June 13 1998, Saturday

T

he dreams I had last night were full of sexual content, sex had outdoors, in ditches and on uneven ground with fat girls. Not really fat, but sort of plump. There was, as always in my sexual dreams, a frustrating quality. Perhaps it was because of my bed.

When I awoke, I was sore, stiff and in need of a good stretch from another night in the front seat of the Dart.

After a little work at UVA's Cocke Hall, I returned to the Wertland Mansion. But I couldn't bring myself to go visit the girls. Their place is not a good place for socializing and beyond that, the subtle goodwill between us has been on the decline. I've been feeling increasingly unwelcome, like more of a problem than a solution. It was time to move on. I'm free now to do as I please, and it's well within my ability to suddenly decide (like the captain of the Star Ship Enterprise) to set my co-ordinates on Staunton or Richmond. Staunton is the home of the most generous of all the world's magic refrigerators, so that's where I headed in my ever-reliable Dodge Dart, the best $200 I ever spent.

E

verybody is always very happy to see me whenever I return to the childhood home, and today was no exception. My mother was off at some horse event, but my father and brother Don were both there, absorbed by their respective projects. My brother saw my nifty little digital camera and asked what it was. He was intrigued to learn it contained no film, just digital chips. He wanted to pose for a picture, so I reluctantly agreed, knowing he'd have to go and get one of his running trophies. He's not big on the unposed look I usually shoot for.

Meanwhile my father is enthusiastically pursuing his botanical interests. Since I know a lot about botany, he likes to corner me in the kitchen while I'm fixing coffee or raiding the refrigerator and tell me all the things he's discovered up on "Mueller's Mountain" (the 100 foot tall Beekmantown limestone double-hill behind the house). He's fascinated by the interplay between topography, mineralogy and botany, and has written a number of papers detailing his discoveries. I'm not nearly as interested in this stuff as he is, but I understand the issues involved and think he's doing valuable work to broaden human understanding of this neglected cusp between the sciences. I usually turn the conversation to one about the presentation of ideas, since that's my big interest. He wants to publish his writings, but the traditional grunt work of tracking down a publisher and going through the harrowing ordeal of being edited is one he's been through before (in the mid-70s he co-wrote a text book called Chemical Petrology) and would rather avoid. Recently he's been particularly interested in the web, since he's found it so easy to search and he's seen me publishing on it almost effortlessly. I suggested that perhaps he could put his work on a CD-ROM, that way he'd have something he could actually sell. 4X CD-ROM writers are going to cost $100/each before too long, you know.

I

  went across the road to my old Temple of Læpöhm, a little secret forest garden I made for myself back in the early 80s. It's always gratifying to go there after the Spring to see how much progress the trees have made on their ultimate goal of heaven. Now, though, there seems to be a contradictory spirit coming through and causing rough and ready disorder. One of my mother's horse trails cuts along the edge of the Temple grounds, and she's recently widened the hole it makes through the forest, cutting off some trees and tossing them awkwardly into areas I once tried to keep clear of fallen branches and also breaking off branches on some of the trees I planted. She (or else Don, working for her) really did a number on one of my poor Canadian Hemlocks. But in general the Temple Grounds look as lush and re-vitalized as ever before. This Spring has been an unusually wet one, and the undergrowth is coming in thick and the trees are growing fast.

T

hese last two weeks have provided me with sort of a test-run for my upcoming road trip. I had to master a few new skills during this short homeless period that I'll no doubt find myself using repeatedly when the road trip gets going:

• basing my musings updates around a floppy disk master (something I've been doing since I lost my home internet connection in February)
• using the laptop computer to edit musings files
• installing driver software for my digital camera on other people's systems and making do with resulting adversity (like the lack of a mouse)
• sleeping in my car (it's not pleasant, but it can be done)

Best of all, the Dodge Dart seems to be running well. I feel it could take me anywhere, including your place. Tentative day of departure: Sunday, June 21st.