Wednesday, January 16, 2002 07:40 p.m.
Had a pretty good day at work today, although I had a hard time sleeping amoungst four snoring basset hounds. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was in a strange dream that may have included a harem of bassets. The were all on the bed staring into my eyes intently. URGH, Too disturbing to thing of right now...

The big thing that happened today is that I got my windshield wipers fixed. Yeah...now I can drive around in the rain, woohoo. I wonder if I got a new umbrella I would want it to rain like I want it to rain now. Please rain, please...give it to me, i can take it...

I think I am ready for bed already, and it’s only 7:30pm. What is wrong with me.. wait

don’t answer that...

GOODNIGHT!

Wednesday, January 16, 2002 01:06 a.m.
Very tired tonight. These dogs are great, but it took a long time to get them back in the house after letting them out in the yard.
I must sleep, I will write more tomorrow after work when I have my brain available to me again...

Monday, January 14, 2002 10:26 p.m.
Well, I met the dogs yesterday. They have such distinct personalities. It's like four old friends hanging out together. They shoot each other knowing glances and weird smiles. Maybe I am making a little too much of it, but I guess I have never really been around four dogs at the same time before. They're really cool and mellow though for the most part. I think it will be fun to look after them for the few days. I'm gonna stay at Jeanne's house for at least tomorrow night, because it's kinda silly to drive back and forth, when I will feed and let them out a couple times a day.

I went to see the Royal Tennenbaums tonight with A and E. I liked it, but was not immensly impressed or anything with it. It was cute and quirky, but nowhere near as good as Rushmore or Bottle Rocket. It just seemed to lag a bit and was pretty thin. I know it was a comedy and wasn't supposed to be a life transforming or altering experience, but I wanted a little more from it.

I can't believe it. Mission of Burma played two shows in New York and are going to play two shows in Boston. I have to find a way to get tickets. They haven't played for at least ten years. This is a miracle. I can't believe it. Wish me luck, one of the shows is already sold out! The other one is on Saturday and you can only get tickets via Credit Card, which I don't have. Maybe I will have to drive down to Boston to get tickets. ARGHHH!

That's when I reach for my revolver!

Saturday, January 12, 2002 01:31 p.m.
Well, I didn't get out of the house like I planned. I decided to mess around with the digital camera a bit. The results are a bit scary. Just in case anyone is wondering... Yes my hair is always punk rock sticking straight up in the morning. So go to the webcam page if you want to watch the GROGG OF JIM. It's just another silly experiment...

Other news...
Thanks for updating Karen. I had been wondering how you were:^}
I think I'll take that walk now, before it gets dark...

Saturday, January 12, 2002 10:40 a.m.
Elizabeth-I think I know the woman you're talking about! I think she came in before and did the same thing. She was annoying, but now it takes on a whole new meaning! Crazy...

Groggy morning. Probably because I was such a slug last night. I ordered pizza and watched the Red Violin. That was it. I didn't feel like touching the typewriter or the brushes. I was immersed in slugdom. Yuck.

But the movie was pretty good and I have the day to go out a little. This is the last day of my mini vacation(from 5pm Wed to 6pm Sat).

I think the plan lies in the usual walk to CBD and reading. I think I'm gonna start that different translation of the Iliad on E's recommendation. It turns out the one I read before was the Fitzgerald one.
I also want to read Savage Beauty, too.
When Elizabeth gets excited about a book, it just makes you want to stop what your doing and take the book and devour it. She has a way of getting you curious about a book. I guess that's why she's such a good bookseller.
(^%}

Friday, January 11, 2002 06:30 p.m.
I have been painting and writing a lot lately. I like the winter because it seems to breed(if only because you can't spend lots of time outside)creative introspection. At least it feels that way right now.

Although I will probably look at what I write now later and hate it, at least it's coming out, which I am always grateful for.

What else?
Pitas has been SLOW. I swear(to those who give me guilt for not blogging) I have tried to blog a couple times in the last few days but it just hangs there and then gives me an error.

Other news...
So I agreed to take care of Jeanne's Basset hounds for a few days during her vacation. For those of you who don't know, that's 4, count em FOUR dogs. What have i got myself into. I went up to Farmington Wednesday night, and came back to Portland Thursday. Then today I felt like taking a drive, so I gave Katie a ride to Providence to meet up with a friend she is spending the weekend with. It's only three hours away. I guess I always thought Rhode Island seemed so far away. 4 states away and all. That's one thing I like about the east coast...In a few hours you could be in a number of different states, or Canada for that matter.
I remember when Penny and I went to Ottawa, Quebec, and Montreal. I kept saying, man this isn't that far at all. That was a wonderful trip. :>) Good memories.

I have always loved road trips and have been known to just take off on drives... and there is always something crazy that happens to me on them.

I just got 3 words

Salt lake City!

