It’s Wanderlust Sunday.

 

Lust? That sounds terrible.

 

On my desktop are some songs I’d really like to share with you. Happy Family from the King Crimson Lizard album, for instance. When I click on the album in my library this review of it drops down. Who reviewed it? I didn’t review it. Goodness. There’s some anonymous reviewer prowling the Internet. According to that fellow, Lizard was strongly influenced by Miles Davis Sketches of Spain. Oh really?

 

The song is supposed to be about The Beatles. Who cares? Don’t ruin it for me. I’d upload it, but they’ll just cut it down to 30 seconds.

 

 

Well, it’s a blessedly beautiful day. The sun is shining, and in the sun it’s warm, despite the breeze. For me it’s a flip-flop day. Sure – anything over 40.

 

It’s one of those get-out-and-go-and-do-something days. My mother would have had us cleaning up the yard. I got out. I went. But I can’t go far enough. Eventually my coffee maker starts calling me back. I am on a long tether attached to a coffee maker.

 

We had a tether ball when I was young. It was out in the yard. We didn’t really have a lawn. We had grass here and there, wherever it wanted to be. It was a woodsy area.

 

This coffee sure is good.

 

I had a meltdown the other day. What day was it? – Thursday. I was driving back from the last job of the day, the White Tornado beside me. I had managed to extract several tracks from one of those whole album downloads I mentioned earlier – you know how you get the whole album and it comes out all one long track? Well, Monsterbox was here – oh – months ago, and he grabbed me a couple of recorder/mixer programs out of the electronic ether, and of course it’s taken me this long to learn how to use them.

 

Visions of the Emerald Beyond, baby – oh I can’t tell you what that album does for me. OK, for those of you who are not exactly hip to 70’s Jazz fusion that’s the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Does that help? No. But anyhoo, I pulled the bit out of the middle with the birdsong and the violin cadenza, and I got a couple of segued songs un-segued. (I know it’s not a word.) And there’s this one point in between instrumental assaults which features a sudden female vocal sounding like she’s flying – or, it makes you feel like you’re flying, or something – kind of like a movie soundtrack for a film that could never be made. But it’s sublime.

 

 

 

It’s pre-sexual for me. I was 12, thinking about sex. I would think about how wonderful it would be. I would think it has to be so wonderful it’s even more wonderful than this song by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. It wasn’t.

 

Oh that’s right – Thursday. We were on our way home, as I mentioned, and I was talking, she was listening. I was saying – and I don’t remember how it got started – that now it was spring the roads were opening up again, and I could drive.

 

Now, Elizabeth knows I love to drive. She knows I take long drives, day trips to Nowhere, Everywhere, and Wherever. She knows I am most at home behind the wheel of a car, listening to music.

 

The Mahavishnu Orchestra was playing.

 

I said, One day I’ll just keep going and never stop until I find the place for me. And somewhere there’s a house, an old house with peeling paint, and old cars in the front yard, and a fire pit in the back yard, the rusted remains of an old swing set. The people who live there go barefoot all the time, and time is frozen. It is summer. The girls wear dresses and they don’t have any jewelry. It smells of nag champa, wood smoke, flowers, pot, and there’s always good music playing. And they say, “Come stay with us forever and ever,” and we’ll have a fire every blessed night and listen to the crickets.

 

And whenever I take a drive I wish that I could drive forever. And I go by houses that look like that, and I wonder – is it this one? Is it that one? Is it coming up over the next hill? And the hills are endless. I’m in no hurry. I want to go home, you see. I get so tired…I want to go home and be with them, people like me.

 

Or, words to that effect.

 

The CD began again, the first track being the violin cadenza and the birdsong, and we were nearly at my street, coming up the road with a great open field on the right and a hill lined with tall pines on the left. Elizabeth said, “You will.”

 

Wanderlust. It happens every blessed spring. It happens just like that.

 

And this really is damn good coffee.

 

I’m surprised actually to have the day to myself today. I had thought I was on for breakfast and lunch down at the hotel. Last night I was in my black and whites, - in shoes, no less! Ouch. My caterer friend seems to be getting along fairly well with the folks who manage this chain hotel down the street here. We have several decent gigs there this summer. I hope she doesn’t blow it. But it was a convention of old farts last night, and boy – those people could drink. Now I have about seven pounds of red potatoes in garlic in my fridge, huge slabs of roast beast, some chicken roll-ups stuffed with cheese. I’ll never eat all that.

 

Good money, though.

 

 

It’s a strange story in several ways, not least the big yak attack which ends it. Like all dreams it is the mood which it evokes that makes it worthwhile retelling, even if it’s impossible to really get it across. But, here goes.

