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getting rid of long flowing locks
Monday, November 2 2026
location: rural Town of Hurley, Ulster County, NY
Throughout today, I had that typical malaise I feel the day after taking a 10mg dose of ambien. I hadn't drunk enough alcohol for it to be a hangover, though I've noticed that Mondays are always a period of recovery if I spend several days in a row in my usual pattern of alcohol consumption at the cabin.
First thing this morning, I dealt with the bean bag Neville had peed in yesterday evening. I dragged the massive thing outside, put it down in the grass, and poured several partial five gallon buckets on areas that smelled like dog piss, allowing the water to wash through the core of the bean bag and come out the other side, just as Neville's piss had done. (I'd had to clean up a spot on the painted laboratory floor beneath where the bean bag had been as well.) Normally I would've used the hose, but I'd decommissioned the garden hose for the season last night only a few hours before Neville decided to urinate in the bean bag. In all fairness to Neville, he suffers from arthritis that has been aggravated by months of chemical-enhanced sedation, a time during which he also gained weight (which puts further stress on those same joints).
Once I could no longer smell dog piss on the bean bag, I put it up on the Chevy Bolt to drain and be dried by the sun. Since the sun is so low at this time of year, I had to occasioally move the car further out in the driveway so that it wouldn't be in the shade of the white pines towering over our woodshed.
I took Charlotte for two walks today. The first was in the late morning and wasn't so the best, going down the Gulleys Trail not even as far as its mountain goat section and then back on the Stick Trail. In the early afternoon, I took her for a somewhat better walk down the Chamomile Gorge Trail until I could see where the northmost gulley on the Gulleys Trail emptied into the Chamomile (a place that would've been difficult to spot had leaves still been on the trees). I then found my way down a slope so steep that I had to be careful not to start slipping or otherwise falling, crossed the Chamomile, and climbed up along the gulley's south rim all the way to the Gulleys Trail. The weather was warm and humid but also sunny, giving it a pleasant nostalgic quality that probably comes from the fallen leaves as much as anything else.
I was thinking of what I would be making for dinner when I read a message from Gretchen referencing something in an earlier message she'd sent that I'd overlooked saying that we'd be doing dinner at the Bear Cantina tonight with Lynn and Gregg. So instead of making dinner, I took advantage of the nice weather in a way that is unique to me. I took ooff all my clothes, went out into the yard, and proceeded to give myself my usual haircut by feel with a cheap pair of scissors. Gretchen had recently observed that I'd developed "long flowing locks," and she hadn't meant that as a compliment.
After using a mirror to make a few refinements, I took a shower to wash away the little needle-like hair fragments that are never welcome inside the collars of my shirts.
When I drove to Woodstock to meet Gretchen at the bookstore, I brought the dogs, who hadn't seen her since Thursday morning. As usual, I let them out onto the sidewalk in front of the bookstore and they found there way inside its door, which was propped open at the time. (Neville, who is easily distracted by scents, took awhile to do this.) When Charlotte found Gretchen, she lost her mind with joy, racing around the bookstore with a look of delight on her face. At the time there was an older man (a bookstore regular) there chatting with Gretchen and he was with two young kids who turned out to be children he'd sired in his sixties. I had my hood up at the time because of butchery I'd likely given my hair in the back of my head, and Gretchen quickly figured out that I'd cut my hair.
After Gretchen closed up the store, I was having trouble getting Neville to stop sniffing the smells on the sidewalk in front of Woodstock Emporium and the guy operating that place was out in front. He noted that he hadn't seen Neville in awhile, and I explained he'd just been through a heartworm eradication protocol. He then told Gretchen and me a horrifying story of a woman whose belly became distended from a massive worm infestation after getting them from "kisses" received from her dog. Meanwhile Charlotte had rushed over to meet some on-leash dogs walking by on the sidewalk, and of course those people freaked out. But we got the dogs into our car, I made a U-turn on Tinker Street, and got us to Bearsville. We then let the dogs run around in the area between Sawkill Creek and the Bearsville Theatre. Charlotte was still on a high from the evidence that Gretchen hadn't died.
At the Bear Cantina, we were seated back by the fireplace, which contained a roaring fire. It had been a warm day, but with the premature night that comes after the switch back to Standard Time, the heat from that fire felt great. Unusually for our dinners with Lynn & Gregg, I managed to stay engaged with the conversation for the entirety of the meal. This was because it largely avoided topics I don't find interesting, such as the plot details of novels, stories of recent travels, or the issues of Gregg's wealthy psychiatry patients.
Gretchen spent a good amount of time catching up Lynn and Greg on the latest news from Powerful, the ex-prisoner who had lived for a long time in our basement. Recently Powerful settled a lawsuit against a foster agency whose negligence had led to sexual abuse when Powerful was a preteen. He won a 1.5 million dollar settlement, though after paying the lawyers, splitting the settlement with his brother (who was also abused by the same people), and taxes, the haul will come to less than a half million dollars. But that's a life changing amount of money for someone like Powerful. Unfortunately, his money skills are so poor that the money will likely do more harm than good, especially once he starts following the advice of his very stupid girlfriend.
Another topic of discussion came from Lynn telling us that she occasionally gets mistaken for Natalie Merchant, especially now that she is on a GLP-1 antagonist and has lost some weight. Natalie Merchant lives in the area and we even knew someone, Jon, whom she dated for a long time. That led into a conversation about Jon. In addition to us both doing some office work for him in the early days of our Hudson Valley life, he would also socialize with us occasionally. At our "red house party" in 2004, he brought the fancy red Jaguar he'd inherited from his father. Then, apparently having been a bit overserved, he drove it into a tree on Hurley Mountain Road on his way home. (He was fine, and apparently white privilege was enough to keep him from experiencing any ramifications other than the loss of a car he didn't even really want.)
After dinner, we let our dogs run around between the theatre and the creek again, this time while continuing our conversation with Lynn and Gregg.
Charlotte pauses for a moment as below a large white pine in the mountain goat section of the Woodshed Path, heading southbound. Click to enlarge.
Forest just south of the northmost gulley below the Gulleys Trail. We're looking southeastward. Click to enlarge.
Looking up the northmost gulley below the Gulleys Trail. Click to enlarge.
Looking north at our house from south of the curve in the Woodshed Path. Click to enlarge.
Neville and Charlotte at the entrance to the Bearsville Theatre. Click to enlarge.
Neville needed a rest. Click to enlarge.
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