A break

The fruit trees need pruned. I gotta...

The list is long, preparation longer and perhaps better known as procrastination. Or distractions less wearisome.

"What things do you do for fun?"

"See above."

And below.

Drunk is not one of them; still, it happened as way of celebration when the last app for a bit went out and I readied myself for a first full night's sleep in several weeks. More like a spike strip. But it worked. I arose at a decent hour after seven of them, had breakfast and coffee, and hit the road in the fog. I headed south for what I assumed would be a "soft" interview as I got to know the faculty I already knew a little better, see their work, and gently address what was foremost. Without going into details, I think it went well except I forgot to bring them potatoes.

Except they asked me about growing potatoes. Yet, we eventually got around to a mini-resumé. More of a fill-in from their tracked scan of my site the night before.

To and fro I wrote poems in my head. Hawks, herons, crows, voles, coyotes during lambing season. Which it is. All seen through the fog, you understand.

"Do you ever just breathe?"

(Cut to new scene)

"What are you doing, Honey?"

"Nothing."

(and back)

"You're breathing."

"I'm listening to music. I'm waiting for the paint to dry."

"Try breathing."

(away)

"I'm writing a post."

(back)

"Breathing."

(away)

Always already nascent

An early morning again. I seem to become a dedicated night owl. In bed by 2200 hrs, awake no later than 0300 hrs, more often earlier, napping off and on during the daylight hours as my mind demands.  The quiet is nice.

Well, there is the sound of the fan on the pellet stove and Brian Eno's "Neroli" to fill in the holes.

The job search continues and builds as I consider other options to throw at the prospectives. I may do better by proposing seminars. After all, who needs to hire someone so long-in-the-tooth to teach beginning skills when there are plenty of beginners willing to teach it? And I just so happen to have a couple proposals in my bag of tricks.

Still, I find it mildly amusing that I pursue my mark-making process began some twenty years ago, apparently not quite ready to move on as evidenced by the purchase of more ink, paint and brushes, excited, even, by white ink.

The two above are small, 5" x 7". Below, 11" x 14". I have an order in for 14" x 20", and again, I'm quite excited with the prospect of working larger.  But not too much larger, for I'm not certain I'm ready for a much larger format, and the cost is prohibitive should I not be able to salvage a piece after a few wrong marks.

In situ (in progress)

No less real

A Facebook friend

died tonight in my dream.

To be truthful, I can’t remember

the details and wouldn’t share them if I did.

But if it makes you feel any better,

I’m pretty certain it was relatively painless.

The point is: I was there to see it happen, thereby

alleviating the need to post condolences.

Soggy Saga

Yesterday's short little post turned into an all day affair. All night as well, which is why I'm writing this at 0300 hrs instead of sleeping, the sentiment about the birds long worn off.

An accumulated seven inches of snow disappeared overnight, helped along by a constant and often heavy rain. The seasonal creek that I've been mentioning lately was higher than I've ever seen it, as was the pond. Higher than the last lesson in hydrodynamics a couple weeks ago that required taking away a portion of the dam for the pond. Today we had another class.

Forgive me, but some picture must first be painted.

Our house is of a style one sees in varying sizes in the area, except for one feature: we have a basement. It's where I hole up most days, chained, if you will, to this computer and my drafting table. But I'm already getting ahead of myself...

There is a reason for few basements in this region. Because of the amount of rain we get, the ground is saturated to the basalt that lies not too far under the soil. The bedrock may also be why there are few basements, for it is hit digging no further down than nine feet anywhere on this ridge we live on. I have little doubt that my feet currently rest two feet above rock. The reason I think this is because the seasonal creek that runs 150 feet behind our house has a solid rock bottom, and the grade from our basement door to the creek drops at best and no more than that same two feet. Therefore, to accommodate a basement, after the walls of the foundation were built, soil was mounded about five feet high all around, but not before a fairly intricate drainage system was built for the gutters and such, plus another for the sump pumps. All of the exterior plumbing junctions near our back door where a six-inch pipe channels the water to the creek. The sump pump discharge runs alongside. These pipes don't have much of a grade, again, because of the proximity of the bedrock to the surface, yet function well enough during most rainy seasons.