 

I was at a customer’s house, not yet working but preparing to, catching up with them socially as they had been away for the winter. During that time I was responsible for watching over their house, which is the case for several of my people. I am slightly anxious about how the lake ice breaking up will affect their floating dock, so they are on my mind. I check it periodically, driving (or walking, depending on the weather) down their steep driveway through the woods. The house stands right on the lake, but in the dream – as so often happens in dreams – things are quite like but not exactly the same as they are in life. Yet we take it all in stride – or, that is, I do.

 

For some reason Elizabeth wasn’t there with me. Earlier I had dreamed of her. Yes, it was an active night. We were both very tired and sleep seemed to be stealing over us both with inevitable force as though we had been exposed to the same enchantment. And where we were I am not quite sure, but it seemed like home even if it didn’t quite resemble it. I awoke with the sensation of her body still filling my arms as the last thing I recall before surrendering was her muttering about being cold and drawing me over her. I whispered to her ghost, “I’d better get you home to your husband,” but by now knowing that it had been a dream from which I was partially waking. I suppose I needed to provide the story with a denouement of some kind. So, perhaps she wasn’t with me later because she was still sleeping.

 

 

But now I was sitting at a table with my customers, a window to the woods at my back. All was well. The house had fared well over the winter, and they still loved me. I was thinking of the hours of work ahead, anxious to get on with it, though courtesy required me to engage in conversation first since it was they who had initiated it. I believe we were in a kitchen. It was not really like theirs in any particular. More like the kitchen I would want if the house were mine. Indeed, the house in general was much more like one I might imagine having than the house I have been watching all winter long. But, as I’ve said, I took it in stride.

 

A fellow arrived, surprising me, a friend who in real life is probably the nicest fellow I know. Big and gentle, hard working, soft spoken, shy – he is a man of qualities whose humility and service to others is notable. We shook hands warmly, and I was making connections in my mind: How does he know my customers? A reason was provided by my mind to make sense of it. In real life he had famously been left by his wife, and he had later been dating the sister of an acquaintance of mine whose son had died in a car accident last Holy Week, remembered now in that ghoulish way High School students contend with the death of one of their own. I heard the story second-hand, and I have been praying for him. Things became even worse for him. Financial problems arising from the divorce bedeviled him, and he had a former gambling problem from which he had largely recovered which under the stress had apparently returned. The end result was that he was in jail. It was so good to see that he was once again free, and seemed restored to himself. It made perfect sense to me that my customers, who are good people, would employ him as handyman or some such thing to help him get back on his feet.

 

So, as I have mentioned, I shook his hand warmly, placing my left hand over both as though I would hold him there. But I said, “Now I really must get to work, now that there are witnesses.”

 

The closet contained my equipment, along with some new things. I assumed the new things belonged to my large, gentle friend. I was in the process of taking out what I needed. And now the customers – husband and wife - were outside. I could see them through the big window looking out on what appeared to be my own childhood home. The lay of the land had that appearance. Woods stretched on quite a lot more than they do in life. The lake – if there was a lake – must have been some distance down the hill through the trees. Again, I took this in stride. It is what it is; dreams being their own separate reality.

 

Suddenly, the husband – a bald-headed former Marine who likes rowing in the morning through the lake mist and reading spy novels – began shouting “Who’s there?” into the woods. Someone – him I assume, but maybe my large friend – threw what appeared to be a large clump of dirt into the trees. I thought how odd it is to see anything done in anger in such company, but that is how it appeared. The trees moved as if a tornado was disrupting them, and suddenly an incredibly large yak emerged charging towards the house, charging towards my customers and my friend who were outside as though to do them in. But then a young blonde girl who is the daughter of a former co-worker of mine whom I have watched grow from a child to a child-sized woman who wears very girly clothing and walks about as if her toes were made of crystal with her nose held high, ignoring the admiration of men which surrounds her as water does a swimming champion, suddenly and inexplicably arrived to save the others from the enormous charging yak. She charged back, coming out of nowhere, leaping through the trees to give it chase, whooping and yelling as one does to drive a bear, in her girly clothes and girly shoes, with her crystal toes. The yak – enormous as it was – turned and ran away with the girl in hot pursuit.

 

I thought as how we might dig a pit for barbeque later on, and I hoped to be invited. I’ve never tasted dream yak before. I imagine it is flavorful, perhaps a little gamey.

      

I managed to get some individual songs pulled out of some Limewire whole album downloads, like Atom Heart Mother, Pink Floyd. It’s downright technological. For me it’s a major coup over my fear of software. For you, well I suppose it’s not really that interesting. Just roll with it. Be happy for me.

 

Ah yes, Science Fiction movies used to feature great special effects. Every ten years or so we would experience a breakthrough. Forbidden Planet, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Star Wars. I don’t wish to leave out anybody’s favorite. But then came the digital age. Now we have nothing new to look forward to. Every film that comes out has the kind of special effects those pioneers used to dream about. Spy films too. Any kind of action movie.

