Multiconstruct

Its been a strange time, very busy lots of changes, lots of talking to very bright people whose first language is not english. it stretches your mind, as does the new job at work, as do the canine changes at home. Wednesday I met Belen downtown and we went for icecream at sparkies. it was good i had a wafflecone. we stayed for 4 hours talking about psychology and metaphysics. its been ages since i’ve had such an intense talk about stuff. i didn’t get home til after ’10 and if you know me lately that’s my bed time. going to bed at the same time is one of the things that keeps me sane, but sometimes there are higher purposes than mere sanity and i headed for bed at 11. i was devastated to see oni had pissed in it. thursdays my long day, jamming from 7:30 to 8:30 and i don’t mean an hour.

i stripped the wet stuff off, the good news badnews was she had hit the comforter, and tossed it in the hall, grabbed a flanel sheet and closed the blinds in the living room and laid down on the couch. sometimes when i can’t sleep rather than do progressive relaxation i take the easier route of zoning in front of the tv to manage rushing thoughts. but after asking dad to turn down the tv and turn off his lamp i explained his dog had pissed my bed. he seemed mad at me about it and turned off his movie right before the end and went to bed.

said he was taking oni to the humane society and i didn’t tell him not to. just tired of it. lowering the quality of my life. it had come that close so many times before i couldn’t get up the motivation to give her a final farewell goodbye but knew it was happening so i said something. “take care now” or something.

they were both gone at lunch. didn’t mean anything. enjoyed the quiet.

after the day job dad was subdued. dog was nonexistent. i was apologetic and sad. for 10 minutes and then i had to go. i was already 10 minutes late. my life is too hard.

group was alright but last week had been super great. therapeutic and meaningful, cool because we had an intelligent observer who gave good feedback, a therapist from Taiwan in a PHD program in an exchange program. this group was not quite perfunctory but more educational and less deep. but had made it through a long day.

friday, work was work. its new reality is do one thing after another from the time until you leave and leave some things undone. jamming all day. home, change clothes, weed the garden for 10 minutes and go downtown for the 100th anniversary of the wabash station. toured the artrageous gallery 1st floor which had been a storage building for supplies. its a cool old building with a neat rehab into studios. train art and toy trains. no tour of old underground train repair space in the catacombs as promised. there was a ’26 model t, they had three petals i learned from dad and an old dude who’d wandered up. brake, clutch and shift. never noticed the windshield was two small windshields on pivots. i added the fact they got better gas mileage than the ford explorer.

we met amy and some friends of hers at sycamores, we sat at the bar. christina was one of them and we talked about her friend the harvard professor whose study that showed happiness and sadness followed disease models of contagion (you’re 11% more likely to be happy if you have a happy friend, twice that for a sad friend). more people showed up and there was a shortage of bar stools and a surplus of weirdness so we split. probably should have just got a table.

dad and i were going to go to the casino but we had words and i said i didn’t want to go and didn’t. mowed the lawn and ordered pizza and felt a little bad. i was deadheading the roses when he arrived and pointed out the beautiful sunset i was oblivious too and what it was doing to the tiger lillies til he mentioned it and asked to take a picture. i said “sure, in the sweet light”. and we talked about that, the hour before sunset and the hour after sunrise when light comes in obliquely and makes for better photos. softer, less glare. he hadn’t heard of it but had sorta discovered it. sweet.

today was up and do dishes. drink coffee with sarah and talk about sociopaths. i think its a curable condition if they’re motivated. we went to the market. they’re awesome this time of year. melons are out and got a nice little watermelon, plus peaches, concord grapes, this and that.

home to meet the new dog. dad had found one in the free classifieds. a cockapoo four months old. named him fido. he’s barking at the cat right now, first peep i’ve heard out of him. he’s a little black and white fuzzy guy with big paws and goofy eyes. shy and charming. i put away my stuff and left (after having swapped vehicles with sarah) to pick up the girls from taiwan.

we went out to devil’s ice box trail at rockbridge state park. more of its open and everyone enjoyed climbing down to anderson cave where it was cool and very cool. watching the little ones play, the real little ones sitting down on rocks because they didn’t want to cross the underground stream.

after stopping by the Pierpont Store we went back and hung out while dad smoked a pork loin and grilled some chicken breast on the grill. we had the watermelon as well as red potatoes and corn on the cob. they took almost as many pictures of the meal as they did the cave.

needless to say i was bushed and coasted through the evening. through it all i’ve been re-reading neal stephenson’s anathem. brilliant book, i’ll post on it.