Very close to where these pipes meet the creek, the stream goes into a 16-inch culvert that channels the flow along the side of our big barn, opening up again just past the structure, where the stream makes a sharp turn against a bit of a bank before heading into a neighbor's pasture. There was too much flow today for the culvert to handle and the water began to hang up behind the culvert and again at the bend, in effect making what is normally no more than a six-inch deep stream into a 18-inch reservoir of sorts. The added pressure and depth basically reversed the flow of the exterior drainage from the house. We had a back flow.

Now, you might wonder, where does this water go? Certainly not back up the gutter spouts. Part of the drain system runs just outside of the basement door. There is a 4" x 6" x 4' concrete trench with a grate over it to catch run-off as it comes from the driveway down the paving bricks to that door. This drain is plumbed into a drain just inside the basement, put there, I suppose, in case the washer decides to spring a leak.

You know where I'm going with this, so I'll take a moment to make a little detour.

I was on the phone with a clerical person from one of the recipients of my recent flurry of letter writing campaigns. This particular application procedure called for several files to be combined into rather sizable files that were then to be emailed as pdfs. Already a challenge for this Luddite, matters were further complicated by a glitch on the receiving end. I was pacing about while discussing the issue with this person when I wandered toward the room with basement door. The floor drain was a-bubbling, and I excused myself from the conversation.

I initially thought that the trench might be clogged, so I quickly converted my 14-gallon shop vac to wet mode, pulled up the grate and started in. Though thoroughly cleaned, the water kept filling and spilling over the trench. I'd need a pump. The local hardware store had one it would rent me. The wife set to taking things out of the new seasonal pond forming on the basement floor.

"How big is the trench you want to put this thing in?"

"Four inches wide."

"Won't fit."

"Shit. Any ideas?"

"We got some pond pumps up front for sale you could rig to a hose."

"Let's do it."

They had two sizes, one each: a 100 gallons per hour and one that displaced 300 gallons an hour. Given how quickly the water was coming in, I chose the larger of the two and headed home.

I had also called our neighbor friend before heading off the fetch a pump, for he recently retired from the water department in a nearby city. I thought he might have a pump, but no. He was at my house when I returned and we hooked up the pump in no time.

It was clearly insufficient. I needed another pump, but I already knew the hardware store couldn't help, so I called the pet store.

"We have 100, 300, 500, 950, 1500..."

"I'll be right there."

I chose the 950 gallon model, rigged it with some adapters our neighbor had, and within minutes the water level dropped in the trench and basement.

That was thirteen hours ago. The basement has been wet-vacced and is almost dry. I just have the 300 gallon pump going now and it seems to be matching the flow perfectly. I am now more concerned about the water level getting too low and the pump burning out, so here I am, still awake.

The weather site says we received three inches of rain yesterday. I do not know how to calculate the added snow melt beyond the 1 inch of rain equals one foot of snow formula. We have had five inches of rain in one day before and not experienced this flooding. The prognosticators are calling for another two inches today, one inch tomorrow, and significantly less after that.

The wife wakes up in a couple hours, and she'll take over the watch, but I'm thinking I'll see what happens if I turn off the pump... but not before I go have a look at the creek again.

More like it

Seven inches of snow now slush and rain and a number of large puddles, some twenty feet across. The creek has the pond above capacity again, so the mole hills are springing and the driveway underground stream re-opened. The mules have sought shelter in the old hoop house but it too has water features. The wind is coming strong from the east and the lights are flickering. I might want to take a shower before we lose power.

I am happy for the variety of thrushes turning up the leaf mulch.

Oh, there's more. Others with pink. I am, after all, a 21st Century kinda guy.  As they say, embiggen the fucker to see the title. You see, believe it of not, I stare at these things, and more and more I ask, "What is missing? What will make the composition complete?" And then, "How can I fuck it up and come back to rescue it?" Rather like some poker players we know, eh? Formalism really knows no bounds, but you'll have to trust me on that.

