H. before Texas football mania got cranked. Luckily, the chow turned out to be pretty good, keeping me happily occupied until FNL was well underway, at which point I realized what I was in for and did my best to watch graciously, without bitching, moaning or deafening G.&S. with the sound of grinding teeth. That was Friday. [continued on following entry] España, te echo de menos rws 4:03 PM [+] Thursday, February 26, 2009 I found myself awake in the early hours two nights ago. Awake and feeling like I might not be returning to sleep for an hour or two. The world outside dark and quiet, the only sound in the house the periodic rumble of the furnace. Turned on the bedside light, picked up a book I've been plowing through. A goofy story I wasn't sure about at first, until it found its feet and the narrator's voice became reliably funny, the story interesting enough to hold my interest. That story took an unexpected turn around halfway through, slipping into a darker tone as the protagonist dealt with the death of her father and the effect that life change had on the rest of her family. All of it somber, heavy, difficult. Which got me thinking about the version of that passage I went through. They had me late in life, the 'rents, so they were on in years when I arrived. I never knew the old man when he didn't have white hair. And in some ways it feels like I never really knew him well at all. With that last sentence, I pause to consider how I want to dig into this -- because it's too easy to slip into facile blather when talking about people. We spend so much time pegging others, cramming them into pigeonholes, reducing them to easy labels -- which is how we're mostly trained to process our experience of people: find easy labels, classify 'em, and treat 'em according to our learned attitudes about those character qualities or types. And those learned 'tudes can run deep. Add to that our learned reactions to perceived behaviors, then add to that the potent emotions involved with blood ties and you've got a formula for hilarious fun. So where was I? Ah, right -- I was about to type, classify and pigeonhole my father. [this entry in progress] España, te echo de menos rws 9:45 PM [+] Thursday, February 19, 2009 Yesterday morning: left the house early once again, pulling out of the garage a few minutes past six. Sky clear and cloudless, light just beginning to gather along the ridges across the valley, a fat crescent moon hanging low in the southern sky. Me taking the pleasures I can from being up at that hour, from finding myself in deep north country winter -- crisp air, snow cover thinner (thanks to recent weather that massaged the temperature up above the freezing mark for a few days), hours of light expanding steadily. That last bit is the one that brings the most pleasure -- there was a time when I loved the darkness of winter, the turning inward of life. Not the case right now, something that may be another example of Madrid's impact on me. There, during the year's darkest days, daylight lingers in the sky until 6 p.m. As opposed to the dishearteningly early hour (4 to 4:30 p.m.) that nighttime takes hold here in December. The sun hangs in the sky longer now, no longer sinking behind the trees at 3 p.m. Which means expanding hours of sunlight pouring in south-facing windows, at least on days of no overcast. Those brilliant, sunlit afternoons compensate for a lot. Snowy days: driving along the winding two-lanes that points toward Montpelier, curling lines of snow on the pavement, like marbling, rising into the air when cars pass, becoming swirling sheets of white that slowly form lines again, drifting along asphalt then settling down until the next passing car rouses them. During the milder days, rising temperatures cut into the ground cover, the air becoming thick with snowmelt mist, shrouding hills and fields, growing more dense with each passing hour. Turning gray days into something more mystical. A good thing about all the changing conditions: they force my routines to change. Overnight storms sometimes keep me in the house in the mornings, the hike into town happens later in the day, I see different faces, shift around errands, gym, walks, work. I sometimes have a real tendency toward settling into patterns -- being moved out of them is good for me. Snowy weather moved again in last night, this morning's daylight was the uniform, slowly swelling gray of overcast instead of the shifting brilliance of a sunrise. It'll all pass. We're now well into the second half of February, the holidays a distant memory. Valentine's Day, Presidents Day, both gone. The brief thaw of last week had people talking about sap running, sugaring, all that. Someone mentioned that the price of maple syrup has taken a major leap this year. One more subject for small talk in town, along with changing weather and all the rest. And the days slip past. España, te echo de menos rws 9:06 PM [+] Wednesday, February 11, 2009 A week ago -- almost exactly seven days ago to the minute -- as I sat where I am right now doing the keyboard equivalent of scribbling out text, I noticed something moving from the corner of my eye. A quick glance out the window at snow-covered yard awash in cold, late afternoon sunshine. What I saw: a lynx. Like a scrappy-looking, tailless, overgrown housecat -- pale brown fur, tufted ears. Moving across the snow with surprising ease -- surprising considering the snow lay two to two and a half feet deep -- leaving shallow tracks. Came out of the windbreak of trees and lilac bushes that cluster off this end of the house, walked most of the way down the building, then veered over to jump to a shoveled path, down the driveway, across the road. Leaped up the embankment of plowed snow on the far side of the road and disappeared