All yellow

Out walking today I came across these little stones planted in a sidewalk garden, reading "Dog pee kills plants." To which my reaction was, "Wait, what?" Actually, there does seem to be some truth to it. And since this garden had some showcase flowers and shrubs, yes, you'd probably want to direct the pooches somewhere else. But it's a huge generalizations. Wolves are basically standoffish dogs still in need of a glass of wine, so if it were invariably fatal the world would have been devoid of life before we as a race were walking upright.

So far

It's been a weird year. Well, yes, there's that of course. In the main I'm talking about the weather here. March was March. April, for all intents and purposes, was also March, in that winter still had a grip through most of it. May's mostly been like people expect April to be, mildly cool with some rain. But it feels like June is going to be June, if we're lucky. Otherwise the dog days of summer might get an early jump.

Bird day

I'd be lying if I said that I was highlighting this video for any reason other than the joy of watching crows play at being Tarzan in a backyard. It needs no further justification.

I guess I'm in an avian mood, though. Yesterday I walked down to the waterfront until I saw ducks, gulls, and yes, Virginia, a swan. You can get pretty close to ducks, as they don't fly off just because a person is coming near. I'm sure they have some system for detecting especially hinky people. It's also quite fun to watch them talk.

The buzz

Okay, so I know how to get bees out of my apartment. Well, slow bees that don't really fly at least.

I moved something or other and there it was, crawling on the floor. I didn't know exactly what it was at first, beyond being in the general bug category, so it kind of freaked me out. My first instinct was to hit it with a shoe, but it's a little faster than that. A few minutes later it resurfaced in my vision, still crawling on the floor. This time I just pressed a plastic food container over it and dragged it out into the stairwell. From there, I do not know where it went. Into someone else's blog post, perhaps.

They see your every move

Tonight I watched an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, of which there are many. A private eye gets a visit from a wealthy man. The man's wife was murdered years earlier, and he wants help. Not help finding the man who killed her, which he's already done. No, the heavy implication is that he wants to kill the man. But even after he reveals this, it's pretty obvious he's still hiding something.

One thing struck me. The episode came out in 1960. James Franciscus, who played the private eye, was born in 1934. So when the story went in front of the cameras, the leading actor was only 25 or 26. If the story were being filmed now I have a hard time imagining anyone that young taking the lead without their youth and everyone calling them "junior " and the like. So maybe people were more mature a few decades ago. Or maybe just better at asking like they're grown-u;

Hippcat

Jutta Hipp, the pianist on the above piece of music, was born in Leipzig in 1925. Yes, doing the math, that means she was growing up in the prime Nazi years. Not the easiest time to be a jazz fan in Germany, but in her heart of hearts she was. She was also a gifted musician in the form, recording in both Europe and the States. And making an album with Zoot Sims, which she did in 1956, is not something every jazz player got to do. And yet, it was her last album. For reasons unknown she gave up playing music professionally, getting a job instead at a clothing factory. She died in 2003.

All of which makes her the opposite of a late bloomer, I guess. Still, better something than nothing.

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

Took a walk today. First part of it was the "getting there" part, walking through one of the business districts on the East side and the residential bits on either side. My destination: a park at the city limits. Then I did some more walking there. That way even if I take a bus back home I've been circulating.

It's spring. That means it's getting warmer. I don't mind/sometimes like cool weather, so that's not a big deal for me. Trees have more leaves out, and you can see different kinds of flowers. That's certainly nice. But also there's a new smell in the air. Well, more than one. All sorts of plant life coming back.

And again, I thank my lucky stars that my allergies aren't bad at all this year so I can enjoy it.

All manner of forest creatures

AVAR from Feiner Janka on Vimeo.

A fetching bit of animation from the deep woods.Well, somewhere in the woods. And I'm sure filming with an actual fire would have posed issues on many levels, so I'm glad the animators found workable stop-motion substitute. Colorful, too!

Thoughts

I've been writing, working on a story. It's going...okay. I'm hoping to wind up with something usable.

