michaelboy

Two things I'm conscientious about on a daily basis: making money and exercising.

I had to sign an ADA for the latest revenue-generating scheme, and the gig has no security: It could end tomorrow or maybe even after dinner tonight! (True of freelance writing, too, of course.)

But the work itself is so entertaining, I sometimes have a hard time pulling myself away from it. My years and years of Photoshop expertise finally paying off! And also a certain facility for what one might call imagination-casting, I suppose. I can make the nut in four hours a day—but I can also make extra. Ya gotta cut hay while the sun shines! I tell myself. True dat, but it does eat into time allocated to the Work in Progress.

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I've increased my exercise tolerance: I'm now tromping three miles a day and will shortly return to the gym again to start working on upper-body strength. This was the year I finally started looking old to myself. No idea whether that's a real change or morbid self-consciousness. (I mean, I'm 74, of course I should look old.) I'm not talking wrinkles or crepe neck; I'm talking about the way my eyes seem to sink into their suddenly gaunt sockets: My face looks positively skull-like. Of course, I lost about 10 lbs working for Schlock, and as is always the case, I didn't lose it in my belly (where frankly I could afford to lose it); I lost it in my face and arms.

And there's also my clothes. I take an impish, almost perverse pleasure in dressing like a bag lady. (God knows why. I have an excellent eye for fashion.) But in the wake of all that weight loss, my pants are actually sagging, I have a hard time keeping them up. I look like some sort of low-rent rap star wannabe, MC Patty TaxBwana! Good grooming is a significator of mental health— as without, so within—so I really need to spruce up my image.

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This has been a bad time for farmers and gardeners in the quaint and scenic Hudson Valley. About two weeks ago, during a brief run of 80° temps, all the fruit trees burst into blossom. Literally two days later, nighttime temperatures plummeted into the 20°s. The fruit blossoms' delicate pistils froze, which probably means that there won't be any apples, peaches, or cherries in the Hudson Valley this year. The celebratory marigolds and strawberries I planted died, too. Fortunately, I didn't plant very many of them.

It's still dropping into the 30°s at night here. Not frost, but difficult for tender seedlings. But by next week, we should be moving into night-time 40°s, and I'll plant some more. I sowed some peas along the fence two weeks ago—peas are hardy, cold-weather plants—but only a few of them sprouted. Peas and lettuce are the only things I grow from seeds. Usually, I buy baby plants from the nurseries—though this year, I scored a bunch of Roma tomato seedlings from a lady on Facebook.

In the meantime, I'm cleaning up my plot. Weeding, replacing the winter straw ground cover with wood chips. Nettles in particular seem to thrive in coolish weather, so it is a lot of work that involves much ferrying of laden wheelbarrels over long distances. (The New Paltz Community Garden is huge.) Ferrying laden wheelbarrels is hard on the back.

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Dolores (not her real name), the lady who gifted me the seedlings, is a very nice lady struggling to maintain sobriety by posting on the New Paltz Page on Facebook 30 times a day, attempting to rally what she calls Community (with a capital C). She gives away seedlings, she gives away baked goods, she solicits donations on behalf of the battered cats who show up regularly at her door. She lives in what was once one of those old Dutch stone houses. Was there a fire? The house seems to have been extensively rebuilt, but that was a while ago. It has very low ceilings and very small rooms. I borrowed it to be Neal's house in the Work in Progress.

I could tell Dolores would be happy to hang out, but I don't want to hang out with her, I don't want to hang out with anyone. I've fully embraced my solitude; I no longer feel isolated. Talking to other people right now is an effort.

Quiet couple of days. (One might, of course, say every day is quiet.) I dashed off 500 new words on the Work in Progress. I have no idea whether the words are any good, but they are out there, at least. They have an existence apart from my imagination.

Ichabod annoyed me slightly a few weeks back by remarking (words to the effect) that it wasn't as though I could be writing with any idea that my writing was going to go anywhere, right? I wasn't thinking of publication and an audience, was I? I was writing because it was fun!

This miffed me, but I let it pass.

But when the subject came up again in yesterday's phone call, I interrupted him: "Writing is not a pastime the same way teaching yourself how to play the guitar is. It's not particularly fun unless you're writing well. And if you're doing it well, of course, you're thinking about publication and an audience."

I mean, Ichabod knows I published a lot of nonfiction back in the day, some of it in fairly reputable venues. He's even read selected pieces. I was—well... not offended. But disappointed that all he thinks I'm doing is playing air guitar.

Although it's quite true that neither of my children have ever been deeply interested in anything I write.

I suspect they may feel threatened by it in some way.

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Shawangunk Dems' semiannual roadside trash pickup was yesterday. Scary how many empty vodka flasks I picked up—in a relatively residential neighborhood, too. I began to think it isn't such a bad deal after all, that I can't won't drive after dark.

