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Last night I dreamed I went for a walk and came across a little pile of junk in a mythical patch of woods along Jefferson Park Avenue. The junk consisted of a few old CDs and some hypodermic needles. One of the CDs was a Pavement album. I returned to Kappa Mutha Fucka to find Matthew Hart hanging out. When I mentioned the titles of some of the CDs, he became infuriated. He thought I was making fun of him. When he found out I'd discovered his secret woodland hangout, he became even angrier.
took my Dodge Dart around the corner to Ernie's (Frye Spring's) Garage and dropped her off for an hour to have her inspected. Everything was working, the tires looked good. I thought she would pass. I was wrong. The phone rang and I was told my car had earned a rejection sticker, which gives me fifteen days of driving to repair the things that are wrong. What's wrong? A whole list of things. There's rust above the left rear wheel (big deal, it's an old car!). There's supposedly floor rust on the left front side (I couldn't find it), and the heater fan doesn't blow (I don't even know where to look to find that). Oh, and I can't have dolls and a rubber skull-mace hanging from my rear view mirror. These were all the little things that a nice down-home inspection station isn't supposed to look for. I was irritated, suffice it to say. Moral: don't take your car to an inspection place where they don't work while you wait. Thorough inspections are not good for old cars. But since it was such a beautiful day, and since I could suddenly drive my car again, I decided to head back to Staunton to visit the folks. The car performed flawlessly, especially since I gave her a quart of oil and topped off her brake fluid.
ack at the Shaque, I installed OS 8 on my mother's (Hoagie's) Macintosh using a CD ROM that came in the mail. I'm using the computer now, and it seems to be working okay, though Hoagie is always complaining about it. I fondly remember the days of the Commodore 64, when computers never crashed (unless you POKE'd 'em in the wrong place). My mother should probably be using one of those.
had to take a shit, but the bathroom at my childhood home is never a pleasure to use. The toilet, you see, is reluctant at best. Usually I have to run and get a bucket of stream water just to return to the Earth a little of its own. So today I decided to take advantage of the glorious weather and use the big outdoors. I got a shovel and went across the road to the 20 acre tract of land we call "Pileated Peak" (my parents bought it as a defensive buffer against the onslaught of development back in 1979). Low on the side of Pileated Peak is a pet cemetery I started back in 1981. I call it "the Temple of Læpohm," and I once created a complex mythos behind it, inspired by the sublime sense of history that pervades James Michener's The Source. I consider my feces to be a valuable asset to nature, and I consider my Temple to be a sacred celebration of the natural world. I've planted lots of trees, plants and flowers there, and I've buried numerous chickens there as well. I've also prepared time capsules containing coins, keys and other durable metallic objects. The idea is to imbue the place with soul and history. Eventually I want it to be full of big gnarled trees and ancient weathered stones, a mysterious place where profound things must have happened, but no one can tell quite what. Occasionally I go to the Temple of Læpohm, dig a hole, and donate some of my own personal fertilizer, which I then bury. It's sort of a sacrament, though I don't expect any of my readers to really understand why I view it as such. When I dig holes, I usually unearth a few stones which I add to the temple's crumbling structure. I'm sure this fecal ritual has Freudian interpretations, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that my creativity is in some way related to rectal feelings. I often delay my bowel movements until after I solve a perplexing problem. And some of my most important decisions have been made while seated on the throne.
t looks like Jessika might need a ride from Philadelphia. I think the Dart can do it.
ere I am, back in Charlottesville again. On the way home I stopped at the Staunton Walmart to buy some fiberglass stuff to fix the rust above the rear wheels. The woman in front of me in the Walmart checkout line was buying two unappealing cakes for five dollars. Sometimes I wonder "who buys this stuff?" when I'm in a store, only to be reminded in the checkout line that most Americans do. Meanwhile Deya is fixing one of the windows Matthew broke.
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