Anyway, I've wanted to get to writing a post today, if for no other reason to tell you we've received our first snow of the season. Lovely stuff early this morning, and it's still coming down, although in waves, from small sleet to lake-effect. The dog and wife love it, as do I as long as I don't have to shovel. I do want to keep both of my two mottoes for this state intact: "You don't shovel rain." and "It's always good sleeping weather." We do manage about six inches a year, yet it will be gone by Wednesday when the rains return.

The photos don't do eight o'clock this morning justice. The shy was darker, but something in me said "too dark for human consumption," so I tweaked them lighter and threw in a bit of contrast to compensate. If I was a painter, there's be a lot of deep purple, the sky a radiant cave.

But now I will try purple and green on the paper.

She's missing a head.

At it

We're still knee deep in job apps, each cover letter targeted, which almost always necessitates a rewrite and rearrangement. Funny how, not taking into account the typos and such, the letter continues to improve. Of course, the collateral materials are going through minor adjustments as well. Package number two will go out tomorrow, leaving three more to do by the end of the month. No telling what the last packet will read like, but the tweaks so far have only been good, so I can't complain too much.

Though a regular sleep schedule would be nice. I made a nice pasta with garlic bread for dinner tonight and after cleaning off the table, promptly fell asleep on the couch for a half hour. That would usually spell trouble for later in bed; but instead, when I woke up I made a cup of coffee and headed to the dungeon to edit. And draw.

I'm a horrible proofreader (goes without saying at this point) and after reading and re-reading the same crux, I begin to skim. I know the tricks to keep from doing this, for instance, reading aloud or start with the last sentence and work backwards, yet the former doesn't always work, and the latter seems tedious. Instead, I do something else for a while and then come back for another look. The "something else" these days is drawing. (Right now it is this post; and yes, sometimes poker.) Or painting. Or both. I can't really make a distinction between the two.

Anyway, I posted several of them just before Christmas, and while I slowed down a bit for the holidays, I've been at it again and thought I'd post a few more.

Back to it...

This crafting

Good at the gentle yet persistent self-remonstrances (just enough to not facilitate real change), I have told myself that I should not return to post until I could avoid said topic, for I suspected the little bites I was taking from bleeding cuticles held little interest for my readers. Truth is, the impetus to write is stronger than the skill and occurs more frequently than a worthy topic.

The woman who used to be addressed in a manner other than "my wife" and I have been discussing those bygone days, the reason being a series of essays required by most every institution I am approaching for an opportunity to receive a regular paycheck. (Rest assured, the approach is more straightforward than the fluff you just had to wade through.) Her questioning centered around the ease at which I approached the old blog compared to the tortured and sabotaged (her word) thrust of these essays in search of a livelihood.

The overall answer is to be found in a discussion of the appropriateness of transparency and authenticity. Take for instance, the below rewrites of an opening paragraph. The first one is a slight variation of the "old standby."

Because my spouse and I live and work on a small organic farm, I have sometimes referred to myself as a “farmist,” part farmer, part artist. The amalgamation of identities has not always been easily reconciled, for the two cultures sometimes do not mesh well. If my neighbors think it a bit odd that I build a compost pile full of art magazines and a dead coyote, in part as an homage to Joseph Beuys, and then videotape the event, so be it. It’s just the type of art I do out here in the middle of “nowhere.”

"No good," says she, for a number of reasons. So, I try again. Her suggestions begin to become evident.

I have lived and worked on a small organic farm since 2003 as a farmer and artist. The demands of each role are sometimes at odds with the other; however, one way both identities survive is through an amalgamation in which both have some thematic needs met or, at the very least, there is an uneasy truce.  This struggle of themes also plays out in the mediums I have chosen. 

Still, she suggests, I had another life elsewhere that goes largely ignored.

For almost nine years, I have lived and worked on a small organic farm. Somewhat of a return to my rural childhood, it was quite a departure from the decades of city life as an artist, writer and gallerist in Chicago. As an installation artist with conceptualist proclivities, I filled galleries with expositions on topics such as the death of a friend from AIDS, on art making as a promiscuous compulsion and on the blind self-righteousness of evangelical Christianity. As I left all of that behind, I knew one phase of my life as an artist was coming to an end, for farming is incredibly time-consuming and relentlessly pragmatic. Still, knowing that I would continue making art, I would have to adapt.