The trip today was no exception...
I got all the way to Rhode Island in the rain with my elderly wipers keeping a painfully slow pace. I dropped K off and headed back up toward Boston. I was planning to stop and look in some Bookshops. But that was not in the cards today, no sir-ee.

The wipers would move once and stop. They made one swipe and that was it. It was pouring out.

I looked through my car for some solution. Maybe I could take the new scraper that Eand A gave me for Christmas and sort of brush the water off the window...yeah jim, all the way home, 3 hours, with one arm streched out of the window,

no..not such a good idea...

Next thought was to look for a piece of string or something to tie to the wiper, so I could pull it... but this broke off very quickly.

I have always prided myself on my thrifty sensibilities, but in this situation, I really wished I brought the car in when I first noticed the slowness.

Then, like a gift, I noticed some black electrical tape in the glove box. The light bulb didn't just light up, it shattered.
This would be the temporary fix.
So I tied one end of a long piece of tape to the wiper blade and held on to the other side of it and gave it a little tug when it stopped moving, which was every time it made a swipe. So for the whole way home(actually to Portsmouth) I pulled on the wiperblade like a marionette. People drove by me and thought I was waving to them.
all I could really do was smile at them.

And now my arm is tired...

Monday, January 7, 2002 08:06 p.m.
Had a good productive day at work.

I also had a great Goodwill day! I got a Leonard Cohen album and a Neil Young album that I hadn't heard since my college days for 99 cents. "There was a band playing in my head and I felt like getting high." and other classic lines are now playing on my record player in Neil's unmistakable voice. This really brings back memories of friends long forgotten, and the fact I was a major pothead for most of my teen years.

You don't know how many times I heard this song(After the Goldrush)while I was sitting in my dorm room contemplating how I would make it to the cafateria for breakfast when I was too high to even sit up in bed. It was my biggest problem. I was very hungry!

This was before alot of things. Before my cousin's untimely and suspicious death a few months later. Before meeting my friend Jamie-which led to California-which led to more California- which ultimately led back here...

And in-between all that, intertwined with all this motion there was so much learning, frustration, missing, anger, love, needing, wanting, having, losing, sharing, forgetting, remembering, struggling and all that enclosed within living a life...
this life which is still moving on.

Among so many other lives moving on too.

I have spent a lot of time trying to really embrace the moment. I have tried to live in this instant, which, passes much too quickly to the next. I have realized that the only time we can live in is now...

but I am also realizing tonight that it's okay to think about the times lived too, to remember things as much as you can too. Because you are the only one that experienced them in your way, you are the only one that can remember them from your eyes, the way you you captured them

and maybe being able to embrace these times gone with free you to fully live these times now...

or in Neil's words...
"tell me why
is it hard to make arragements with yourself,
when you're old enough to repay,
but young enough to sell"

Saturday, January 5, 2002 05:09 p.m.
Well, i haven’t blogged in a while.

Elizabeth did the nicest thing the other day, and I just wanted to thank her again. She came in to the store while I was working and took my coat and mended it. Thanks again. It’s holding up superbly.

Got back today from visiting my friend Katie, in Farmington. Went up Thursday night and had a good relaxing time. It was good to get away from Portland for a little while. It can kind of close in on you sometimes. Although Farmington is really small, it was pretty, and there is a great bookstore there that I spent entirely too much time in, looking at American first editions of Camus and drooling.

The drive back was gorgeous in the morning, I’ve never really been up there before. I think I drove past mountains, yeah, I know I did. There was a nice lake too. I also saw some guys standing on the ice smelting. i thought one of the guys had fallen through the ice at first glance, he looked to be up to his waist, but he was actually kneeling on the ice. Maybe I thought I saw this because on NPR they were talking about the fact that since we haven’t had a lot of cold weather, the ice is thinner than it usually is this time of year. I must have just projected that onto the scene.

Worked on a poem all morning, took a nap this afternoon. Now the evening is approaching.
Did somebody say Laundry? Yeah, I am going to give in and finally do my Laundry.

Tuesday, January 1, 2002 02:15 a.m.
There is something very fitting about listening to the Velvet Underground and Nico right now, within the first few hours of 2002.

They have a certain wasted tired feel to them, which is how I am feeling.

Went to E and A's for New Years, pretty mellow and mostly Elizabeth's various family members present. I had a pretty good time.

I remember I used to get so excited about New Years Eve when I was younger. There seemed to be infinite promise ahead. I felt like the next year was always going to be the best year of my life. I always convinced myself that I would do the things I wanted to do the previous year but didn't get a chance to do them.

I feel a little different now. I feel hopeful, but realistic. I am still excited, but realize the excitement exists in an different sense. My resolutions may be smaller than when I was younger, but they are just as important, when taken slowly. I am realizing that if I slow down a bit, I get to understand and see more of what was in front of me all along...

Happy New Year!!!