Hermes i3000

I think the rain took off with spring. It is so much like summer now, today, this moment. People out everywhere. No need for anything besides shorts and a t-shirt. Heck, the only summer thing missing was a need for air conditioning. And we can all live without that.

This morning sunlight came into the house. It warmed us up. That was needed after turning off the heat to keep us warm overnight. But, with the summer weather, we did not need it. It makes me want to get out a ukulele and write a song. But crikey there are so many great sounds out there. Why another?

A nice element of the sunlight this morning was the timing. In “real” summer the sun would be up for hours and by the time we were both eating breakfast and playing dominos the sun was high in the sky. But today, the sun was up, barely out of bed and coming through the trees. I am going to quit writing and go enjoy the light. There will be a sunset in an hour or two. I think sitting around and watching the sun mosey off into the night, well that is something to enjoy. Right Now.

-— MichaelRpdx

There was a scrub jay. It was in the birdbath. I did not see any crows today. What is up with them?

Where has the rain gone? In Portland, Oregon in April it should be raining. Heck, except for a brief bit of May and some one in a while teasers it always rains. Not now. The rain has gone off to hide someplace for some time. Dandelions are abundant. I had to mow them down. There was no excuse of rain to prevent me from doing that. I could use some rain as an excuse to not mow.

Met with the Southwest Gentlemans Association last night. They are a small group that is rooted in the Oregon Brew Crew. We meet once a month for beer and conversation. It seems May 20 will feature our first in-person meeting since last whenever it was before the Covid struck. We will all have our double shots, not of beer, and we will be ready to see each other and spend as much time talking about beer as book clubs spend talking about a book they have read in the prior month. What group do you belong to? Is it something that sticks to the ostensible topic? Or is it like Portland and the rain that we should have here?

Hot dogs – what do you put on yours? Is ketchup, as thought in Chicago, a blasphemy? I know I did that as a teenager. Now I do not even eat the things found in the store as “hot dogs” mostly lately it has been Field Roast Sausages or other stuff that tastes good on its own.

Here I am, doing the typewriter equivalent of scribbling. Just letting my fingers bleed across the keyboard. Another bit of Gertrude Stein, what is it called again? automatic writing? stream of consciousness? Spontaneous automatic writing? I thought there was a word for it. That would be handy now.

— MichaelRpdx

Damn, I finally finished reading a second book in less than a month. I am getting better at reading like I used to be able to read. The book came by one of Barbara’s writers, one of the ones in her group of four writers talking about Noir. His name is Eric Beetner. This title is Criminal Economics. This book came as a response to a question (from me actually) “What is your darkest book?” (I think that is what I asked, it was which Noir is the darkest title he had written.) He responded with this title. You want a Black Noir? You want something new to you? I am pretty sure you have not read anything this dark.

You want something with a happy ending? Not here.
You looking for something where a good guy wins? Not here.
You want something with lots of people getting out? Nope.
You want something with lots of twists? Yep, it is here.
Two guys set up a bank robbery that nets out $640,000 in cash that is not recovered. But they get 25 years in jail. It opens with them being carted off by a guy eager to have them turned over. So he drives them in a hurricane. After a few news bulletins to set the stage it opens up. “Rain hit the roof of the van, filling it with the frantic sound of someone trapped in a coffin.” Rain persists in the novel. Don’t expect anyone to emerge from this book in a manner you will want to meet them again. You want some relief from the darkness related? I think, I think, there was one bit where there was a glimmer of something good happening to one character.

You want some dark Noir? Check this one out. It is.

*   *   *

This far north it is time to mow the lawn. Which I have. Now I am reading some other novels from Beetner. I will let you know. A Noir novel does not need to be this dark. Thank god.

— MichaelRpdx

Femail. FEMAIL??!! What in … was wrong with me? I know, or is it, was it knew better than that. I did not catch the error until I was proofing my typing when I had it in the computer. Who was it here that was berating himself for whatever niggling, small error he made? Oh my. Oh my my.

