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May 26,1998
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The weather has changed at least 4 times today, and so has the background noise: from bird song to the patter of rain to a really loud lawn mower in need of a tuneup. Oh, and now that the lawn mower has stopped I can hear the kid next door's boom box blaring something with a really strong bass line. It is very nearly 5:00 PM and I just can't get started for the day. It's not like I'm sitting here in pajamas unable to get out of bed or anything. I got up at a reasonable hour, went to therapy at the usual time (well, 5 minutes late because of the huge traffic on Elm Street for Irving Rogers' (local newspaper magnate) funeral), and bought lunch at the Earth Food Store and ate it at Starbucks while reading Margins by Mary Parker Buckles. Tom came by after I'd been there for an hour and a half reading and sipping by myself and watching people in black filter in after the funeral. Tom had an exciting weekend including flying to California to his son's house to surprise Julie who is out there for a couple of weeks. His son had a free ticket from getting bumped on some flight or other and was able to transfer it to Tom. Tom reported cooler temperatures in the LA area than here. Go figure. Tom also reported that he ran into Ned who was also on his way to California - summoned to some gig or other. We speculated on what Ned could possibly be doing in Hollywood that was so urgent that the ubiquitous & mysterious they would fly him out there on a busy holiday weekend. We have a lot of fun imagining Ned's California music business life since he never talks about it. The Hollywood Ned and the Andover Ned are different beings - maybe not even the same species. About 2:30 or so, Tom decided he had to go prepare the syllabus for the summer school course starting tonight and I decided I had better fetch my jacket from the cleaners before they sell it. It was supposed to be ready last Wednesday and wasn't, and I was too busy to pick it up since then. Why do I need my winter jacket in 82 degree days in May? Umm, because it's there? No, because actually until last Thursday I was darn glad to have it at the beach. When it's foggy and the wind is blowing in over the water, it can get pretty darn cold. So, anyway, I went to pick up the jacket and some woman ahead of me picking up her clothes was going on and on about her children having their own lives and not being able to expect something or other from them and about here upcoming surgery tomorrow. I couldn't tell if the inconsiderate children were being inconsiderate about her surgery or about something else. It gave me a creepy feeling. Still unable to really get my day underway, I read the snail mail and checked the e-mail. The snail mail was all magazines and catalogs. The e-mail was all spam - get rich quick schemes and porn solicitations. I started to feel isolated and alone in addition to being totally purposeless. I hooked up the scanner again so I could add the latest batch of Istvan's slides to the IDRI web page. on the off chance that the NSF actually decides to look at it in conjunction with our grant proposal. I got as far as plugging in the scanner and turning the computer on again and felt this wave of ennui and existential absurdity wash over me. So, I read some online journals instead. Finally, I decided I should write a journal entry for Thursday, since it was a plover warden day and I have many readers who only read the plover warden entries. I jotted down a few thoughts, realized the photos du jour are still at Andover Photo and won't be ready 'til tomorrow, and decided to write an entry for today explaining that I bought a couple more megabytes of storage (2 to be exact) to give me some time to figure out what to do with my silly web site and this silly journal. So, I'm back on the air for awhile - at least until I use up 2Mb of disk. I don't know what's happening with the starlings. I tried to peak into the air conditioner to see if there are any eggs in the nest but I can't really tell. Nest material has stopped appearing in my bedroom so I figure the final nest is built now. Nancy was convinced they had murdered the house sparrows and used them for nesting material, but I only found one sparrow feather and I don't think the starlings are capable of delivering a blow that would dispatch a house sparrow anyway. I saw an ad for a remote video camera specifically designed for outdoor use at bird feeders and I briefly thought of adding a "starling cam" to this site, but that would fill up the disk pretty darn quickly. Besides, I'd rather spend the money on either the long dreamed of Antarctica trip or a new still camera - the trusty Pentax makes really weird grinding noises when the lens retracts and the door won't close on the film compartment unless I whack it. The pictures still come out ok though. later that same day... I bestirred myself to go pick up my wash (as opposed to the drycleaning) at Cleancraft only to discover it wasn't ready! Tomorrow he says. Grrr. I'm feeling singularly ineffective today. |
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