Why?
Why do you keep coming back here? My new blog is at:
http://geocities.com/nenslo/palooza/ultra.html
http://geocities.com/nenslo/palooza/ultra.html
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Portland ,
OR
Every government is a criminal conspiracy to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few and to suppress dissent among the rest. - ME
The Online Kooks Museum Collection of Collections- DAMNEDEST THING YOU EVER SAW OR YOU PAY NOTHING! VIEW! My Paintings! Follow my viewing habits with the ever-expanding MOVIE LIST ! Terse and pithy comments included free of charge. Read Mrs. Nenslo's blog on the meagre joys and abundant sorrows of a bookdealer's life. She doesn't talk about me much, thank god. http://bookhappy.easyjournal.com (Don't forget to check the archives, going back to June 2005. This stuff NEVER goes bad!) |
4.10.2008
4.3.2008
SERIOUSLY
That's the new blog, no new stuff here.
3.29.2008
THIS IS YOUR FUTURE
3.27.2008
THINKING
Easyjournal's recent disappearance for days on end, with no explanation of any kind, has got me thinking. I will let you know just what it is I am thinking when I get done thinking it.
3.16.2008
MOSTLY HOUSES BUT SOME CATS
I have been walking to the health club two or three times a week for the past couple of months. It is about 4.5 miles and if I keep up a good pace it takes an hour. The only time it is difficult is at the very beginning. After about three blocks my mind starts thinking, "Oh my god, I am never going to get there. Look how far I have gotten now, and there is all that distance yet to go. I should just go back home." After another three blocks the mind is resigned to not going back and it wanders off on its own while the body keeps walking.
I like two things most about walking through the neighborhoods. One of them is cats. Since our little Frankie boy died I must enjoy cats mostly from a distance, as the majority of the cats on our street just run away even if they were sleeping on my own porch before I opened the door. I just like to see the cats in the neighborhoods I walk through. The other thing I like is the personalities of the houses. Each one has some kind of personality, even if it doesn't have character. The new houses that are being wedged into every available space don't have any character yet, and won't for many years. Some older houses had their character sheared off in ill-advised modernizations in the 1960s or 70s. They still have the shape of an interesting old house but they have been metallized - covered in aluminum siding and the porches trumped up with metal rails and fake "wrought iron" style supports. There is one pretty little bungalow that has been refurbished into a perfect gem, perched on a little square of grass surrounded by sidewalk and parking lot - they sold off the big double lot, filling up the back of it with a line of identical row houses and their parking spaces. There is a row of cute little old houses flaking away unhappily right next to a busy four-lane street - it was widened in front of them and now they sprout pirate flags and decrepit couches on their porches, and the thud of a drum kit rises ominously from the basement. Nobody else will live in them but people who can't live in a better spot.
Shabbiness in a house and yard may speak of neglect or of misguided affection. Some places have the yard filled with crazy junk, figurines and flags and all sizes of frogs. One place looked like a crazy half-drunk old thing, its wrinkles coated but not concealed by a make-up of blue, purple, lavender, pink and every shade in between. Next door was a prim little spinster, the shades of off-white chipping mildly from its elaborate gingerbread trim. Hippie houses are more often a good thing than a bad one here, and a row of Tibetan prayer flags across the front porch and a yard converted to vegetable plots is usually a good neighbor to have, much better than a yard full of mud and dog turds, and muddy dog footprints halfway up the front door. Old People houses are usually either under severe control, with the entire yard perfectly flat and square, with not one leaf left on the lawn to mar its perfect uniformity, or they are like their owners on the brink of the grave, overgrown and peeling. Some houses always have a flag or banner appropriate to the season - today it was shamrocks and leprechauns, soon it will be eggs and bunnies. Those houses usually have a fiddly little sign by the door or in the yard, reading Welcome Friends.