In the InCoWriMo world, I have started receiving responses from overseas. Australia, India, Mexico, and Belgium being the most recent. The one from Mexico was postmarked on February 26. The writer from Australia said he had arrived on March 13, when it was mailed on February 7. Out postmaster general is saying delivery times will slow down, we cannot expect mail to be delivered as quickly as they used to do so. We have no more expectation of it working anymore. Whine whine moan moan. We need to send more physical mail so they know there is more to delivery than the spammy collection of insurance and invitations to credit cards and come hither come-ons from banks. Well, at least a letter from Albuquerque was posted on “23 Mar 2021” showing that they can deliver mail in a timely manner.

Side note: I had written to the man in Mexico in Spanish. He responded in Spanish. I understand a few bits of it. Whew, I have some work to do.

On Topic Note: I have not reread this page yet. I never do. 1 type, I photograph it, I send it off to Daniel. What corrections you see I feel as I type and correct them, most of the time. But things like female/femail slip through unknown to me. Does that bother you?

Question for All: Do the misspellings and other bits of bad typing habits bother you?

Hopefully, tomorrow will feature a page of prose shared with you. Not like todays and the prior pages of sharing life with all of you.

Femail? Oh my.

— MichaelRpdx
mlr:ih3k

Carlos Villa taught, along with other things, Beginning Drawing. One of the exercises was speed drawing. Fifteen seconds to get whatever it was. A model or two, a charcoal stick, a stack of typing paper, and time. There was a guy in the class that could not do it. We would start. He would wave his hand in the air and then stop. Other people would put down a line or two. But something. There was no expectation of “good” drawing. There was a hint that you would scribble something down on the page. We did learn about essences. Then we would do the same thing, but with descending timed drawing. A three minute, a two minute, a one minute, thirty seconds, fifteen seconds and catch your breath.

It is dark outside, I am trying to keep going here and we will continue

Maybe 20 seconds is too short for writing. But I nee need to keep going so here I am with a timer.

The car is backed into the driveeway. It is there for some reason.

I went to Cosco todayk, got things that are, were too heavey to carry.

That was 4×20 seconds. Anything I could type. And so I did. I think the next set will be 5×60. With 10 seconds to “rest” between each set. We will see.

— MichaelRpdx mlr:ih3k

Hrmmm, it seems I have lots of room left on the paper to continue. Now if I could just think of oh, yeah, I just did. Don’t give yourself too much time. Sit down, start to type. One word leads to another. Like these words. Well, I think. I have not given them much though yet. Yeah well, there we are for today. I am no longer going to type more tonight.

¿Donde esté la persona qué escribe en espanol? Me gusta la historias. ¿Hace tres? quatro? semanas? Yo recordo dos de estes. Con suerete conseguiré mas de esos.

And hopefully, my misspelling in Spanish is not too bad. I sent off my first letter in Spanish today. Darn if that doesn’t take a long time to prepare to send. Write a page in English, translate it to Spanish, the write the final in the target language. (The stuff that was at the top was straight to Spanish, or what I take to be Spanish.) If any of you know the writer and can pass along my desire to read more stuff in a foreign language, please do so.

If you are interested in a sample of ink for a fountain pen, check the stamp from a day or two back. You can figure out my address from it. Tell me what color you are interested in. I think I can send it for 55¢ (no cents key on this typewriter) and for me sending something for 55¢ is definitely in the gift category. Hmmm, it is getting to be cold here, 27°. Well, we get the ° degree symbol instead. I think that is a win here. Though I sure did like the ¢ cents symbol. Such is life.

Does anyone know if a place to get the keys remade? Like, replace the 1/2 and 1/4 with symbols that I would like more. It is a lot of work to replace a key with a custom one. but, I would think it could be a lucrative thing to undertake. Well, you would need to actually make or acquire the slug. This is definitely something for the person who was really in needs for a custom keyboard. Custom keyboards. What a dream I have here.

— MichaelRpdx :: h3k

Type a page daily. Write pages in the morning, Morning Pages. Read something, like Atomic Habits or Ego is the Enemy. Have coffee with my wife. Think about lunch. Take my blood pressure. Roast some coffee. Reflect on the things I have read. Take a walk, or think about doing that in the rain and the cold. Read some more. Watch a video or two on YouTube. Practice Spanish, Latin, and Esperanto. Meditate for at least a few minutes.

On a not normal day, I will go shopping with my masks. I will go to Costco. Or Trader Joe’s, a very rare happening, for the second time today. Monthly I will visit my doctor’s office, have a finger pricked, and find out how my INR is. If it is Sunday, I will go to Safeway and get a copy of the New York Times.