There are a lot of things that might be problems for writers in these conditions. There's the fact that it becomes difficult to imagine any kind of casual social contact when all that's being officially discouraged. Also it can be hard to concentrate on a fictional world when time has been de-structured.

The story has a female protagonist, or two. Some people also have overwhelming difficulty writing about the opposite sex. I don't think I'm one of those people, not now. There are species that have pretty extreme sexual dimorphism in their genetic makeup. Hardly any of these species are mammals, much less primates, and I don't think we're the exception on that. Yes, there are observable differences in behavior, but I think most of that is down to the different kinds of social networks that boys and girls grow up in. As for hardwired biological differences, well, a man who believes that because women are able to bear young that they'll always be soft and maternal is setting himself up for heartache.

What's mew?

You know what I haven's seen in a while? A cat. Can't say exactly when it was, but definitely a while. Go out any day of the week and you'll see someone walking their dog. You can walk your cat too, of course, but it's not something most people do. And I haven't crossed paths with any lately who are just out to stretch their legs. So to any cats out there, I'm thinking of ya.

You talkin' to me?

I lay down for a few minutes today. I dreamed a woman beside me was asking a question. I didn't understand the question, am pretty sure I couldn't hear it correctly. So I started to ask her what she had said, or to rephrase it. And then I woke up.

If this had happened at night I might never have even been consciously aware of it. During the day, though, it was an eerie experience. Not an unpleasant one, though. I wouldn't have expected to be in REM sleep, or to dream anything.

Chillin'

Well, I had finally caved and bought a mask, because you can't ride the bus or go into most stores without some kind of face covering, and because it was getting too warm to use a woolen or cashmere scarf.

And then today happened. Polar vortex, as they called it. I actually saw snowflakes in the air this morning. In May. So on one of my two trips out, picking up breakfast, I wore both a scarf and a winter coat. Grocery shopping I wore a lighter jacket because it involves walking up hills and tends to build up heat, but I still had a scarf on me and anyway that turned out to be borderline.

One thing I've noticed is that the heat hasn't kicked on. It's still okay if you wear a sweater, but I've definitely heard and felt the radiator going on days this cold in April and beforehand. Which makes me think the landlords get to a certain point in the year and say, "Fuck it, we're not buying any more oil." Which might make them sound callous, but in an ordinary year no one would even notice.

Sundown you better take care

The New Yorker has always been known for its humorous one-panel comics. Which means, of course, that they've had a lot of practitioners of this format. A select group really stand out for me. Gahan Wilson is one, obviously. Danny Shanahan is another. I know very little about him personally. There's no Wikipedia article about him or anything. But he perfectly nails the dry, low-key absurdity.

Water and air

Went out for a little jaunt today. Southward, toward the city. I passed through the Roger Williams Memorial park, not to be confused with Roger Williams Park in the west. Took note of a couple of sculptures I hadn't seen before.

This route is nice because I know I can make the whole thing on foot. Buses are less crowded now, but in other ways have gotten more unpleasant, so sometimes I just give myself a break from them.

The endpoint before I made a u-turn and went home was the waterfront. There's a little dock on the river, looks like it could only service one boat at a time. I stood on it for a few minutes, listening to the current lap the wood. On the railing was a little cobweb. The spider had left it behind, it looked like. It glittered in the sun, delicate enough that I could have swiped it away with one movement of a hand, but of course I wouldn't want to.

Watching the little things nature does in the background can be soothing in the midst of hectic human activity. Or the lack thereof, as the case may be.

One or the other

This is a song I dearly love. Might actually be the best thing Robbie Robertson has ever written in fact. Just the way it makes a party out of the tensions and frustrations of daily urban life. Helped along, of course, by Garth Hudson's playful organ (a phrase that sounded better in my head.)

Save your neck
Or save your brother
Looks like it's
One or the other.

The terror, of course, is the possibility you might not succeed at either.

Escapism

The kind of person I am, the kind of mind I have, is always thinking outside. Not outside the box. Well, that too. Just, other situations, other places, times, conditions. My brain is almost always on some level occupied by something other than what's in front of me. Are there times that needs to be kept in check? Most definitely. Is now one of those times? Not really.