 

What did I say yesterday about the availability of The Wicker Man on DVD? I think I said “Yawn.” Yes – that’s precisely what I said. Or wrote.

 

Atom Heart Mother? Did I imagine in my wildest dreams the day would come when I could get it instantly at the press of a button from a machine that captures such things as old records and movies out of thin air? No.

 

I first noticed that something was wrong, terribly wrong, when I realized years ago that having a VHS copy of The Bishop’s Wife meant that I could watch it anytime I wanted to. No longer would I have to wait until Christmas. The Wizard of Oz used to be shown on television every Easter Sunday without fail. I remember watching the film with my cousins in Connecticut. As soon as we were given the ability to purchase and own these titles we could then decide to have Christmas in April, Easter in December.

 

Yawn.

 

You know, ultimately that’s what it comes down to. The thrill is gone. I get no pleasure out of being able to get my hands on an old movie or an old record album when it rains such things from the heavens in torrents. Well, that is to say I get some, but then I get to thinking about it as I am thinking about it now.

 

Perhaps I should explain my feelings further by saying I literally weep when I find an LP copy of 200 Motels still in its original shrink wrap, but to pull it out of thin air by clicking on a few buttons is nowhere near as exciting. The music’s the same – still dreadful.

 

Feelings further? Feelings farther? Oh, whatever – skip it.

 

I often tell my sons, “Why, in my day we used to trudge 10 miles through five feet of snow to get to the record store, only to be told they had never heard of the Talking Heads New Feeling with the flipside (Love Goes to a) Building on Fire but wouldn’t you rather just buy Frampton Comes Alive?”

 

Oh how we suffered.

 

You know, I never learned to buy two of everything. I should have bought two of everything. I really should have.

 

You know, I never learned it’s not a good idea to marry the first woman who pays attention to you even when you don’t fancy her. I shouldn’t have done that.

 

You know, I never learned if you don’t start saving early for retirement you might end up dying in wretched poverty. Why didn’t somebody tell me there was a slim chance I’d live past 30?

 

You know, I never learned…

 

No, I don’t have anything against Peter Frampton. It’s just wild popularity bugs me. It’s a Gen-X thing. We wore corduroys with flannel shirts and knitted ties for cryin’ out loud, work boots, gigantic wallets with chains. We had in-depth conversations about the Star Trek episode For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.

 

What am I doing? I’m griping. Gripe gripe gripe. It’s no wonder the kids are bored. All of the knowledge of the ages is not only available to them at the click of a few buttons, it’s assaulting them. But none of it comes with the context of its age, none of it comes with the joy that used to accompany understanding. Try to keep up here – I’ve segued from Pop culture to weightier things. Everything is viewed from the narrow context of our own values, twisted by revisionism, eclecticism.

 

People learn nothing about history who believe that history began on the day they were born. It doesn’t matter how much History Channel they watch. They’re being lied to; a particular view is being propagated to them.

 

Whoops – let’s file that under related topics. I don’t know how it’s related, but I know it must be.

 

So, who remembers that episode? There’s this planet that’s actually a very large spaceship – or, a spaceship which was made to resemble a planet. The people living within it believe, of course, that they are inhabiting a world with a sky and stars, earth beneath their feet, oceans of water, trees, and what have you. But one of them has climbed the distant mountains, the forbidden mountains, and he has come back from his journey to declare the title just before dying: For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky!

 

You want theology? Listen to hymns - none of this “Jesus my Boyfriend” pap but real hymns. You want philosophy? Science Fiction is loaded with it. From the camp to the classics, to the classic camp, it may raise more questions than it answers but oh such wonderful questions it raises.

 

Of course, when the special effects have stolen the show there’s nothing worth seeing. No questions are asked except “How much did this film cost?” I suppose we must now know all the answers. What’s next? Nothing’s next. You die; the worms eat you. End of story.

 

Not bloody likely!

   

As you can see Spring has finally arrived in all its green, glorious wonder about 400 miles due South of where these pictures were taken. But I continue to inhabit a predominantly black and white world. These remind me of color pictures that have been made into halftones for reproduction in a newspaper. I expect to see an accompanying cutline informing us these are scenes of some crime. But no, the only crime hereabouts is perpetrated by the weather.

This is the road from Chateau Creekside, a scene I have revisited several times on these pages. Shall we feature the four seasons in pictures? How delightful!  

 

Oh dear - I seem to have misplaced my pretty blue border. I wonder where it went? How odd. It was the only trace of color on the page. Yes, but perhaps it's better to depict the full force of gloom which o'erhangs this longest March I can recall since... last year.

This is a creek. I can hear you saying, "Oh really?"

And at last - here are some myphets. Do you see them, hiding behind those spectral orbs? Those are trees in the background, which you can scarcely see. Honestly, I've had enough. I'm looking forward to seeing how this camera manages with the color green.  

