If you know The Beatless albums well, the phrase is familiar. If you don’t know The Beatles albums well, you should. As Mason Williams once wrote about how to enjoy crackers, “You will derive maxiumum enjoyment from them.” You should also know Mason Williams “fab” book Reading Matter. I purchased my copy at Coe’s Bookstore in 1967. I’ll tell you about that book sometime soon.
It appears upstairs renter will be with me this month, though it’s anyone’s guess when she will pay the rent. Today is the first — right? I don’ believe I overslept — but if I receive the rent today I will be surprised.
Curious to me is some good folks’ contempt for time: Today we ricochet through a world in which people talk of windows of time, rather than points of time. “Look for me between 9:30 and 10,” said a friend who’s friend enough to employ me — one of the best kinds of friends, btw. This morning I took a fresh cup of coffee and the Saturday SJ-R to my front porch to luxuriate in up-to-a-half-an-hour of holding newsprint in my hands and learning about trouble with the Inter-Urban Bike Trail, our soldiers becoming seriously fatigued in Iraq, and how the new potential student has turned down an opportunity to enroll at Walden College. “Your students are hip,” he says to a crestfallen Zonk. “My people like to study.”
At 1O:20 photography friend arrives at my open window, and it’s time to roll.
After a terrific few hours of taking pictures and solid conversation, capped off by lunch at Westwood’s on Jefferson and then some cash that means I CAN buy dog food, bread. lunchmeat and five dollars worth of gasoline! He paid me in early July for this. He didn’t have to pay me more for today, but he did.
Home by 1:30 and a little more than two hours of processing the pictures, and the rest of the day is coasting time.
As I draw my third cup of coffee since lunch about Prairie Home Companion time, I realize something important:
Time is the currency of the fool and pauper who have nothing else to count. A heap of it — 20 minutes, let’s say — amounts to nothing to the hummin’ bean who is engaged by people who enjoy his company and value part of what he offers to the world. Although the early part of the morning suggested otherwise, I am neither fool nor pauper. I am well and truly blessed today.
A call to web site client led to a target meeting late this week. I’ve done some significant work for him since the last pay, and I’ve decided we need to talk about what my time is worth. This will be touchy bidness.
A friend says web maintenance should be worth $50 an hour, that I should stop giving away my writing and time. I will ask my web client friend for $40 an hour and will be glad if he agrees to $30 an hour. We shall see.
Btw, it appears I was correct about the rent check. There always tomorrow, I suppose . . . .
A friend in England sent me a bunch of facts which I will share with you because I want to end these postings on a positive note. . . .
Lollipop is the longest word in the English lexicon folks normally type only with the left hand.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
