Journal of a Sabbatical

June 4, 2001

modular

Today's Reading: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bird, Summer from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, An Exhilaration of Wings edited by Jen Hill

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pedro Martinez

I finally tried to fix the fence today. The condo association is apparently not going to recover damages from the plowing contractor so I have to fix it myself. I thought it would be easy. Just push it back into place, nail some scrap lumber over the back of the broken crosspieces, and be done with it. Ha! I couldn't budge it. I banged and hammered and shoved and kicked and could not cause the uprights to be upright and the slats back in place. Of course, all the while I feared that Busy Body would notice me outside and come over to resume harassment but then I realized she wasn't home thank goodness. Anyway, I finally gave up on the fence, resolving to call a fencing contractor tomorrow.

Thwarted by the fence, I figured I'd go a second round with the vicious and persistent bittersweet and sumac. The weed destruction thing's engine seized. As I walked back from throwing it in the dumpster, the Russian Speaking Dog tried to give me a stick to play fetch with. Off to Home Depot for another one. Mowed down some tall grass, some of the sumac, and almost none of the bittersweet. It's all tangled around itself so thickly already that the weed destruction device can't penetrate it. Darn! It is now dark. Going out there with a saw in my hand in the dark is a bad idea. The weeds will have to await the morrow also. Who knows if I'll be this motivated tomorrow?

I've got a ton of unfinished projects going on all over the place. I'm rearranging my books in these modular cube book boxes I bought at this funky used bookstore in Central Square. The guy makes book shelves and these cubes in several sizes.

My idea was to buy a couple of the cubes every Thursday when I go to Central Square for my meeting and organize two cubes' worth of books every week. I even had some bizarre notion that most subject categories would fit in one box. Ha!

The Merrimack River category takes up two boxes already, one of which is mostly Whittier. So far ducks and gulls fit in one box, but I haven't sorted through all the bird books yet. Nor the Japan books, which haven't made it near a box yet. Do I put Birds of Japan with birds or with Japan?

Birds of Hungary is in the Hungarian box along with my motley collection of postmodern intertextual Hungarian literature, books about Budapest, Kossuth in New England, Angol-Magyar/Magyar-Angol dictionary, and Fenyok a Fold Korul. That last one led me to arrange the dendrology module to be next to the Hungarian module.

Does Kossuth in New England belong with the Merrimack River collection because he visited Lowell, with Thoreau because Thoreau mentions Kossuth's Lowell visit in his journal, with Emerson because Emerson edited it? Inquiring minds want to know. I think I'll leave it with Hungarians.

Decisions, decisions.

Gee, and this entry was originally going to be about the joy of operating systems development. Maybe another time.

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