Blog

Or something. I dunno, we’re in uncharted country here.

I’m back to the phone keyboard having experimented with the laptop last night. I was worried it would interrupt my process. I feel like the phone keyboard’s tendency to slow me down helps my pace. But, last night was ok, so we’ll see.

It’s raining here. Inside. I ate cheese curds the size of golf balls, and very salty but tasty french onion soup , and three fish tacos and a flight of beer and another beer. I should be good till winter. Oh the rain thing is the air conditioning, which is freezing but welcome. People are dying in the UK because of the heat and lack of AC. This warming thing is going to get worse than it gets better and it won’t get better for hundreds of years. Fun times.

I’m going to visit a friend of mine who i know from BoardGameGeek con in Texas. He told me any time i was passing through Eau Claire Wisconsin i should reach out, and unlikely as it seemed at the time of the conversation, here i am.

I have just traveled through time, and it’s evening. I spent some time chatting with him and his family and then we played two rounds of Cartographers: Heroes, which is apparently a stand alone version of the earlier heroless game. It’s an interesting “flip and write” game, similar to a “roll and write” but with a deck of cards instead of dice. I lost but had fun.

Then we played a dark mystery escape roomish game called 50 Clues. Also fun. One thing i like about those is that different people can step in for puzzles they’re good at.

I’m turning in early and posting this even though it’s crappy.

I’m in Wisconsin, somewhere between a farm town and another farm town, parked in what’s called a Forest, meaning also a farm, but for adolescent telephone poles. Mostly here there are farms, and I drove past a great many of them, lush and green and punctuated by silos and barns as though a child painted them. A talented child, but there does seem to be a theme.

I prefer farms to interstate highways, and, though I don’t have the time to cross the entire country on back roads, I do what I can to wander windingly.

I’ve started in the middle again, mostly since that’s where I am, or by mileage more like a thirdle.

I’ve not written in a while, because … well because reasons.

I have felt
uninspired.
tired.
mired in the work of existence, and lacking the
desire?

no, not that. I do desire

I feel like I’ve gotten over my skis a bit. I have expectations of myself that I find difficult to fulfill.

Once in a while I say something I like, and frequently I think things I don’t.
It’s stifling.

But, here I am, by the old graveyard, collied inside by flies. (It’s fortunate that the baby jesus invented window screens.)

And I told myself I can’t do this trip and not write, when the point of the thing is the thing. So I’m following a piece of advice from Struthless, a YouTuber whom I heartily recommend, from Tim Ferris before him, and likely someone else before: Write two crappy pages per day.

Why crappy pages? Well writing good pages is hard, but especially hard when not actually writing.

I am not actually sure how to count pages in this writing style, so I’m ignoring the instruction and doing it my own way, a habit I staunchly defend, frequently to my detriment, but often to eventual benefit.

And still here I am in the thirdle without the firstlebits.
So, let’s rewind, and see if I can get some good ole crappiness into this.

This trip started with a weekend in Vermont, in a cute town called Chester in a terribly expensive house made affordable by splitting among a dozen friends, and then only for a period of four days. It’s the old mill, and is huge and interesting with beautiful stream-side property. As one would expect, on account of mill. We played a bunch of role playing games and sat in the hot tub and I contributed to the making of delicious foods mostly by eating them. It was delightful.

Next down to Northampton to visit my partner and enjoy the town which always feels like home to me. There was a bookstore, which contributed to my habit of buying books I mean to read and habitually do not. It’s about a hike of an ancient road in Japan. I look forward to not getting around to reading it soon.

Next, west, to a night in a random upstate NY rest area, followed by the next in Allegany State Park, a word which took me three tries to spell, even with help. I take consolation in the fact that the name isn’t proper anyway, as the indigenous bilingual signs there suggest. At least I think it was an indigenous language… there were a lot of apostrophes, so it could have been a lovecraftian cult at work. More instigation is needed.

Next was a trip to the first National Park of my journey, that of Cuyahoga Valley. There’s no entrance fee, and no camp sites, but there is a lovely flat parking lot with a bathroom, both of which are greatly appreciated. Unfortunately the park itself is… nice. I mean it’s nice! But, it’s just… nice. It’s a pleasant river valley with trees and ducks and river otters and birds and things, and that’s all… nice. I think it suffers from lack of views and organization. Also I definitely suffered from lack of kayak, which is likely the whole point of the thing. Regardless, I’m glad the park exists, and I’m sure it’s fantastic for Cleavelandites to visit on a very short day trip. Cleavelanders? Cleavelandovians? Cleves.

