I’m dodging the outside world today, even though the outside world is not dodging me.
For the first time this year, I encountered a frozen cold water pipe and frozen drain in the kitchen. If this frequency continues for the rest of the year (50 percent) I will be in deep kimchee, but I fon’t expect it to last that long.
Having lived (more or less) through this for 11 years, frozen pipes is (as they say in Crawford) almost routine. I have to open up the door to the un-insulated former coal chute room where the housebuilders more than 100 years ago installed key plumbing less than three inches from the raw western brick wall. My early effort to wrap an electric heat “blanket” around the pipes did not solve the probem, but placing a cpace heater on a concrete block which put it closer to the pipes did the trick. Since I don’t use the dehumidifier in winter, I have a ready outlet nearby. That plus maintaining a regular feed of stove-heated boiling water in shallow pans close to the pipes under my kitchen sink, thawed things out by noon. Halelu, halelu!
People often ask me, “Hey Job, will you refresh the coffee at table 8?” — I’m kidding. They haven’t asked me that since 1977. To be honest — whch seems the direction I want to go — people seldom ask, but if someone did today, I would say, Heck no, Mistislav, I do NOT sit on mon buttocks all de lib long day and wonder how deep is the ocean and how high is the sky.
While most conventional workers took time off over the holidays, this unconvential writer did not take one day “off, ” nor did I take many hours off eeder. I have “owed” Springfield Classical Guitar Society and last October concert artist Carlos Perez reviews of the three CDs he gave to me with that in mind following his terrific concert. Visit CIVAG’s Arts Links to connect to pictures from the concert and my newly posted reviews of his CDs. Every review I write is a four-hour project of intense reading, listening (for the fifth or sixth time), and intense, deliberate writing sometimes a little more. There’s no point in writing something excessive because it serves neither reader nor the featured artist. I concentrated on those reivews over the last few days because on January 16, Paul Henry will perform next in concert wtih us, and I want to be caught up with the review biziness.
I’ve also been reading the first romance novel written by a friend. He asked me to read and review it, and I intended to do that when he sent me a pre-publication galley. It became obvious the book needed more than a review. He wanted me to finish it before continuing my liteany of concerns, and I agreed. To my surprise and delight, the final home stretch of book reading went faster, with fewer “pot holes” than it had when I was lurching along, reding; writing comments . . . . reading, writing comments . . . . yada yada yada, blahblahblah and a partridge in a pear tree. So how long does it take to do that with a 223 page book which is a fine read? 16 hours max. But that was effort, sports fans. I didn’t slow down for pot holes, but they affected my mind-set just the same. In a few days, I will write the review. In a way the experience has been like going for a ride in a homebuilt airplane that a friend has just completed. On that first flight, the controls are loose, the engine overheats and there’s a major draft coming intot the cabin from somewhere. And I’m supposed to write about the airplane after THAT? Would it make more sense to write the article after adjusting the controls so they’re more responsive, improving fresh air ducting to better cool the engine and blocking the air that’s coming, uninvited, into the cabin? HAILYES! But I’m going to write the review as he asked. WHY? Because he is my friend, I am confident he will incorporate as much of my advice re his writing as HE CHOOSES to impliment, and in writing the review, I will find a way to say positive things while wrapping those thoughts in a patina of smiling disclaimer. For me, writing is ultimately about Truth (with a capotal “T”) as I see it.
I haven’t touched a model airplane in weeks. Haven’t come closer than a 10-foot pole to a poem in months. It’s orificial: I am now an admitted “recreational poet.” I’ve even deleted my poems jfrom my poetry web site. Does this sound like “Mr. Leisure Boy” to you? I have obligations to CIVAG and AeroKnow’s web site that require hours every week. And for what? For the annual check (second year in a row) that says “Thanks for keeping CIVAG and Classical VI going.” And because I believe that is only the start. If I throw in the towel, take my marbles and sashay off to oblivion in a huff, success will never come. As long as I persist. I refuse to believe it will never come. I can wait. I have the patience of Job.
I”m not going out today because I don’t have to, because I have plenty to do on the inside. The world will not be ready for me until January 7, and if it is, you know where I am.
The pipes are thawed, there is Peter Pan cruchy and whole wheat wending their way along my gastro-intestinal tract and I am okay. I would like to be 2000 Volvo station wagon okay, run errands even on a day like this okay. meat in the refrigereator okay but it isn’t happening that way.
Leif goes on.
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
