The temperature here this morning at 8 a.m.: 40 degrees. I would complain, but fog gave way to a beautiful Friday, and the lying bastards in the weather biz came through on their promise of a warm, golden early-autumn day. On the other hand, the fact that it's Friday again (and September!) is genuinely disorienting, but I'm not going there.
And sometime during the last couple of days I stumbled across a bit of Sophia Coppola's film The Virgin Suicides on the tube, a sequence at a high school dance predominated by the song Strange Magic. A tune which immediately burrowed its way into my teeny little brain and took control of my inner soundtrack, playing itself over and over, at times eating up a whole lot of RAM, if you know what I mean. Not a song I would voluntarily play here in my living space. I may have to crank up a bunch of loud, ill-mannered music to exorcise it.
It's been a strange, languid, peaceful week, the days slipping by, the season taking a definite turn toward autumn -- nights colder, angle of the sun different, songbirds long gone, darkness falling noticeably earlier. Me drifting through my little life, pleased with my lot. Slowly gearing up for a trip across the border into Québec. Sometimes lapsing into productivity, sometimes not.
On the productive-comportment side of that equation, I ordered a bunch of pine doors to replace some cheapass, butt-ugly hollow-core jobbies installed by unknown previous owners of this house. Six of the seven were delivered today, one has already been plugged into its new home. An hour and half of labor that reminded all over again of one of my more entertaining dichotomies: I am, in many ways, Mr. Tranquil, drifting through my life in obnoxiously serene fashion, unperturbed by most stuff. Happy, for the most part. Put me in a situation, though, where an inanimate object doesn't want to cooperate with me, I am capable of becoming Mr. Primal Impulse -- shouting, swearing, letting the angst flow. A therapeutic instant of madcap emotion aimed at something that could care less -- the energy gets discharged, I feel immediately better and get on with whatever needs getting on.
Probably not a very attractive moment (and I pray that no such moments have been caught on video), but what the hell. These days I'm more prepared to simply let things out as they come up, things that may strike others as either positive or negative, depending. Much healthier than the tendencies toward repression of my earlier years.
But most of the time, as I've already
I heard the buzzing of nearby insects as I worked, a normal sound for this time of year, that kind of afternoon. The air is alive with flying critters, when the light is right you can see them everywhere. It's a sound that feels benign to me and made little impact. As I began gathering the last few pieces of glass, something about the sound began to register -- the fact that it kept coming and going, close by, without pause. At some point, I looked up and noticed yellowjackets cruising around, lots of them, realized the buzzing came from them, making close passes by my head and body. I noticed an opening at the base of the wall, saw some disappearing into it, others emerging. A nest, less than two feet from where I'd been working. They were clearly aware of me but let me be. And for now I've let them be. When the cold weather arrives, I'll see about clearing them out.
Mr. Tranquil, hangin' out with the yellowjackets.
And all of a sudden, it's Labor Day weekend. I sincerely have no idea how the hell that happened, and when I think about how quickly the last two and a half months have galloped by it feels a little creepy. So I'm not thinking about it very much.
On to the weekend.
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Stenciled on a concrete block at the edge of a vacant lot -- Montpelier, VT:
Madrid, te echo de menos.
rws 1:16 PM [+]
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