My son asked me earlier this week, "Whatever happened to your camera?" I told him I was waiting for green. I have taken pictures of dogs and people - one of which you have seen, (or would see if you scroll down a bit). I set the camera up on the dashboard of my car as a SquabCam and the result is an AVI format movie which is too mongongous apparently for Imeem to handle.

Mongongous, yes. Don't bother looking it up.

You can hear the music I'm playing in the car and a portion of my conversation with the White Tornado - that is, you would be able to hear these things if - well, you know. I'll try again, maybe late at night when the etherworld isn't quite as crowded.

I have some well paying gigs coming up within the next few weeks, just in the snicker-snee. Catering mostly. I have to wear black. That is so unlike me, n'est pas? Having contact with people provides the gravy for this journal, so let us hope some original flavor combinations will be forthcoming.

Along with the color green. 

Next year we will have an Easter Holiday a bit later in the season, with a strong chance of daffodils. So says the Moon.

Five years ago the temperature climbed above seventy on Easter Sunday. The dirty brown earth was alive with creepy crawlies hatching out, the poor things. I remember it because The Lady’s string bikini was the same color as her skin was, and her hair: gold. We waited in her driveway for her son to emerge from the house. It’s a long(ish) story, but he was coming with us to have Easter with some folks who lived on a mountain. Out of the front door came the golden lady. She wasn’t coming with us – just wanted to show off.

 

That was a strange day. The social butterfly behind it all died of cancer a few years ago. She always insisted she was dying of something, and well you could bowl me over with a feather but she really did. She moved to Missouri, left her straight-shooter mild-mannered husband for a psychopath, moved into a trailer, and died. Ah well. People are going to do what people are going to do.

 

I’m in favor of the Death Penalty in the case of government raising taxes. That’s right – legislators who propose tax hikes should be put to death, perhaps castrated first, drawn and quartered, boiled in oil. (Or gee, deep fried, - what texture.) If they raise taxes for people making a million dollars or more, well those are my customers. Heck, those are everybody’s customers. Don’t do that, stupid. Raising taxes on the rich is extortion. We prosecute gangsters for less. And, raising taxes on the poor – such as on cigarettes – is just plain mean.

 

But such measures, according to public opinion polls, are favored by majorities who seem to believe their own money comes from a little magic man with a pointed hat who lives in the woods. I happen to know that my income comes from people who make a million dollars or more, and when you steal from them you steal from me. I wish I knew that magic man, but I don’t.

 

If there really were such a person I believe he would live on that mountain I visited with my friends on Easter five years ago. The family were all girls, with one hopelessly outnumbered boy, the four eldest in the 13 to 18 year-old range. In total there were ten or eleven children, home schooled by one supernaturally energetic mother who was about my age. They liked to build things in the woods, those girls did – primitive structures of wood and rope inspired by either The Blair Witch Project or Ewoc Adventures. Who remembers either of those forgettable references anymore?

 

My kinda people.

 

Hey – that was the last time I did something social on Easter, or spent the day in company of some sort, human that is. At least I think they were. And, when it comes to the Seven Deadlies, Envy isn’t one I generally own except sometimes in the case of people who are married and have families intact. When my Envy crops up – which it hasn’t done in some little time now I am happy to say – I rebuke it. Duh. Avoiding sin is just like avoiding typhoid, just as obvious. Then I take it to confession with me, just as I might take my Common Cold to the doctor, to be relieved of it.

 

One thing that has never plagued me, for whatever reason – (and I don’t know why except to say individuals possess certain attributes which make them individual) – is an attack of envying people who are richer than me. It just doesn’t happen. I don’t give a monkey’s. And it’s a good thing I don’t suffer from wealth Envy because most of this nation’s population is richer than I am. In turn I am richer than most of the population of the world – that is, the rest of the world. (If that doesn’t make you believer in free market capitalism you are clinically dead.) Were I to begin envying other people’s money I would have do so to the exclusion of all other activities just to keep up with the volume.

 

Of course, Envy is the problem when a majority favor raising taxes on the people who pay them. Like all sin, it makes us think and do things which are harmful to us, harmful and self-destructive. It is a thing to be relieved of, like the Common Cold.

 

Oh golly, but this is unrelated. I keep hearing that it is inevitable I will catch a Cold. Not surprisingly, I keep hearing this from commercials which advertise Cold remedies. The truth of it is I have not “caught” a Cold in… oh well, some number of years over ten and under twenty. I don’t even remember what a Cold feels like. Elizabeth gets Colds every other week – or so it seems. She says it is because she has children in school. So do I.

 

Maybe it’s your attitude, she says. That could be the case, perhaps. Does she mean that I subconsciously practice some form of mind over matter?

 

No. You just frighten Cold viruses away.

 

So, Cold viruses are just like available women? Says I.

 

Must be, says she.