The next day brought me to the RV Museum, which is apparently a thing, and most crucially a thing which is right off the highway and has free overnight parking. It became unfree when I paid admission in the morning and wandered around the exhibits. There was one specific RV I saw in Quartzite that I had hoped to see, but instead there were lots of others that were quite interesting. The very old ones with the wood stoves, alsowood cabinetry and hand pumped sinks feel like mobile cabins, that remind me a little of the one I used to visit in Montreat, except with more wheels.

I also stuck my feet in Lake Erie that day, which I’m reminded of because the following day I stuck my very same feet into Lake Michigan, in Indiana Dunes National Park, which is ALSO totally a thing. It’s absolutely the best national park ever which has a fantastic view of a nuclear power plant. It was raining so no one else was there, which was great. A seagull snagged a doritos bag and I followed it for a while trying to get it to drop it, reminding it along the way that I was a persistence hunter. It then proceeded to remind ME that it could fly and circled around over the ocean, doubling back to thwart me. I tried.

The sand had the consistency and color of brown sugar, all sticky and clumpy, but not in an unpleasant way. The rain probably contributed to that. I’m sure the Tusken Raiders would have a totally different name for it, and not call it “sand” at all. The signs were not bilingual, so I can’t be sure.

That brings us to today, where I woke in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel, after a rather nice sleep, and decided to give them my business for breakfast, since I’d run out of the giant log of apple cinnamon bread I’d been passing off as breakfast all week. I had a suitably fatty cheesy gloppy thing that was exactly what I had in mind when I walked in the door. Before I walked OUT of the door I checked out the shopping area, since that’s what you do, and picked up a couple of Bundaberg sodas to try, since I’d never seen them before aside from Adam Savage drinking them on camera. I got both the Ginger Beer and the Root Beer. I don’t know if they have a Cream Soda, but that’d have been my preference if they did. I also noticed they have Burt’s Bees, Duke Cannon, and the Stranger Things soundtrack on vinyl. ? They’ve moved up in my chain-store hierarchy.

I’ve just managed to write more about breakfast than I did about a national park. Make of that what you will. (Note to Cuyahoga: Bacon.)

Next I went to Dr. Evermor’s Sculpture Park, home of the Forevertron, and though I sincerely doubt his medical credentials, I can affirm his ability to weld giant metal things to other giant metal things in fascinating creative ways. If you’ve ever wanted to see an ostrich with scissors for a beak and a tuba for an ass, this is the place you need to go. It’s a magical tetanus farm, and I love it. I spent some time talking to his wife and daughter, and marveled at the traveling BBQ fit for an army. I picked up a book about the late artist, which I’m also looking forward to not reading any time soon. Joining it is a small sculpture and a t-shirt. I pinged my fellow travelling-friend, telling him to visit next time he’s in the area, and he pointed me to two nearby spots, one which was too far away and one which wasn’t.

I had no idea what to expect from the House on the Rock, which I’ll get to in a second, after I casually mention that I drove by Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate, and nearby buildings. I didn’t have time for tours.

I’ll have to be brief, about the House on the Rock, because it’s a staggering experience. Having done no research whatsoever I was a bit surprised at the $35 entrance fee, but was glad I had the whole afternoon to get my money’s worth. And BOY did I.

The self guided tour starts with the gardens, which are in Japanese style and are lovely, and then of his house which is built into the rock, as advertised. It’s quirky and homey, and has a maze of rooms which look like lovely places to hang out and sit by a fire. Lots of stone and wood and odd angles and interest at every turn.

Then there’s a room pulled from Willy Wonka’s fever dream. It’s hundreds of feet long and narrows to a point at the end, and there’s a window in the floor which looks down at the tops of the trees it towers above. It has great views out beyond the cliff, and I briefly pondered whether his engineering ability matched his creativity before retreating to a more comfortable area at the base, where there’s a set of instruments which play themselves.

Then, there is the … museum? Collection? Eccentric madhouse?

This has to be seen, I cannot do it justice so I’m going to just try to list some of what’s here… A life sized elephant in a suit of armor whose trunk is suspending a knight in midair. An enormous steam powered still that would dwarf a locomotive. A locomotive. Several. A Calliope with a dozen life sized musicians. Several dozen pipe organs. A carousel with a hundred unique and sometimes terrifying figures. Three dozen angels. A model of a circus the size of a ping pong table. Six more similar circuses, complete with train. An entire not-model street of old timey shops, including a fire house, a dentist, an apothecary and a theater. A whale being attacked by a giant squid, both of which are significantly larger than life sized. A hundred model ships, some of which are twenty feet long. A gullwing mercedes 300sl. A Lincoln Continental covered in mosaic tile. Many many more cars. Another locomotive, this one a giant rube goldberg contraption. A whole wing of quite large dollhouses. A room with a hundred guns, antique, scrimshaw, gun-cane, false-leg-with-hidden-gun. Japanese puppets. Several complete coin-operated rooms which each play an orchestra of actual instruments of all descriptions. Animatronic fortune tellers, love strength testers and handshake evaluators. A set of twenty kettle drums forty feet tall. The crowns of fifty rulers. Faberge eggs. A diner. More full size elephants. A hundred moving desktop displays advertising diamonds in different styles, from flying saucers to gnomes to brides and grooms in diving helmets. Eight complete Burma Shave highway sign sets. A butterfly collection. Sixteen antique cash registers. A steam powered hearse. Another dentist shop, this one with more extracted teeth.