Some houses are nothing but shabby hovels, yet they seem to have more character than any others - perhaps because they have more detail. A yard full of weeds, trash, broken toys and thrown-down bicycles, a porch full of boxes and a rusty refrigerator, a dirty cat sleeping grumpily face down on the ledge outside a window with its screen in shreds, part of the roof inadequately re-shingled, signs in the windows or tacked to the porch threatening trespassers, as if the whole aspect of the place were not enough to keep everyone away. Yet they always have a satellite dish prominently on the roof.
One place I passed today showed distinct signs of neglect, with all the windows carefully covered from within and two satellite dishes on the front porch - yet there were three closed-circuit television cameras on the front porch too - rampant paranoia, or a grow house? Another run-down place I passed the other day struck me in the nose for just a moment with the distinct skunky aroma of a marijuana grow - I wonder how long it will take for someone else to notice.
Anyway, I saw nine cats today on my trip to the grocery store.
I like two things most about walking through the neighborhoods. One of them is cats. Since our little Frankie boy died I must enjoy cats mostly from a distance, as the majority of the cats on our street just run away even if they were sleeping on my own porch before I opened the door. I just like to see the cats in the neighborhoods I walk through. The other thing I like is the personalities of the houses. Each one has some kind of personality, even if it doesn't have character. The new houses that are being wedged into every available space don't have any character yet, and won't for many years. Some older houses had their character sheared off in ill-advised modernizations in the 1960s or 70s. They still have the shape of an interesting old house but they have been metallized - covered in aluminum siding and the porches trumped up with metal rails and fake "wrought iron" style supports. There is one pretty little bungalow that has been refurbished into a perfect gem, perched on a little square of grass surrounded by sidewalk and parking lot - they sold off the big double lot, filling up the back of it with a line of identical row houses and their parking spaces. There is a row of cute little old houses flaking away unhappily right next to a busy four-lane street - it was widened in front of them and now they sprout pirate flags and decrepit couches on their porches, and the thud of a drum kit rises ominously from the basement. Nobody else will live in them but people who can't live in a better spot.
Shabbiness in a house and yard may speak of neglect or of misguided affection. Some places have the yard filled with crazy junk, figurines and flags and all sizes of frogs. One place looked like a crazy half-drunk old thing, its wrinkles coated but not concealed by a make-up of blue, purple, lavender, pink and every shade in between. Next door was a prim little spinster, the shades of off-white chipping mildly from its elaborate gingerbread trim. Hippie houses are more often a good thing than a bad one here, and a row of Tibetan prayer flags across the front porch and a yard converted to vegetable plots is usually a good neighbor to have, much better than a yard full of mud and dog turds, and muddy dog footprints halfway up the front door. Old People houses are usually either under severe control, with the entire yard perfectly flat and square, with not one leaf left on the lawn to mar its perfect uniformity, or they are like their owners on the brink of the grave, overgrown and peeling. Some houses always have a flag or banner appropriate to the season - today it was shamrocks and leprechauns, soon it will be eggs and bunnies. Those houses usually have a fiddly little sign by the door or in the yard, reading Welcome Friends.
Some houses are nothing but shabby hovels, yet they seem to have more character than any others - perhaps because they have more detail. A yard full of weeds, trash, broken toys and thrown-down bicycles, a porch full of boxes and a rusty refrigerator, a dirty cat sleeping grumpily face down on the ledge outside a window with its screen in shreds, part of the roof inadequately re-shingled, signs in the windows or tacked to the porch threatening trespassers, as if the whole aspect of the place were not enough to keep everyone away. Yet they always have a satellite dish prominently on the roof.
One place I passed today showed distinct signs of neglect, with all the windows carefully covered from within and two satellite dishes on the front porch - yet there were three closed-circuit television cameras on the front porch too - rampant paranoia, or a grow house? Another run-down place I passed the other day struck me in the nose for just a moment with the distinct skunky aroma of a marijuana grow - I wonder how long it will take for someone else to notice.
Anyway, I saw nine cats today on my trip to the grocery store.
