untitled

i will never forget your face
shadowed in half-light
at the bar last night
and how you drew back your head
to laugh.
your words
slipped in so easily
--- i never felt their sting.
i will always remember your face
as you paused in neon
by the door
and left off
smiling
when you saw their venom work.
~kate~

january 31, 2008

this is my computer monitor on drugs. i am trying to read a post at vandwellers, but the image is blinking like....well, like neon in a tom waits song. it gives me a headache. what will really give me a headache is if i fall over backwards outta my chair and smack my head on the woodstove.

i got wood from the shed where it got split by the rental splitter. my friends mike and laura did that for me for a solstice present :-) the pile on my porch is almost used up, so i had to transport wood in the john deere over to the front yard, where i use my trusty axe to split it down smaller for the stove (my cooking splits i call them). it seems like alot of labor intensive steps sometimes. it would be so much easier to live in the shed.

i used to haul it back and forth in my wheelbarrow, but that got a flat tire. it was almost nicer that way....quieter. and i'm not so inclined to knock off parts of the porch as i have been known to do with the bucket loader.

i went to the post office to ship something to a friend, and a hat i sold yesterday (my first etsy sale YES!). while there, i asked them if i could have one of the extra phone books to use for firestarters. they have been shipping a bag of them a day to the landfill, so they had me back the rondyvan around the side and gave me all of them! they will make a lifetimes worth of firestarters.

internet blues

i am at the library. i am having internet access and monitor problems. i am switching service providers, and will then see what problems still remain. i've been using the cheapest, slowest isp, but now with needing reliable access for ebay and etsy to generate income, not to mention blogging, change is due.

i am a hot person. i don't even own a winter coat, i just layer long johns and some fleece zip t's depending on the weather. it's great for winter camping or living in alaska, but it limits me in social situations where people use heat. humans keep their buildings too warm...... 5 minutes in this place and i'm uncomfortable. i have removed as much clothing as i can and still be legal, so i'm not going to stay and try to do any blogging like i intended.

i will be back soon, with a blog about border crossings, and how tara came to be my hero. thanks to all of you for your comment love :-) and i will be having some responses to specific questions.

kate

p.s. can't do pictures at the library, so how about a song for the day......"man who sold the world" sung by jordis unga. she's got a voice that hurts my heart.

van pics

someone requested some pics of the van. these will have to do until i get some better ones. i am in the process of "remodeling", which is tara's fault. she got me started by reversing her passenger seat. but then, our mobile dwellings are always a work in progress....

untold stories

sometimes my mind is boggled by the number of untold stories out there in the world.

for instance, this morning i was up early and on the road to an appointment north on the interstate. i've got this miserable muscle spasm in my shoulder from an old neck injury sustained when i fell out of a tree. i don't know what i did to aggravate it, except that i'm navigating a little inner turmoil, so that probably accounts for it.

anyhow, i'm heading up the interstate, directly towards one of the worst sections of I-81 in pennsylvania for traffic and construction and delays. i don't want to be late, but i don't have enough water with me to heat up and put in my platypus water bottle, so at the last minute, i take the exit to the walmart. i'll grab one of those stick-on heat patches for my neck.

leaving the walmart, i see this little sign on the ground, and i am transfixed. i have to waste further time to go get my camera from the rondyvan and take a picture. i mean, what's up with that?

"FAT ASSHOLE I AM"

even funnier, is when i bend over to take the pic, i realize it's written on one of those individually packaged sanitary napkins. i would love to know what inspired this baby billboard on the pavement, and how we both came to be there just when i needed a good laugh.

serendipity, i guess.

ghost words

never listen to the ghost-words
that rise unbidden
just when you think
you've raised your head
and cleansed your heart for the last time.
the love died
thinning out into nothingness
so slowly that you never heard it's last breath...
but the words went out howling
echoing off the emptines,
vowing to return...
i think they never really left.
never listen to the ghost-words
relentless, ugly echoes
from a time when nothing measured up to anything
but you never thought to question the surveyor...
in the end, it was he who came up short.
~kate~