- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 941
Today, a borrowed car and a few errands to thrift shops. Searching for Stormy Supplies, with little luck. Nothing of interest.
Returning, through Castlegar, downtown, across from a copse of trees. There's a line of traffic, moving slowly. And a deer jumps out into the road - the van in front of me, going slowly - still manages to hit it. The deer, large, catapults 3, 4, 5 times in the air, lands in the middle of the lanes. Traffic both ways is halted. The deer, trying to get up, flips itself a couple of more times before landing on it's belly, front legs propping up it's head, it's back is snapped, it's going nowhere. Blood is coming out of it's mouth, tinting the froth that's building, and it's watching traffic.
The driver of the van, he's pulled over, is gathering the bits of the van that flew off when he hit it. The deer is watching.
Traffic slowly resumes around it, the deer, there's nothing we - anyone can do, but I'm surprised at how cavalier he is about gathering up the front of his van, the deer watching him, the cars go by, there's that shocked final look of intelligence in it's eyes.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 884
And, getting nowhere in the departments that matter, in a holding pattern of sorts, I finally take it upon myself to clear the table.
I really need a desk.
The table, piled high with notes, pertinent and largely irrelevant, is a source of Anxiety. Like the dishes piled beside the sink and the unmade bed. SO - 2 minutes later and the table is cleared. That's how long it takes. The table is cleared and I can begin to "concentrate" on the project(s) I need to get done.
1 at a time.
This clutter, it's an externalization of my mental processes, an extension, I need only to review my notes to see, abundant notes, 100, 000 words where I only needed 1000, but the RIGHT words, the RIGHT phrasing, there is an alchemy to their combining, a recipe, a rhythm that I hit upon only occasionally, that I need to exercise, find the flow.
There are - so far as I know - 2 forms of creation. One, the generative - building, things upon things, growth - add letter to letter, build a word, word to word to build a sentence, sentence to paragraph to chapter to novel. So it goes. The other form, destructive, hammering upon stone to free the form you imagine is imprisoned within.
I am somewhere between them both, add, edit, revise, add some more, edit, revise, from a page of notes I - if I am lucky, inspired, quick, find a paragraph or verse. And begin it again, write another page, then reduce, edit, compress, scratch out, erase, write again, and - perhaps - another paragraph at the end.
So it goes.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 865
Turned leaves are now largely fallen, snow slowly creeps down the mountain, the chipmunks shaking down the nuts onto the pedestrians and cars. Don't loiter underneath the taller trees. Chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, acorns, dozens I can't identify, they seem to change brands street to street, every conceivable nut, which ones are edible? Which aren't? I haven't a clue. But fall is done, time to do a sweep up of leaves from the yard before the snow settles, and - there's no new place on the horizon.
Grim, grim, grim.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 880
And a couple of weeks ago, sitting at the kitchen table and I see...
Well, there's always things flitting out of the corner of your eye here, it's an old house, poorly lit, and - as old houses go, more than likely haunted. So these shadows caught from the corner of the eye, the clanging and banging of pots throughout the night, smashing of cups, always to awake the next morning with no damage done, auditory hallucinations, as it were, I'm used to it.
But this was different. And - watch the floor careful and it appears again.
Damn, I got a mouse.
Now - an unwelcome roommate for sure, but, I've got to say, of all the roommates I've ever had I'll tolerate a mouse any day. The rest of them, well, that's another story...
Anyways, long experience has taught me that if you too long tolerate one you'll soon have a family - or several, and so I go shopping for a humane, live capture mousetrap. I'm thinking one of the tip-and-release ones that I've used in the past - a plastic tube that the mouse enters, the trap tips, the mouse is imprisoned. $1.99 at any hardware store.
Any hardware store but here. A tour of every store in town turns up nothing. Asking about "Humane" mousetraps and you get the "Kill quickly" section, which, arguably "humane" (arguably indeed!) seems a harsh punishment for a tenant that - just like everyone else out here - is just trying to get by and survive.
No, I want a live-capture trap, I can let it go in the overgrown field across from the house with a pound of peanuts and it'll be set for the winter.
So I splurge, buy a tin mousetrap that promises to live capture several - dozens of the guys - even, $20.00, bait it, and set it out.
The theory is that the hole of the trap sits next to the wall, and as mice like to run along walls they'll run into the hole and be unable to escape. The bait, peanut butter and peanuts - that's just to sweeten the deal, give the mouse something to do until I can release it.
Set it up beside the fridge and wait.
And wait.
Mornings, up early boiling the water for my coffee. Step out for a cigarette. And turning around across the street I see I've interrupted 3 giant - I mean massive - raccoons that were in the process of raiding the leftovers of my garden. It's still dark out, but you can see their little masked faces under the streetlight looking over at me as they pile out of the yard, clearly I surprised them, but as I've crossed the street it doesn't seem I'm a threat and so they sit there on the path to my door debating what to do before they disperse. The middle one - ringleader (?) - is huge, maybe 2 feet high, as big as a mountain porcupine...
Back inside, the water's boiled, thermostat turned up, it's starting to heat up, put my feet up and drink my coffee.
It's early, quiet, and soon Mr. Mouse makes his appearance. It appears he's living under the fridge, and the theory of "Close to walls" is clearly not founded upon him. Nope, he's out, sallying about, in a top hat and vest, walking across the middle of the floor, crawling in my bag, under the sink, back out, middle of the floor, here, there - completely unperturbed, without an ounce of caution, I'm completely unobserved, and so I just watch him. I mean, you can TRY and capture him with your hands, but - well, I doubt that will happen. Although I'm sure there could be some amusing YouTube footage of me trying.
It's been 7 days now. The trap - nights I hear it rattling - as if the mouse were inside, in a rage, trying to escape, in the morning - nothing, the bait intact, no mouse-footprints in the peanut butter, the nuts are still there, I can imagine the mouse - cartoon mouse, rattling the bars of the cage from the outside, making noises as if he were trapped, like Bugs Bunny feigning death, merely to humor me or get a reaction, meanwhile he (she?) makes his /her nightly rounds, into this, into that, crumb here, crumb there...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 839
And feeling generally unsettled, like the weather.
Grey, clouds, cooler - there's the wanting to make a final assault on Crystal Mountain, only there's the caution of knowing that a 6 hour drive will probably be repaid with snow. This working less, it's like getting out of a prison, it leaves one confused. The new job, it settles into it's rhythm, meet the people, new job a lot like the old job, only a lot less money and a lot less hours. Time more to remember myself, only I largely seem to have forgotten, review notes - what was I up to again that was so important?
There's finding a new place to live - this, with a mere 6 weeks to go - should be more of a priority - the place on offer in Queens Bay, it demands a car - and a willingness to drive that same drive all over again, in reverse, and I'm loathe to do it. So - start searching for a place in Nelson. Only 6 weeks to go. And there's the hoard of junk and art supplies to be dealt with, the repacking of the small locker, the jeep - still to be dealt with, it's like raiding the last 2 summer's tomb, the graveyard of hard work and foolish money, it needs to be done, but maybe not just RIGHT now...
That is all. Out of sorts, the change in season, weather, job, and soon to be accommodations, they're all taking their toll...