Those are my normal days and my not quite normal days. Those are my Covid days. I am sure I have forgotten some things that I do and do them without thinking about them. Meditation leads to a lot of those things.

Thise are the things that make up my days. Mostly.

—-— MichaelRpdx :: ih3k

There is a group of people who will be exchanging mail in February. It is the InCoWriMo, aka the International Correspondence Writing Month group. It exists to “Challenges you to hand-write and mail/deliver one letter, card, note or postcard every day during the month of February.” This has been going on since 2014. (? about seven years now) You can miss a day, just write two the next. You do not need to write to a different person each day. It must be hand-written. Though I expect there are people who will typewrite them. A fun part for me is to write to people I do not know. And for that, they have a web page where people can list their address. As I have done. I also went through all of them and found there are about 90+ people who do not live in the USA. And, there are people in every continent of the world. Of them, 26 indicate they will reply or respond to every letter they receive. There are, as you might expect, several people who are doing this for the first time. Me included. At least one who has been there since the group was started. There is a nurse who will not be doing it again this year because of the Covid weight on her time and energy. Some people are submitting their Instagram addresses as part of their introductions. 28 letters or cards starting in a week or so. I must admit it is a lot of writing to do. Hmmm, kinda like this.

— MichaelRpdx, ih3k

Del and Pepper (?), from Barbara, what a nice story I am enjoying it, them, the stories. The storeys, storys, whatever short spelling of it is plural is for story is. I used to know how to spell, which you have heard about before.

1957! Was that not a great year? I got a sneak peek of Kent’s story of the day. 1957 feature prominently. I happen to be a vintage ’57 person, as is my wife. We are prejudiced in favor of the year. Well, that and the launching of Sputnik which got the government all hot to do space better and educate kids better. We benefitted from that quickly put into play the science and math bits in education. Yay for them.

To avoid talking about the second-ever impeachment of a president with hopes that the Senate can scratch together the votes for a conviction. Yes, to avoid typing about that because you have heard of it and have your own opinions on it and I have said enough that you have the cheering or that guy talking about something that doesn’t belong here and so I won’t.

Lawrence Welk, how was your reaction there? We have a friend, Billy Flood, who plays the accordion. Of course, he played songs made famous by Lawrence Welk. He would also watch him on the TV. I insisted that this was a form of child abuse when done in front of his daughter. If you care to weigh in on the matter I will ignore it. I still believe that playing his music in front of children is a form of abuse – for reruns older than 10 years old. And I am objecting to The Lawrence Welk Show that my family watched every week in my youth. I do not recall liking it then. It is not like Bonanza or Green Acres or whatever else I survived back then. The rest of these were at least passable. Well, see the attached photo. It seems Mr. Welk was not always the bandleader he was that we knew. That piece of music was copyrighted in 1947. Wow!

— MichaelRpdx :: ih3k

Yes, that is Lawrence Welk.

In the early 70s I was walking out when my Dad stopped me. “You should watch this. You should be interested in it. In any other country, they would be doing it with tanks.” He was referring to the proceedings surrounding President Nixon and the question of whether or not he should be impeached. I was too young to really care about it, politics.

No, I did not watch it. Since that time I have watched some elections until we knew who had won. But there were two other times I have watched TV to see what was going on in our country. The first time was 9/11. I had heard the unbelievable, at the time when she heard it on the phone and told all of us on the bus about a plane being flown into a building. It was unbelievable when she told us. Later on it became believable. As did the second plane and the third. And the third. I do recall those days, the day in which the planes crashed and the following days as we discovered the horrors that were uncovered.

Today I received a call from my Mom. Was I watching the news? People were storming the capital building. They had evacuated the Senators and Representatives. By that time I was watching the news. The stairs were filled with people who were saying to stop the count. The police were outnumbered, vastly outnumbered.

I have watched it ever since. The first time since 1814 when the capitol building was last attacked and broken into. There have been many people more eloquent than I who have spoken on the happening of the day. I will continue to watch it tonight. They have vowed to complete the job tonight.

* * *

How about those guys in Georgia? A black baptist and a Jewish guy, both elected to the US Senate. What a day.

-~ MichaelRpdx :: ih3k