you got to go to the lonesome valley - you got to go there by yourself - nobody else can go for you - you got to go there by yourself

I spent the entire day yesterday traveling. It's an interesting thing to watch the human dynamics of travel. The shuttle bus and both planes that I took were completely full, every seat occupied, and yet people, despite rubbing elbows with the person next to them, remain almost entirely in their own world. Given an empty bus, everyone getting on will take a seat to themselves first before the doubling up begins. Or, as I did, you can be flying for eight hours and never even speak to the individual beside you.
For the second flight I was in the very last row, aisle seat, next to two girls who must have been best friends. The one, tall, blond, covered in a small El Dorado of gold jewelry. A ring or two on every finger, three earrings in each ear, eight necklaces of descending length, and bracelets up to the elbows on both arms. The other, short, dark-haired, accessorized in silver and black in approximately the same density as her companion. They both chewed gum, wetly and loudly, without pause, and never spoke a word.

Farmer's Almanac "Best Days", August 2004


• Bake 18, 20, 25-27
• Can Fruits and Vegetables 2-4, 12-14, 30, 31
• Dry Fruits and Vegetables 5, 6
• Jams and Jellies 1, 7-9, 29
• Cut Firewood 15-28
• Cut Hair 1-4, 19, 20, 23, 24, 28-31
• Mow to Increase Growth 15-28
• Mow to Retard Growth 1-14, 29-31
• Castrate Farm Animals 1-4, 23-31
• Harvest 7-14
• Prune Trees 25-27
• Wean 1-4, 23-31
• Hunt 15-22
• Fish Mornings: 23, 24 Evenings: 11-15
• Quit a Habit or Smoking 1, 5, 6, 10, 11, 29

i am not your rolling wheels - i am the highway - i am not your carpet ride - i am the sky - i am not your blowing wind - i am the lightning - i am not your autumn moon - i am the night

this machine will not communicate - these thoughts and the strain I am under

Feeling like a very small person in a very big world.

he said i'm tellin' you - that science has proved - heartaches are healed by the sea

i know my world is better than it seems - and i try to be content with everything - but even knowing doesn't stop your heart from feeling

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon".

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10.You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Now isn't that a comforting trend?

Curious to think that less than a week remains before I once again switch coasts and cease to be a government peon, returning to my even less glamorous role as a university peon instead. The semester from hell approaches and I face it armed with a somewhat depleted summer salary and a questionable new old vehicle, on whose account I shall also have to make a small pilgrimage to rural New York before I go. Adventures.

Digression:
Call no man happy until he is dead.
~Herodotus
Now what did he mean by that? That only after death can we finally heave a great sigh of relief and rest for a while, that death is to be preferred to life, or more cheerfully perhaps that the sum of a man's life should not be judged until it is over and all the facts are in? Running on four hours of sleep I'm inclined to empathize with the first, but that irritatingly optimistic side of my cynical brain is telling me that the third might be the more philosophical way to go.
End of digression.

Even after ten weeks I still have not gotten used to the manifest lack of water in this part of the country. Last night, as I was staring out the darkened window with one eye and keeping the other on the game of Hearts on my computer screen, all I could think of was how much I wished it would start raining. Right then, no delay. A bronchial rumble of thunder, and then the spatter and tap of raindrops against the leaves of the tree outside and the vinyl siding. Alas, the powers that be decided not to grant my wish, but it made me think nonetheless. I have also drunk more water since I have been out here, and the banal nature of my work has driven me to resurrect some of my more creative pastimes. I need water in a more than physical sense - the mind needs a good shower before green things will grow again.
I dreamt about Eoh the other night. Of all the things and people at home, at the school, and elsewhere, I dream of a 2000-pound Percheron. However, rationality is not a large part of the subconscious, at least not to the conscious mind, and so it doesn't particularly bother me to have dreamt of riding an iron gray Rock of Ages. With white eyelashes. And a head larger than my torso. The stylish carthorse.
I have to prepare an outline for and put the final touches on my final presentation today, as well as write an abstract for the small War and Peace of a report that goes with it. I pity the poor person who has to read it, though we're told the likelihood of anyone actually picking it up is slim, so perhaps my pity is best spent elsewhere. As a deliverable and proof that I did something this summer it is rather misleading in its heftiness. But don't tell anyone that.

now daddy don't you ask her when she's comin' home - and when she's back don't ask her where she's been, oh no - she's going out - she's got a young man waiting

i heard the voices of friends vanished and gone - at night i could hear the blood in my veins - just as black and whispering as the rain - on the streets of philadelphia