There is virtually no signage and no distinction between priceless antiques and items created for the fanciful displays. The whale for example is a giant sculpture only tangentially related to any living species. The forty foot long canon with the ten foot wide barrel can’t be real, but the much smaller West Point mortar outside most certainly is.

I bought the book. Well, two… One about the madman, and another with better photos of the collection than most of the hundreds I took on my phone. I look forward to not getting around to reading them any time soon.

Why do i feel this need to be busy?

That there is always something I must be doing
Be getting to
Be fixin to get up on
Almost about ready to

Do

That the task at hand
(Frequently formed as a phone)
Is somehow vital
And not enough

Because it’s always at least halfway about
the next thing

(Oh and you just wait
for the next thing
I hear
It’s going to be amazing)

Why does my mind divide
Between the this and the then

Always trying to peer over the bright horizon
Squinting into the glare
Trying to catch the best opportunity that i see
hurtling toward me
Against the inscrutable light of the then
Always rising in somewhere’s east

While i trip over my shoes

H

What kind of old guy do I want to be?

The word “Mid-life” is most commonly followed by “crisis” regardless of whether hyphenated words are words or wordseses.

I am not, however, in crisis; though I am in congress, with myself, regarding the other side of the Mid.

Seeing as how my choices are old or dead I figure I should plan for the former. Plans for the latter seem difficult to evaluate for success, ex post dead-o.

So then, what does this sapient bag of meat decide defines it? What inclines its mind at it? What interests it to inscribe or imbibe? To self-define?

My grandfather’s cellar had steep creaky stairs that felt old and sturdy and dusty. There were little shelves tucked into the spaces between the framing of the walls: a pantry for those who remembered the Depression. The descent from the white kitchen and formal dining room was through this calorically fortified dimensional portal into a windowless realm of curiosities. Tools, bits of variously operational ham radios, wires and bolts and parts from old military aircraft provided endless interest, all engulfed by the redolence of pipe smoke.

My father’s, too, though of his was Lionel and Lucky Strikes. My memories of his shop are more fresh, having recently assisted in emptying it.

I have tools and sundry from both, though my shop only smokes when I use a tool wrongly enough.

From Gippetto to Doc Brown, I’ve always been fascinated by the Tinker. Indeed I class myself among them, aside from specific skills in wood carving and nuclear fusion, which I presently lack. Though, in 2021 I gained significant experience points in electronics and soldering, which at least gives me a leg up on Gippetto.

But it’s not enough to tinker, I thinker. Not for me.

Sure, I get joy from the successful application of skills. I was going to say “satisfaction” or “contentment” but those wordseses are unfortunately aspirational. Satisfaction is a transient energy state, not a stable one. A storm that fills the lake.

The lake is made of finished things, and the level is low. The walls of expectation, checkered in cracked-dry clay, frame the carcasses of the haven’t-done and the almost-finished. Every book in my house has a middlish bookmark in it. I want to do all of the things, so i finish none of the things. I need to make things.

This thing, though, is a thing. This violence I do to english. (I didn’t capitalize that on purpose and you can’t stop me from doing it again.)

Each chunk of my brain that I mirror into orderly rows of microscopic magnetic fields is a thing, whether a poem or a joke or a description of my lawnmower, man.

*Tink*
The chisel dulls against the work.

The work is not done.
*Tink*
The work is done.

H

I remember the voice of my great aunt Mildred.

Not a word, or even a story comes to mind, although those are probably in here somewhere.

How you hold onto a word is important
It says a lot about you.

How gently dribbly your lips’l deliver the bits of soliloquy.

Timing is about

withholding,

restraint,

,

Pace.

Cadence.

.

It is a unique and beautiful trait,
and i hope you
notice it
in
Each Other.

-H

I want to write more, and more often.

There’s only one way to solve that problem:

Letting go of the want
Or at least

Thinking about what it means
The why
Of the want

Am i seeking external recognition?
Are
You

?