Better in some ways; confusing in others; and she is insistent that with the last two sentences there is a hole in my foot where there was none before. 

There are a couple more rewrites after the above, but even I grow weary of this little exercise. I will fast-forward to the end. Note how fluid meaning can be.

For almost nine years, I have lived and worked on a small organic farm. Somewhat of a return to my rural childhood, it was quite a departure from the decades of city life as an artist, writer and gallerist in Chicago. Back then, my artwork primarily focused on multimedia installation with conceptualist proclivities, and three exhibitions of note dealt with very differing subjects, including the death of a close friend from AIDS, on art making as a promiscuous compulsion, and evangelical Christian values and consumerism. While it may not seem an appropriate response to the gravity of my subject matters — yet, also because of the absurdities surrounding the issues I was addressing — my work contained elements of whimsy and untoward humor. The move to the country has brought with it new avenues of investigation in my art, and not all are as pastoral as one might expect.

Clearly, the last is superior to the first. What lessons are there to be found in this process? 

Between us, there must have been ten versions, the bulk of them coming within a twenty-four hour period, finishing fifteen hours before the application deadline.  We went to bed at 0930, which is partly the reason I am awake before the sun is up today.

The rewritten paragraph represents a fairly small portion of all that was written. The remainder received the same amount of scrutiny. And while I am indebted to my wife, I still turn inward and recall that I flunked English 101 the first time I took it. Was it because I thought my first effort was sufficient and didn't put in the extra work required for superior work? Then what about the apparent ease with which the old blog was a-blogged? Did I expect it to be perfect? Certainly not. Professional? Proficient. Readable and enjoyable? Most likely. 

And what of "Spot?" I had hopes. Yet, like the development of that opening for my artist statement, it takes time to become self-aware and thorough-going and understandable. The quick edit I do today before clicking "Publish" will do nothing to gain deeper understanding in regards to that question about lessons learned. 

So, here is my resolution for 2012, one week in: you deserve better.

 

Meta lessons

Another night sitting in the light of the midnight oil. Cheesy as that is, it may be all I can muster for sentence with any creative spark. Saganaki, anyone?

What I thought were completed essays required to project respectability, dedication and just plain ol' smarts were rejected by the editor in the office upstairs.  Shame, but true, my words turn in on themselves sometimes. I know what I mean, or think I do. Turns out, I'm pretty good at alliterative mumbo jumbo. And contrary to what some might believe, they won't buy it just from the pretty picture.

But enough about that. It's not all work and no play. New Year's Eve was pleasant streaming Louis CK episodes while drinking a bottle of bubbly. (Yes, Happy New Year to all of you.) And today was the annual poker thingy and BBQ. The food, I must say, was pretty lame, except for my green bean casserole. As lame as my cards, so it evens out. Jacks and Queens no good, my game impressive only with my lay downs. Otherwise, folding blinds for three hours while waiting to eat.

And just now, I took a break from writing... before this writing... to play a little online poker. Funny money, of course, but bear with me.

I hit 200K in winnings a couple days ago, a good 3/4 of it playing 10/20 and 50/100 limit games, this after giving another player 20K earlier in the month. I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment, despite the field. Well, as you can imagine, after attending to duties, I anxiously went back to the tables, only to find neither O-8 or 8 Games running. What to do? NLHE? PLO? How about something completely new? Not Badugi. I've played it before, found it frustrating, and I want excitement, not consternation. So, how about some 5 Card Draw? Not that it's completely new to me, yet 35 years is long enough to make me a virgin retroactively.

I've played maybe one hundred hands so far. The first twenty-five were figuring out relative hand strengths and the second twenty-five I watched the number of cards being drawn so I could establish some correlation to hand types: pairs, draws, etc. You know. And I'm winning. Not much in Donkville dollars, their inflation being what it is, but I've more than doubled what I've invested.

Invested... ha!

Back to the job apps.