First Cranial Nerve
Spring is, perhaps, the most brutal of all the seasons. Hot sun thaws the earth for a minute, and everything seems possible—and then suddenly. raw wind rips away all hope.
It's not my favorite season, but I kinda think it smells the best. Spring buds smell all fresh and green like the cold water that fed them. Cut grass makes you dizzy. Pollen wafts in pungent clouds through the breeze, floating straight past your nasal membrane and on into your brain cave ...
The First of Many
The older I get, the more clear I become about who my real friends are. So .. this one's for Lefty—part Newfie, part shepherd, all homey...Happy birthday!
So, you may ask, has dogsville changed my life at all in the past year? Hell yeah it has. Filthy car. Hair tumbleweeds in every corner. Poop, as a kind of looming, ever-present presence. And yet ... pure, unadulterated, unconditional love.
Kitchen threshold—hands down, still his fave spot to lay around. He just takes up a little more room now.
Thug life.
Back when he was all claws and teeth.
As guard dogs go, he's not the fiercest, but he keeps an eye on everything in his own way.
Lettin it hang out on the cool tile, what could be better?
First hike. Big Left gets his own water bottle.
Nabbed by the paparazzi at a party.
First snow! Many nips and snarfs, to be sure.
Awkward teen phase.
How Nature Is
"The true essence, the secret recipe of the forest and the light and the dark was far too fine and subtle to be observed with my blunt eye—water sac and nerves, miracle itself, fine itself: light catcher. But the thing itself is not the forest and light and dark, but something else scattered by my coarse gaze, by my dumb intention. The quilt of leaves and light and shadow and ruffling breezes might part and I'd be given a glimpse of what is on the other side; a stitch might work itself loose or be worked loose. The weaver might have made one bad loop in the foliage of a sugar maple by the road and that one loop of whatever the thread might be wound from—light, gravity, dark from stars—had somehow been worked loose by the wind in its constant worrying of white buds and green leaves and blood-and-orange leaves and bare branches and two of the pieces of whatever it is that this world is knit from had come loose from each other and there was maybe just a finger width's hole, which I was lucky enough to spot in the glittering leaves ... and nimble enough to scale the silver trunk and brave enough to poke my finger into the tear, that might offer to the simple touch a measure of tranquillity or reassurance."
Thoreau mighta said this, but he didn't—Paul Harding did.
The Sick Report
Two days worth of the flu, and no one to take care of me. :(
Sweat and then shivered, all night.
Let hair turn into nest for small animals. Didn't care.
Willed myself to the dog park, for Lefty's sake.
Dragged my pillow out to the couch and made a little fort, from where I watched Rango, The Tale of Despereaux, and the Ken Burns doc about Lewis and Clark.
Went into work and spread germs around to the skaters of Portland.
Outstagram
They released Instagram for Androids last week, and just like that, I'm on it—after months of pining. I'll be honest, though, it hasn't really enhanced the quality of my life like I thought it might, and I don't know, there's something inauthentic about seeing the world and your experiences in terms of Instagram posts. Then again, want to follow me?
