Tails

Thinking about Avatar the film, the Navi, Homo sapien sapien and wondering why so many of my people have forgotten their tails, wagging mine as I rode my bike down my street this morning, a man in an Inferno Red Crystal Pearl Coat, Jeep Liberty, pulled out of the alley to my right, without looking, forcing me into the other lane. Had I tried to stop he would have knocked me over.

Thankfully, there was no vehicle in the other lane, or I would have been forced onto the hood. The guy in the Jeep finally saw me. He looked at me through the driver's window and his sunglasses, in the sunlight, expressionless, in that way that reveals little. It was certainly not a look of, "Oh shit, sorry dude." Something more like, "What?" He stared at me, I at him from the oncoming lane, bike and Jeep traveling the same speed, and I'm thinking, "Alright, fucker. Get out of the truck and from behind those sunglasses and look at me the way you are looking at me now. I can about guarantee, you won't."

Gaelic Football Club? Yeah? What you got?

On such a beautiful day. Sixty degrees in November, it felt like spring this morning. I finished filling the attic with leaf bags, about 125 bags. Now I have to cover the stairwell with something. It will probably be cool in the stairwell, enough that I might be able to make it the root cellar. There is much left to do to ready the house for winter. I still have no heat. When I do, there is the matter of 28 single pane windows, in this 700 sq ft house. If they were all on the south side I wouldn't mind so much. The temperature is likely to drop all week. It's going to feel like winter next weekend.

I'm sitting now in Jack's on 46th, an excellent example of passive solar design, south facing windows with a masonry floor. Three of the front windows are glass garage doors, two of which are open now. Not exactly what I want to do with my house, but similar.

One of the partners is talking about keeping Monster Halloween open, transitioning part of the store with Christmas paraphernalia. I'm feeling the itch to write. I'm sure I can't do both, but then, Christmas is only two months away. In which case I wouldn't really be living in my house, with my potatoes, but in Uptown, in a commercial building. I don't see how that makes much sense for me or the partners, but we'll talk it out tonight. The other reality is, as Manager of an Uptown costume shop, I would meet just about every oddball in the city before long. That would be worthwhile.

As for writing today, I'm going to start reading my book again. My unpublished book. I haven't looked at it once since this Halloween experience began. I'm not sure what I'll think. Of the 20 people who have read it, about half aren't talking to me, never acknowledging reading it. Part of me wants to take the only existing copy and this computer and throw them over the 46th st/35w bridge. More likely, I will publish it sometime later this month as a free download, donation only.

And what a breathtaking sight this new 35w is, from a bicycle, from any of the bridges above the new construction, in south Minneapolis. Astounding, what we are capable of. The rule a decade ago was, this new freeway would be obsolete by the time construction ended, with all the commercial/residential development anticipating it. Now, there's not much new construction and not likely to be for the next decade. I suspect this highway will become obsolete, but not in the way we are accustomed to. Without cheap and abundant oil this construction will look like a colossal mis-allocation of resources. But there is oil left, the supply is as yet uninterrupted, keeping the cost of a gallon around $3, and this vast shining 14-lane artery is flowing smoothly, with an abundance of automobiles firing at 3000 +/- revolutions per minute. Impressive. Intimidating.