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7 & 1/2 Acres |
2003-05-01 - 5:38 a.m. So, I just plain and simple, want to loaf. I don't want to get it together and go climb trees, I don't want to see anybody. I'd like for Sammy to chill out and quit circling me. And quit his paw dragging pace that he's doing all over this house, sticking his--well just now I'm interupted again to chase him down and try to retrieve what it was he slipped from Dan's room.--I thought I got it, but now I hear him chomping again downstairs--dammit--a fuckin' penny. I'm annoyed. I'm in malcontent. Why do I have the news playing downstairs?--Alright that's off. Things are getting better. Sammy might just be interested in his nylabone. There is a drip in Dan and Han's bathroom.--Ok, think I got that fixed--yeah, ok. Quiet. I think I'd like to go to the Y and sit in the steam room and maybe I'll actually do this because there aren't usually too many folks there during the day. Not any time too soon though. I'd really like to say fuck it to tree work today. I just ain't got it in me. I don't want it anymore. I think I've about made my mind up and since I've done that, I want it to be just that--oh nevermind you long list of people a-waiting. Boy, this felt good. Yesterday, Frances called and checked our messages and a certain disliked generation "The Good War" customer (except he was probably in the coast guard or something) had called wanting to know when we'd get to his place. Apparently this man, like so many in his generation, doesn't talk to his wife and didn't know she called wanting to hurry things up and told me they may get someone else, etc, etc. It was with particular satisfaction that in my return call, that I was able to say, Oh, I'm sorry, but I talked with your wife and she explained such and such so I took you off the list. If I were to add you back it would have to be at the bottom which would mean it'd be a very long while before I'd get to you. Get somebody else you golf playing staying fit in your old age motherfucker. And fuck your bitch tennis playing wife too while we're at it. Ok. Quiet. I love the neighbors here. From where I sit on the second floor at this computer, I just got to watch one of the residents pull diagonally into P Lee's drive then through their own yard to park their car just barely out of the street. They've got about umpteen cars over there--but it's only one for each resident/member of the family? Two have landscaping trucks, one with a big ole lawnmower and tool trailer behind it, there's the honda accord I just watched, a minivan, another minivan, a civic and one more I'm not sure of. I know the grandparents live with them and them folks have their own car(s)? I know this because I wave at them and exchange big smiles when we see each other. I love this particularily, and how they park their cars and what their yard looks like--about two weeks ago they had a mountainous rectangle of stacked pine straw bales in their yard--but not for their place, this was for the landscaping business. This ain't quite fair nor right I know but I like this especially because these folks are Asian and this is one of them old established neighborhoods just a mile from downtown. The houses are big--there's an old 50's era bomb shelter behind this one and the yards are groomed, and they are plush with the big trees attesting to how long these houses have been here. Somehow, I'm not so sure I'd feel the same if the folks next door were white. If nothing else was different, the cars, the yard, the smiles, then maybe so. Maybe even it'd be of particular relish. But all the same, I like who's there now. They're nice and I like how they wave but mind their own business. And though their own gutters are clogged, the son came over one day and cleaned P Lee's for the to do it alone--no charge. I'm sick of white folks. I might feel a little differently about looking forward to tree work today if it weren't just white folk. Gee, I wonder why it is every customer I've ever had except my volunteer services at BCC community center and consultations with T Brown has been white...yep, I really think so. That's ten plus years--granted off and on but more on in the last three. I'm picking my memory and I really think everybody has been white. There was this year that I drove a school van for a school for the Deaf and so fairly often I'd see highway patrol officers with folks pulled over and I swear 9.75 out of 10 times the folks would be black--maybe Latino. This ain't no revelation but to see it and tally it just got to be crazy. I don't know what my point is here or what I'm doing except that I don't want to do tree work. Frances' brother works golf courses and said about his occupation once that it was just maintaining playgrounds for the rich. Sometimes, I feel like tree work is the same fucking way. Yeah, trees aren't usually a playground but the function that they serve in these neighborhoods might as well be equated as such. Sure, I'd prefer to see trees than no trees but that ain't really the point. And, I don't mind it so much if it's a job for say retired principal junk collector whose pine trees wiped out the power for a whole neighborhood--for days and days. It's the same with art. I don't want to make it to sell it to somebody who can afford the asking price. Nor do I I want to lower the asking price just to sell it. If I'm going to make it, I want it to have a purpose other than creating a commodity with a monetary value. I think all this is to say, again, that what I want to do is farm. And, as a person who farms, I want to do all these other things, like with architecture and rennovation and creating sustainable and creative places for people to live. I'd like to restore and create ecosystems and natural swimming pools and green roofs. And, I'd like to start right now--today. now. There ain't no way I'm doing tree work today. Fuck the money.
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