The Future Ms. Ascanius had a roommate when she was in rehab (of the physical therapy kind, not the drug kind) after the accident that left her a paraplegic. A truly lovely 40-something New Jersey Italian lady who suffered a high level spinal chord injury falling from a horse. We got to know this woman and her husband, Eddie, pretty well in the months we were there. I got an apartment near the place, so I was there all day every day, but Eddie lived about an hour away and worked in the City to boot. so he had plenty of driving to do, but he still came every night after work. This was a couple of years ago, and this lady has regained a lot of function. She can walk without braces and drive, even though she is a quadriplegic. Well, I found out today that Eddie just died due to a ruptured artery as a complication of leukemia. He's been sick for a couple of months. A couple of damned months. What can you really say to that? How can things go so wrong so quickly for one family, particularly such a truly good family? My reaction is not an emotional one, since I only knew Eddie in passing, but the cosmic injustice of it all sort of sticks in the craw. I've been called a pessimist, but pessimism is not without its up sides, so at a time like this let's just be glad that the things we suffer through, as bad as they are, could always be worse, and I'll be keeping Eddie and his wife and daughter in my heart.

I fell asleep with an adiobook version of Dune playing last night and I dreamed all morning of ambushing Harkonnen from a mountainside. It was pretty fantastic.

The summer after I graduated from college I traveled around a bit working a little and traveling a little. Well, friends, Arkansas was about the worst place I ever saw but I ran out of money and gas there and so I found a job working on a farm there. I worked for a few long, hard, hot days, but I didn't like the farmer, nor the farmers wife, nor the food, nor the work, nor none of his children, so I say, "mister, you can pay me off right now; I think it's time I traveled on."
"Well, if that's the way you feel about it, son."
"That's the way I feel about it."
So, I'll be damned if that farmer didn't hand me three mink skins. "Hell, brother, I don't want these. I want my money."
"This is what we use for currency here in Arkansas", he says.
So, I go to the local bar to spend some of my hard earned hides and I say to the bartender, "bartender, how about a pint of the darkest beer you've got."
After I finish my Rolling Rock I hand him one of these mink skins I've got. He takes it, blows the fur back, and opens up a chest he's got back there behind the bar, and damned if he doesn't hand me a raccoon hide, a rabit hide, and a couple of squirrel pelts for change.

I dated a red-headed girl for a couple of months in college. We didn't talk much. We didn't have a whole lot in common. Really just a love of red meat, horror movies and a vague mutual attraction. So, she'd come over, we'd grill up some steal, watch a movie and make out. It was fun for a while, but it certainly wasn't going anywhere, so I called it off.

My fiance eats like a bird and I lost my cast iron grill in a car accident. She won't watch horror movies; they give her nightmares. But she's flying out here on Friday and I couldn't be more excited.

Does anybody know where heijoshin went? Is he coming back any time soon?

In other news, I rented a cabin for next year starting mid August. It's gorgeous and I can't wait to live there. That stove is fully functional!

Good God almighty, I feel like I just slept through World War One, static alliances, entrenched positions, poison gas and all.


I am very, very, very sorry to see Zarth go. When I was making the blog rounds rounds just now, I felt his absence the way you feel the absence of a pulled tooth when you run your tongue through your mouth. No big deal until you notice it, then a blank spot you can't stop returning to. But, and forgive me for saying this, it seems like he was in the thick of every flame war that's been going on here for months. I guess his enmity just caught up with him. As important as his presence here was to me, it seems like this might be a good thing for him in the long run. From some of his journal entries it seemed like his outside life could use a little maintenance.

Anyway, what the hell do I know about it. I'm just sad to see him go is all.

Things are going pretty well for me these days. I drastically scaled back my course load and that's helped me focus on the classes I'm taking. I've also really started to settle in to my place here at the new school and amongst the friends I've made.

My dad was home from the Caribbean for the weekend so I drove back to upstate NY. I bought a pair of .22 rifles a couple weeks ago and my dad, my best friend and I shot the hell out of some beer cans. We did a little snow shoeing, too. There was also a contra dance festival in town, so my buddy and I got to do a little banjo playing with some old time musicians in town for that. We met a women who was playing a banjo made by one of my old banjo teachers, so that was kind of neat.

Anyway, my best to you all. Hope your outside lives have been more tranquil than your internet lives.

I forgot to mention the most exciting thing. I got to see the Magnetic Fields live in North Hampton, MA last week. It was amazing. It took me six hours round trip to get there, in a blizzard no less, but it was 100% worth it thanks to my new snow tires. They played the whole show acoustic. It was really cool to hear the stuff off the new album (which is called Distortion and lives up to its name) played on the bouzouki, And they were very personable. At one point the ladies in the band started spontaneously singing Nancy Griffith songs, much to everyone's surprise. And Stephin Merritt is a tiny, tiny man. He sits on a bar stool when he's up on stage so he looks normal, but when he gets down you see that he's really like three feet tall.

I also forgot to mention I had the craziest dream last night. I fell asleep with the Descent dvd in. After the movie ended it cut to the menu and started playing the creepy trogloditic sounds the monsters make. I incorporated that sound into my dream. I dreamt I was walking with my father down some sort of covered pier. It was fairly busy and commercial like that pier in San Francisco. We found a lady who had a hive of bumble bees producing honey into some sort of plastic frame. I hear you saying "but, bumble bees don't form hives or much honey." Well, the plastic frame and special breeding was somehow designed to encourage both these behaviors. They were not healthy bees, however. Their elongated limbs kept getting stuck in the honey and breaking off. It was not healthy either. It was simultaneously thicker and less sweet then it should have been and it was a little like vaseline going down. The woman was not healthy either. She had syphilitic sores all over her face and she kept making the clicking sounds of the troglodytes from the movie. I woke up in a mild state of alarm.

Hi.

Happy new year, folks.