For the Duration: Buddy, You Know the Drill

Ground saturated slush and rain melt refreeze melt re: we knew the trails shared with dirt bikers deep suck your boot off mud, we drove to Falls and MacArthur to find where we park barking with No Parking signs and nobody parked there

Intersection blind from all three directions and for all moving objects, hikers, joggers, dog-walkers, bikers, cars, cars 45ing in a 25, cars backing out of parking after hiking with bikers and cars 45ing

People parked on MacArthur on the left as soon as you make the left from Falls (or on the right uphill from Old Anglers before the right onto Falls) (which has the stop sign but half-blind to bikers and cars uphilling from the parking lots for people not doing the hikes people park at the top of this hill are) on county, not Fed, property

The hike: Gold Mine counter-clockwise to Valley to (very briefly, 1000 feet, if that) Anchor to Woodlands to Goldmine, Valley Woodlands a permanent seat on My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game of mile and a halfs, slays me every time, Earthgirl can vouch, you can see for yourself with or without me, and winter and wet and grey

 

Before the plague regulars horizontal parked on MacArthur so could pull out into traffic and see objects coming toward them from front and back

but when woods filled with people who would rather die of plague than EVER AGAIN walk in the woods (this is good for me) began parking MacArthur sideways and it stuck, at least six more cars slot sideways than length-wise, it killed the easement, added thousands of feet more erosion and degradation, people spinning mud to back out into a dangerous intersection with multiple blind spots and moving targets

I remember one serious enough wreck (when people horizont0led) to make mention to doink my lodge but won’t hazard when, at least a decade ago, one lazy google search page one disclosed no secrets

The gated mini-Versailles direct on right on MacArthur and direct on right once turned right on Falls of a sudden on sale, it’s a metaphor worth noting though fuck you not fine if slappy standard abounding and connected

If I removed your blindfold a hundred yards into the woods and you walked down Valley then across Woodlands you’d never know you’re a mile and a half (on foot, half a mile as Crow flies) from shitlord self-Versailles and shitlord Versailles laundromats, fine metaphors abound

Identity politics	Mars is a hell hole	America: killing easy, helping hard	Bullshit spoken in an assertive tone
Crossword politics	Affair Teera Nandon	Fuck - and I can't over-emphasize this enough - you		The next US president
Elric Seven is sixty today, I don't	think he visits but if you're here, happies	The third plague wave	Privatizing Emotions	Awfulsome Truth
Maggies's weekly links	Paul = evil	The Paul you thought I meant isn't evil, just yawnier than John	Bigger cages, smarter bombs	To the core
Howard Nemerov, born February 29, 1920, here's the centennial post			{ feuilleton }'s weekly links	Sasha V Beloved's Chapter Two

THE AUTHOR TO HIS BODY ON THEIR FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY, 29 ii 80

Howard Nemerov

Dear old equivocal and closest friend,

Grand Vizier to a weak bewildered king,

Now we approach The Ecclesiastean Age

Where the heart is like to go off inside your chest

Like a party favor, or the brain blow a fuse

And the comic-book light-bulb of Idea black out

Forever, the idiot balloon of speech

Go blank, and we shall know, if it be knowing,

The world as it was before language once again;

Mighty Fortress, maybe already mined

And readying to blow up grievances

About the lifetime of your servitude,

The body of this death one talkative saint

Wanted to be delivered of (not yet!),

Aggressively asserting your ancient right

To our humiliation by the bowel

Or the rough justice of the elderly lecher’s

Retiring from this incontinence to that;

Dark horse, it’s you we’ve put the money on

Regardless, the parody and satire and

The nevertheless forgiveness of the soul

Or mind, self, spirit, will or whatever else

The ever-unknowable unknown is calling itself

This time around—shall we renew our vows?

How should we know by now how we might do

Divorced? Homely animal, in sickness and health,

For the duration; buddy, you know the drill.