Aren’t we
All

Am i seeking an indelible inexorable inscription
An impression
A transmission

The genetic code of my brain matter
Finding another way to persist

To
Matter
.

To tack against a gale of entropy

To scream into the void

To be
And to have been

To shake the spray paint for today’s layer

To build the sand castle and defend its walls
With moats and particularly large shells
Good for scooping

To pay extra attention to each moment
rolling words around my mouth
like jawbreakers
Their impatiently chewed bits
Spit on your screen

To see better
Sit longer
In places that are beautiful
And humbling

And write

As the wind wipes away my footprints

-H

This isn’t my story, but it’s a good one so I’m going to write it down, since I can’t find any version of it online. 

The Hubble Telescope is necessarily mostly hollow, made of big tubes as you’d expect. Inside these tubes are not only extremely delicate optics but sensitive instrumentation.

While inside the Space Shuttle that launched it, the cargo bay and therefore the tubes are full of air.  The shuttle crossed the Karman line two minutes and thirty seconds after ignition, so by that point essentially all of that air must have gone somewhere else, and violently.

The Shuttles not only were to launch the telescope, but to service it, for repairs and upgrades, which later amounted to seven missions after its launch by Discovery in 1990.

Initially the Hubble was designed with a gap between tubes to allow the air to leave evenly.  It was well into its many-year construction when someone noticed that the Shuttles use a Ku-band radar for on-orbit navigation in relation to other spacecraft, and this powerful signal risked destroying the instruments.

So, the gap needed to be sealed, and the requirements were many: controlled release of air, dimensional stability both in space and on the ground, flexibility, and most importantly, radar absorption.  Also, probably plenty of other things I’m not aware of.

A rubber ring was discussed as meeting most of the needs, except the last one… Until Chief Engineer Bob Alexander suggested doping the rubber with graphite.

Here’s the drawing he showed me of the final design which still flies today.

H

(story from memory, mostly mine. Don’t blame Bob. Corrections welcome.)

I am sitting on Big Bertha.

It’s ok, she doesn’t mind.

It’s far from the first time, but it might be the last.

Most times I’ve been here, i was covered in the yellow clay mud that now peeks only sporadically from beneath the mat of pine needles and short, durable greenery.

I hear the birds and a cricket or possibly a cicada, but not the familiar clank of coaster brakes. You know, the ones… where you can lock up the rear wheel in an impressive skid across clay and pine needles. It is by far the coolest way to stop.

Though there were many trails here, there was one main clearing which served as the defacto start of them all, and therefore the hangout spot to use between runs. And, though there were choices, there were preferences, indicated by the scouring of the knobby BMX tires which maintained the trails.

I don’t remember what we called the most popular trail, but i know why it was the most popular. It ended in a towering mound of dirt known as Big Bertha, the exclamation point at the end of the short trail through the young pines.

It was what it all came down to. It separated the boys from the also other boys. And also the occasional collarbone.

Some say it was ten feet tall. Some fifteen.

Now it is much smaller, by mythology if not size. I bet i could still catch some great air, if only once.

Everything here is different and the same. The two rusty junk cars are slightly more rusty, but not significantly so. They’re exactly where i remembered them, though it’s not as far of a walk.

There are new trails here, for serene walking, which now need to be marked with sticks and flags. Most of our trails are what would now be called drainage channels. They were then, too, hence the mud, but now they’re unplayed in. And unmarred by thousands of bike tracks from dozens of boys. No longer trails anyone follows, since the official ones stick to flatter and more boring terrain.

When did the trails go quiet? What happened here?

What will happen here? Did Big Bertha revel in her glory days? Does she miss them? How long before no one is left to remember? Will she be a parking lot by then, or will she outlive us all?

A leaf falls.
In July.

Big Bertha lies silent.

H

I haven’t written
In like…
That long.


You know how long.
Since then.
Before.


But i might


This dam of words
seeping
With the harbinger
of its destruction.


The drip and drip,
easily confused with a trickle of runoff


But not.


No words can express this time.
This year.
This,
all of this.


So i haven’t.


Couldn’t.


Not after that, and that, and … that.


I’m too tired, to do this.
This work.
On top of all the rest.


But i can’t not.
Not forever
not not.


Too much trouble
tied in twine
and too much time


But i have to.
I must.
I can’t… not


The stress is like a rubber kickball
carried under my shirt
like a fake pregnancy
At recess.


But it’s hard to put down.


It feels shameful to put it down
To disrespect its gravity
Grave-ity


To pretend that anything is okay
To do anything else but try to stop this
To heal
And to mourn


But we have to
I have to.

H