degunkification

Surfaces collect junk. Junk collects dust. Both are natural functions of entropy. My aversion to entropy and all its insidious functions grows in steady increments each year. People are the right hand of the demi-god Entropopo, and my people in particular make strewing things about a daily ritual.

But I’m decluttering on many levels right now. It seems to be one of the karmic features of the year and, as inpenetrable as the job looked, I’m making gratifying progress.

Houses are clutter. Mortgages are clutter. Tenants who call you on Christmas Eve because the furnace broke? Clutter. Two down, two to go in that department.

Jeff chops up miscellaneous lumber scraps in the back yard, then hauls them to the dumpster. He leaves a random, unused window in the kitchen. One step back, but two steps forward. No complaints from me. I can reassign the window myself.

By now, the basement has burped up sacks of decent used books, and numerous outgrown clothing to the Salvation Army. A second burp sends moldy, water-damaged books, and an amazing assortment of “why-was-I-keeping-that?” to the dumpster. And now it’s time to deal with the couch. We’ll chop it in half with a sawzall if necessary to fit around the basement door, but out it will go. This week. Katherine? You want that sewing machine? Best come soon. No, I’m kidding. It can stay ‘til you fetch it.

Someday--reasonably soon--I will look around this joint with the confidence that if and when the time comes to abandon ship...or house, that is...I can do it without the hours of agonizing flotsam sorting that so often characterize an empty-nester coop fly.

Oh, to be sure, more stuff will attempt to creep in. Entropopo is a demanding demi-god, and will prod his minions to collect far more than will fit in a standard dorm room. And then they will leave it on their bedroom floors. But, as long as they keep it there, I can view the future as a dumpster run here, and a dumpster run there. But a run. Not a year’s worth of shoveling out from the aftermath of an Entropopian bacchanal.

Now, it may be a while before I can realize my ideal of a trim Scandinavian cottage with a stick of furniture per room, but I do believe that--with a lot less goonk around here--I can shoulder life with more aplomb.

I got the fly out of the kitchen.

this feels like a yes

I think we’ll be participating in Phase I of the trial for Merck’s kinder and gentler so maybe you won’t die of encephalitis new version of an anti amyloid plaque Alzheimer’s vaccine. I have no reason to get excited about this. I have no reason to assume we’d even be among the 80% who get the vaccine at some strength versus the placebo. I have no reason to keep using the word “we” since they aren’t going to be sticking anything in me. But I am going to be the one navigating D.C. traffic to get to Georgetown University 17 times over the next 3 years. This may not happen. There may be a reason we’re unsuitable. And I’m keeping this in mind: It is a mission. The primary reason is to advance the research which will, somewhere down the pike, help my children just in case there is any sort of genetic proclivity involved here. And other people’s children. The secondary reason can be some good lunches in Georgetown.

grab bag. and just as valuable.

I sure wish my emotional wagon weren’t so tightly hitched to how Jeff’s doing from one week to the next. Disengagement by choice. Wouldn’t that be a handy tool to pull out of one’s pocket when needed? I guess. But at this point we’ve tripped the inseparability clause. Too late. Relationship tenure.

A fly’s been zipping around the kitchen for roughly 4 days. Always where it can annoy you, but never where you could open the door for it. I’ve taken to saying, in my best Biff Tannen voice, “McFly! I thought I told you never to come in here!"

Rachel is back from the world of Poison Dart frogs in Bocas del Draga, Panama. We have enjoyed a brief powerpoint which she compiled to show the other students at the estación what all the frog data is designed to determine. One more in my series of digital cameras is donated to a fine cause.

Clement Hardware won the best hardware store category in the What’s Up Annapolis “best of” awards. Which meant that Jeff and I got to elbow our way through a multitude of people at the Loew’s Annapolis Hotel to nosh on samplings from another multitude of area restaurants. Actually, I did the elbowing in both directions as I’d make my way to the crab cakes, then work my way back to Jeff who’d be looking around to see where I’d gone. Then I’d say “ice cream--thataway,” and nudge him toward the mint chocolate chip samples. Easy to fill up, all in all. The chocolate soup was easily the best thing.

thoughts del día

There are times when I’d be less bothered by the old Kohl’s guy wandering around asking people if they want to open Kohl’s charge accounts, but right when I’m fondling the bras to see which ones have the right type of push-up pads is not what I’d call the opportune moment, and I doubt if it was for the other 6 women in the bra department either.

Jeff bought 4 pepper sprays, and attached little cards to them with hints about gouging assailants’ eyes and whatnot. I said “well...I’ll put it in the car.” Olivia said “EWWW! I’m not carrying that! Then she demonstrated how she holds her car key ready to take a creep’s eye out with an over-the-shoulder swipe. But she put the pepper spray in her glove drawer. I gently explained that it will not be practical to send one to Rachel in Panama, and Becca probably ought not to have one in a cabin full of young campers, so they’ll just have to wait ‘til they get home to register their opinions of their dad’s concern du jour.

What is it about a rabbit that says “eat me?” Freddi is blasé about squirrels and barely attentive to birds, even if they flitter off right in front of her. But rabbits? Now there’s some excitement. Well, to be fair, ducks generate a little interest too.

I tried to wrestle the canoe onto the car roof rack myself yesterday. Of course Doris Dunker across the street said "wait, wait, I'll go get Don!" and I said "No no! I'm conducting an experiment." Of course Gordon drove by from admiring a house (with no waterfront and less grounds) which he secretly wants and offered to help, and I again pleaded "experiment." But finally, I had to abort the experiment and wait 'til Jeff could come out and hoist an end. If I didn't mind removing a goodly bit of car paint and adding a few dents I could probably do it, but as it is, I'm merely left with a pulled muscle in my ribcage. So I bought a wheeled canoe/kayak dolly. You put it under the canoe, about 2/3 of the way back, and pull the other end. Easy. I think. We've yet to truck it down to the beach by that method, but I think it'll be good.

Progress, plateaus

I’m doing a little better, very lately, of applying myself rigorously to the discipline of cranking out the next paragraph...the next snippet of dialogue...the next implausible situation that my story people must, as products of my imagination, carry out whether they like it or not. I vastly prefer my world with them in it, but they can fade into such ephemeral wisps if I don’t keep them front and center.

The Scallywags crew meanwhile, or at least their first three chapters, are on another slush pile vacation to NYC. I hope they will return refreshed and ready to give it another go.

In the realm of people who live outside my head and hard drive, one in particular is doing so reasonably well these days that I scarcely know what to make of it. So the trick, I think, is not to make anything of it. Except hay. Which you make while the sun shines.

Useful hint: If you have one of those vacuum thingies for sucking air out of wine bottles so that the wine stays fresher, do not apply it to your chin like Gabe did. Chin hickies are hard to explain. Well, the truth works. And then you’ll find out that your art teacher’s 30 year old brother did the same thing.

Today’s weather has been so balmy and buoying that it doesn’t feel like 9:50 p.m. But it will feel like 5:15 a.m. tomorrow when the alarm goes off regardless.