First time I'd done any Shawangunk Dems-related activities in quite a while. Adrienne reassigned the website administration. She didn't think I was updating it often enough. Well, you can't update a website if you don't have content to update it with, and despite numerous cheery email requests—Send me your photos of the St. Patrick's Day Parade!—nobody was sending me any pix. Less scut work for me is always a good thing, but Adrienne's dictatorialness was annoying, so when she sent me an email beseeching me to join her campaign for Shawanagunk legislative representative, I ignored it.

Picking up trash, though. Always a good thing. So, I showed up. I partnered with Marge, who is an awfully nice person, one of those rare people who actually listens to what other people say without interposing irrelevant asides from her own resume.

We had to make a detour to Marge's house, an honest-to-God log cabin in the middle of a dank forest. Very dark. I met her husband! Very dour. And I felt a deep wave of sympathy for Marge: Wait! You spent 40 years having to live here & having to be married to him? Maybe I'm better off than I think I am.

After trash picking up, I did a bunch of errands, and then dropped by Stephen W's garage sale. He and his wife are leaving the quaint & scenic Hudson Valley for a senior citizen facility in Cleveland.

Stephen W. was the coordinator for one of the TaxBwana sites I volunteered at last year. Nicest guy in the world. We made several long car rides together during my tenure during which we had conversations intimate enough to give me the complete 360° on his life—the little boy who grew up in Brooklyn dreaming of being an aviator, the astigmatism that prevented him from flying, the subsequent military reassignment to logistics, the subsequent career in logistics with the City of New York, the disastrous first marriage, the son who essentially committed suicide by eating himself to death, the drug-addled granddaughter who desperately wants him to save her but whom he can't save because the second wife would object—

At the time of those car rides, I distinctly remember thinking, He & I were close in some previous life.

I suppose that's why I felt compelled to say goodbye to him in this life.

And I think he felt it, too.

Because he reached out very awkwardly and hugged me.

Now, Stephen W. is not a hugging type of guy, and there was nothing in our previous interactions that might seem to warrant casual hugging.

But those past-life connections are impossible not to acknowledge.

Maybe I am getting my writing mojo back. Maybe.

On the drive to the upscale supermarket in Middletown late yesterday afternoon, I could feel the words clicking into place like metal filings against a magnet: I bought it so I could save it...polluting the local cripple creeks... (Why "cripple"? 'Cause I was listening to The Band.)

Driving is good for that. It often puts me into a semi-fugue state.

And beyond that, I could feel the ideas drifting across my mind, like a time-lapse animation of clouds on a windy day: The opening paragraph will include Flavia explaining why she bought the Catskills property and a brief imagined history of Riggsville, the paragraph after that will explore Neal's introversion, and the one after that will set up the tension between Flavia and Mimi when Mimi starts twisting Flavia's arm because Mimi wants to move into the cabin. Much of Flavia's section explores her guilt over being so fabulously wealthy when her friends and acquaintances are all struggling, so it's a good idea to set that up early.

I was going to make Daria Part 2. But whatever ideas and momentum I had for that Part 2 evaporated in the three months I spent toiling in the Schlock tax mines.

Flavia has a much clearer narrative arc: Rich girl/recovering Daddy's little angel doesn't know what to do with herself -> dabbles in architecture school (Pratt) -> develops a cocaine habit -> meets Neal -> gets saved from cocaine habit ->has intense physical relationship with Neal (lotsa sex scenes!) -> Neal dies -> feels obligation to take care of Mimi, the most obnoxious and helpless of the Sister Wives.

I'm still not sure what Daria's narrative arc is. Something having to do with the many languages she speaks, the linguistic pastiche inside her head. But I'm hampered in that, since really, I only speak English. How am I going to get inside the head of someone who exists in multiple linguistic dimensions? Now I won't have to for another couple of months!

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Other than that...

For some reason, I slept poorly last night. No idea why. I did not feel anxious; I was sufficiently exercised, and I was tired. But there didn't seem to be any pathway down into unconsciousness.

So, this morning, I'm feeling clunky and vaguely headachey. Bilgy tummy, too!

I did have plans to go off to New Paltz and garden. The issue with the New Paltz community garden, though, is that it's so vast that wheelbarrowing pulled-up weeds, raked winter ground cover, and such involves transversing significant distances, and I'm not sure I'm up for physical work on just five hours sleep.

They'll be turning the water on at the beginning of May. I have to wrestle with my garden hose! Unlike the Hyde Park Community Garden, the New Paltz Community Garden makes each gardener get their own individual hose. My plot is a good 30 feet away from the spigot, so there are actual logistics to be calculated in the use of said hose.

Meanwhile, seen yesterday on my tromp through the Harried Plateau:



I wanna foster-parent a beehive!!!!