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kathy’s question – “which came first, the itchin’, or the hatch?” answer: the itch – if you didn’t itch, you wouldn’t scratch , and if you didn’t scratch, they wouldn’t hatch.
told my lady i wanted needed must have a cup of coffee this morning. she said “but honey, didn’t your heart have a bad beat last night?“ told her no, not a bad beat really – more like a slow waltz.
the bells have disappeared from the church a 5 minute walk up the lane. think they stopped january 1st. there were 120 bell rings rung at 6, noon, 4:30 and 8 every day… plus 120 rings rung 10:30 on saturday… and another 120 before 10 and after 11 on sunday with an extra 120 strings of bells at various times, moments and occasions… even the hourly bell chimes are gone. perhaps bells only have a finite number of rings in them and these minimum 3,867 rings per week used up all the bell pings… so they’re still ringing them but no sounds propagate… or maybe someone finally snapped and kidnapped or killed the bell-ringer… or he’s on a drunk binge… or the rings finally drove him mad… or he’s on vacation… or there’s a mechanical bell-ringer and it’s on strike or drunk… or a victim of the bell rings threw a monkey wrench into the machine… or some other victim used his mind to put a powerful force field around the tower so the rings can’t escape and the tremendous force of the rings captured within the church have shattered the priest’s mind and eardrums… or they forgot to renew their 2006 bell ringer license and cannot legally ring in 2007… or perhaps like everyone else around here, the bells went on vacation until the 8th. i sort of miss them. you hear 3,867 rings every week for two months and they become part of your life. plus we were using the 120 at 6 a.m. as our get-up call. i wonder where bells would go for vacation? perhaps times square… or some sheep field to visit the bellwether… or maybe the library to read edgar allen poe’s poem ‘the bells’. life is so mysterious. i tell all this to kathy and she says “no bell peace prize… or maybe time’s stopped.”
couldn’t find a back brush for the shower, so bought a toilet brush. all across europe, solid wastes do NOT flush down the toilet… you have to scrap it down with a toilet brush which they keep in a small plastic holder next to every toilet we’ve seen since we left america. and the bristles are stiff – rather like washing your back with steel needles. there are so many possible tasteless jokes i can conceive with me using a feces brush to clean my back that i’ll just let them pass, untouched.
kathy and i are gathering our collaborations of my life stories into a single manuscript – have 224 pages so far, and it is funny stuff. i come across as an innocent and naive but really lucky half-wise half-wiseass cosmic clown court jester outlaw crashing reality’s party. have so many stories i’m having trouble understanding how they all happened to me – yet every story is not only true, but understated as well. it’s the honesty mixed with self-deprecating humor and droll understatement which make them work, gives them power, makes them acceptable and funny to both the wild ones and the folks leading safer lives. but seeing how there are so many, i have to start thinking maybe i had something to do with helping them happen in the first place. i’ve had a lot of fun amidst the pain. what a long strange trip it’s been, and it ain’t done yet.
reading “euclid creek” – an 128 page poem by michael ceraolo (kathy’s previous boyfriend… or rather one of 5 men in her life in her 2-3 months before me – i’m so good i replaced all 5 of them). i was disinclined to like it, but i do. good stuff. worth reading. it was just published by mark kuhar’s deep cleveland press. mark’s also the proprietor of the d.a. levy/deep cleveland press site http://www.deepcleveland.com/. he has a lot of other books available as well. he was going to bring out a book of 20 of my non-fiction autobiographical stories, but kathy and i’ve decided to include them in our own manuscript.
met ognjen’s parents yesterday. they speak no english so natalija/ognjen served as language interface in the collaborative conversation. his father does not think much of george bush junior or senior – nor ronald rayguns reagan. since we’ve left america, we’ve not talked to one person from any country, any age, any sex, any political philosophy, any level of intelligence who doesn’t view george w bush as a war criminal. america is held below low regard by the rest of the world. fortunately, most folk are willing to give american citizens a chance. they’ve been kind to us… tho many have pointed out that bush would not be murdering iraqi civilians right now if the american public lived up to their responsibilities – we are after all a democracy, and even tho bush’s league stole the election both times, the american public abrogated their responsibility to call them on it, failed in their responsibility to stop the war. were i a senator right now, i’d cut every single penny from the iraq war budget. no matter how you look at it, we’re killing folk, murdering them for oil. and most americans are going right along with it. every time i write something like this, i get a raft of complaints from americans saying there’s nothing they can do. bullshit. write your congressperson, write your newspaper, demand congressional investigations, demand impeachment, demand prison terms for these war profiteering war criminals, attend war protests, contribute to anti-war groups, teach your children and your students and your parents about the evil going on, talk to your friends and neighbors – let normal folk know. and most of all, start putting corporate c.e.o.s in jail. murderers and thieves are murderers and thieves no matter whether you call them nazis or republicans or corporations. there is a right and wrong, and we all know it.
i really enjoyed yesterday’s conversation… his father also keeps chickens, rabbits, and sports pigeons who twirl and tumble while flying – plus the inevitable garden. we left with fresh eggs and jars of home pickled peppers/cucumbers/greentomatoes. been a long time since i ate an egg i knew where it came from… last time was summer of 1960 just before we moved from our farm to the wicked city. we now also know where the rooster who keeps crowing resides as well.
just had our first bad croatian experience… took 1 hour and $88 to mail 2 sticks of wood and some chocolate back to the states. the old iron curtain socialist slow bureaucracy lingers still. but this is more than counterbalanced by the magic of the rest of our personal croatia.