uphill through the trees. Sightings and encounters with wildlife are common here. Hawks, owls, grouse, wild turkeys. Skunks, foxes, deer, the occasional bear. Neighbors have seen coyotes, fisher cats, moose. Now and then one hears rumors of catamount sightings up in the mountains. But I've never heard anyone talk about spotting a lynx. They're shy, they stay away from us and keep to their hunting territory. Could be the deep snow and the sustained intense cold made hunting hard and unproductive enough that there was no alternative to ranging out to more exposed places. The windbreak shelters lots of critters, would be a logical place for a predator to investigate. Three days later, the temperature actually made it above freezing for a few hours, the day after that for even longer. Just those two days compacted the snow, produced the sound of snowmelt running through the house's rain gutters. Yesterday, the temperature began to rise again. Roads that have been covered with snow for two months suddenly began showing gravel and dirt. The snow blanketing the armor-like sheet of ice that appeared on the driveway here in early December disappeared, leaving my own private slipping and skidding rink in its place. Strong sunshine poured down earlier today, turning ice to slush, then to soggy dirt. Local roads, now snow free, began turning to mud. January brought no thaw, just relentless cold. This change is a joy, even with the sunshine turning to overcast and rain. (Rain!) A haze from the massive snowmelt hangs in the air, growing more dense as rain falls. All snow on the roof of the small barn across the yard has slid off, producing a snowbank that goes halfway up the building's side. The simple mention of the milder temperatures brings big smiles, sighs of relief from other folks. The north country deep winter thing gets oppressive and tiring. It gets one more narrowly focused, moving through the days one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. A little let-up from all that is just fine with me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Early February (pre-thaw): España, te echo de menos rws 5:04 PM [+] Saturday, February 07, 2009 [continued from entry of January 23] When I stay with G.&S., my temporary home is the small room that usually serves as G.'s work area. A teeny space, crowded with books and boxes and cat-related tchotchkes and a rocking chair and a small table or two and a strange photo of a guy with a goat (what is up with that?) and a desk with a computer/more books/photos/piles of mail, blahblahblah. Toss me and my bags into the mix, there's not much room to do anything but crawl onto the bed. Which is basically what I do if I'm in there and not changing clothes: lay down and read, or lay down and crank up laptop (to enjoy wifi), or lay down and snooze. Limited options, but perfect for those looking to escape real life. And. It's not only my temporary home, they let me make a complete mess of that little room while I'm there (and say nothing about it). Which is what I did for my three-day visit: made a mess, a kind of mess I don't create in my own bedroom, where the bed gets made every day and shirts/pants go on a clothes tree. I moved in, changed duds, turned the bed into my own personal lounging pit, settling into a relaxed, semi-slovenly, routineless routine. For three days. And the less productive I became, the happier I got. And the happier I got, the happier G.&S. seemed to get. If I could figure out how to (a) re-create the essence of that amazing situation and make it permanent and then (b) figure out how to generate a pile of money doing it, I would be set for the rest of what passes for my little life. After Christmas dinner: I found the book, amused the cats, chatted with G.&S., tossed myself into bed, read, passed out. Woke up in the early a.m., could feel I wouldn't get back to sleep immediately. Cranked up the laptop, enjoyed joy-inducing wifi fun. Drifted back to sleep, didn't come to until around 10 -- the latest I've slept in months. And months. Since Madrid. Wandered out of bedroom in black thermals, suffering from a major case of pillow hair. Found G.&S. up, eating, carrying on their morning quietly to allow pillow-haired guest to sleep. Ate breakfast, lounged about, ate more. Entertained cats, talked with G.&S. Ate more. At some point pulled on real clothes, did a field trip with G.&S. to the Museum of Fine Arts. Was prepared to pay the bloated entrance fee, but the sweet woman behind the ticket counter realized I was with museum members, pointed out they were entitled to bring a guest free. Lucky for her she was behind the counter or I might have thrown myself at her feet in a show of gratitude sure to embarrass everyone. Hadn't been at the MFA in a while. A few years at least. Saw the two resident Hopper paintings. Saw the new photography room. Watched people, enjoyed wandering with G.&S., enjoyed tasteful Christmas light displays. Ran into someone I hadn't seen in years, a good person. Would not have recognized her if G.&S. hadn't greeted her, saying her name. She recognized me, said hello, we exchanged hey-how-ya-doin's, I was glad I hadn't had to fish around for her name or fake knowing it or avoid the whole issue by not using her name during the encounter. Got museum'ed out, we bolted. Drove over to Central Square in Cambridge, an area that used to be infested with Indian Restaurants (to the point that it was rumored a central underground kitchen prepared all the food, sending it to individual eateries by pneumatic tubes). The restaurant I jonesed for was no longer there, we wound up at a joint G.&S. hadn't been to before, found ourselves being subjected to a good-cop/bad-cop routine by the wait staff, one waiter clearly uninterested in exerting himself in any way to help us, a second waiter going out of his way to treat us with kindness, the two trading off, providing a strange, slightly surreal dining experience. Back to the flat, S. turning on Law and Order SVU, the program turning out to be soapily overwrought. After a while I bailed, escaping to my cozy hideaway to read about spending a third of a year in Rome eating excellent Italian chow (a use of four months I could definitely get behind). [this entry in progress] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ February sunlight, northern Vermont: España, te echo de menos rws 7:59 PM [+] Tuesday, February 03, 2009 After last week's sizable snowfall, the countryside here is buried under snow cover so deep that it must be making life real damn hard for local wildlife. Yesterday afternoon, I saw a wild turkey out in the middle of the ocean of snow on the hillside in front of the house, foraging among the few tips of dead vegetation that remain visible. Sparse pickings, the turkey looking cold and desperate. Along one of the backroads that I sometimes drive for the trip back from Montpelier, there is a mobile home that looks to have been there a long, long time -- planted amid trees, set back from the road a bit. The residents either plow or use a snow-blower in the yard around the house, leaving a wide swath of ground relatively flat, easy to walk on. Making it attractive to wildlife. It may be they also strew food around the yard -- seeds, kitchen waste that might otherwise go into compost -- because every time I go by I see a crowd of wild turkeys, anywhere from 10 to 20 of them. Horses outside of barns often sport blankets. Three horses in the field at one farm provide a visual thermometer -- in milder temperatures, they wear nothing and range about. The colder it is the closer they huddle together, covered with blankets, heads drooping. I talked about this with someone at the gym, it brought us both to the same place: gratitude for the simplest, most basic things -- shelter, heat, food. Running water, warm clothing. (Indoor plumbing!) Just a shot of perspective on a cold day in early February. España, te echo de menos rws 3:31 PM [+] Friday, January 30, 2009 When I left the house early Wednesday, backing out of the garage into wee-hour darkness, light snow had just begun falling. It intensified during the drive southeast to Montpelier, lines of it eddying about on the pavement in the car's headlights. By the time I got to my cosy heated office, the snowfall had shifting from light to moderate, coming down steadily, the local world taking on the look of a place where some serious weather was beginning to happen. Drove back to the house around midday, traveling just starting to get sloppy. Pulled into the drive as conditions got serious. Stood outside for a while in the middle of it all, everything quiet, the sound of occasional cars passing on the two-lane down below in the valley so hushed and distant that they barely registered. The snowfall erased all views, wiped out all sense of the world beyond the property lines. No wind, no noise -- nothing but swirling, drifting white. And that describes the rest of the day -- heavy snowfall, white-out conditions. The only sign of life visible outdoors: birds making frantic trips to the feeder outside my dining room window (chickadees, goldfinches, purple finches). By evening, the land around the house wore a cloak of white that reached my waist in some spots and my chest in others, the snow cover looking like an ocean, ice crystals glittering when I turned on outside lights to take a gander. Somewhere around 8 p.m., satellite tv and radio vanished, the dishes overwhelmed by rooftop snow. Which meant, after shoveling out the next morning (including shoveling out the mailbox, buried when the town plow went by), dragging extension ladder out of garage, dragging it around house, climbing up and beginning the slow work of shoveling out a path up across roof, dumping as much snow as possible over the edge to add to the frozen white ocean below, freeing up sat. dishes. Which actually -- the snow being the light, fluffy variety -- was not the heavy lifting it might have been in damper or warmer conditions. The only kinda scary parts: going from ladder to snowy/icy roof, getting back onto ladder. So. There is a poopload of snow on the ground here, and by poopload I mean more than I would prefer. Not that the amount of snow should come as a surprise to anyone who's experienced northern Vermont in late January. I'm just saying. España, te echo de menos rws 5:07 PM [+] BLATHERINGS August 2001 September 2001 October 2001 November 2001 December 2001 January 2002 February 2002 March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 June 2009 July 2009 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . MORE FOCUSED BLATHERINGS Travels: London '01 Pamplona Italy '03 U.K. '03 Sevilla Casablanca Stoke-on-Trent Barcelona Québec/Ottawa Boston/Lisbon/Madrid Italy '04 Montréal La Sierra Events: Madrid -- arrival 9/11 Emergency Room I Holidays 2001 Holidays 2002 Holidays 2003 Holidays 2004 Holidays 2005 A neighbor's passing Madrid -- March 11 bombings   and aftermath Emergency Room II Israeli friend/Madrid Marathon Madrid -- Royal Wedding The DELE exam GONE, a novel: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF JOE ROCCO, a novella: -- Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 BURBANK SHRUGGED, a screenplay: -- Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4 Short stories: Murphy's Wife Another Autumn La Queja de Una   Hermanastra Muy Conocida Autobiography -- Personal History -- Hormones On Parade -- Accidents, Random Mishaps,     Personal Problems .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 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