Rubbish Truck takes Mud Bath

A friend & neighbour posted these images on Facebook November 29th.  I saw them yesterday and he kindly gave me permission to use them today.  Thank you Moosa.

Well not much actually. I’ve been trying to be a faithful blogger and post every day. It’s been hard lately. Un-inspired, I am. However, I thought of a story I’d like to share, so gather ’round kiddos.

I’m a huge klutz. Like HUGE. I fall often, and it’s almost to the point that I just expect to trip at least once a day.

So anyway, back to the story. When the parentals came for their semi-Dad’s weekend they were nice enough to put studded tires on me ‘Bu. Then, due to  Sister going into labor, they had to head back to the west side, therefore, once my car was complete with fancy new tires, I needed a ride to get it.

My friend Alyssa was kind enough to drop me off after class. So I walk into Les Schwab, and the guy says me ‘Bu is parked across the street (due to their small amount of parking) and hands me the keys.

Once outside, I decide to be a “cool” kid and jay walk. Only… it doesn’t work quite well because it’s quite a busy road so I just end up looking like a goob.

On the other side of the road there is a sidewalk, and then a small hill with beauty bark and such on it and then up on the hill is the parking lot I’m trying to get to.

I decided since I was already taking shortcuts, I might as well try to run up the hill…

So I start out and then realize… “Oh no… this is really wet.” and slowly start sliding down the hill.

Of course I reach forward as to not fall.

And this was the result:

Lovely mud… all OVER me.

And to make things worse, I had nothing in my car that I could wipe the mess off with.

I drove home… covered and laughing at myself.

Anyway… I can’t think of anything else to share, and if that story didn’t even make sense… don’t judge. It’s getting down to the wire over here in P-Town. My brain is fully focused on other things.

BUT, good news! I have a 98% in Phonetics. YES!

How was your Tuesday?

Male High School senior quarterback Dexter Britt recovers a snap that went over his head in the second quarter.

Manual High School senior TJ Gritton wipes the mud out of his face after making a diving tackle in the third quarter.

Manual High School sophomore Darnell Gardner avoids tacklers as he runs up the middle during the second half.

Manual High School junior cheerleaders Brianna Brents, left, and Kierra Crawford watch their team play in the second half.

Male High School senior cheerleader Taylor Hatton, right, celebrates a touchdown with her teammates.

Male High School sophomore Ron Jae Morris carries the ball in the second half.

Male High School senior D’Edward Hodge celebrates his team’s victory over rival Manual High School.

This is an insanely fantastic white chocolate mudcake. Everyone I’ve made it for has fallen in love with it, so maybe it would be worth trying.

Ingredients:

• 250 grs butter
• 150 grs white chocolate, chopped coarsely
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• For the white chocolate ganache:
• 1/2 cup cream
• 300 grs white chocolate, chopped coarsely

How?:

In a perfect world you have to wait for the ganache to thicken, then spread!

BUT i couldn’t resist, it was 2 am and the smell was OMG!! unbelievable!!

instead of spreading i drowned/soaked the cake with the Cream/Choco mixture AKA Ganache

and the result was *Poof* it gone! finito! *Licking Fingers*

Mudding continues slowly, but with the skillful guidance of Dad and BJ we getting through it. I spent almost all of yesterday in a tiny linen closet upstairs that will be first stop on the tour for anyone I can convince to peak their head in. Pretty funny that I ended in the closet once I got the hang of it!

It had rained for days and now the field was glimmering with white patches of water surrounded by mud and little tufts of grass that were scattered in wavering lines across it. The rain had only stopped a couple hours before, leaving a sky devoid of color or texture. The surrounding asphalt was gray on dry days, but now it was black and slippery. It was cool out, but no one wore their jackets.

Since it had stopped raining, we were let outside for recess. The field was restricted for the older kids to play sports on so we were usually restricted to either the “big toy,” what we called our playset on the wood chips next to the field, or on the black top by the fence outside our classroom. But my best friend and me couldn’t resist.

The bigger kids had abandoned the field because of all the water and mud; it was just out there being unused, unenjoyed. We intermingled with all of the other kids, we thought we were so sly, and eventually dashed for the far end of the field where we thought the teachers couldn’t see us.

I wish I can remember what we did out there but the memory is distorted and faded. I remember the two of us running back and forth across the field, splashing water up with every step and pounce. I remember my pants being soaked through and, having fallen down a couple times, having large parts of my uniform soaked with brown water with splotches of mud. We had so much fun out there we just ignored the bell when it called us in.

It seemed like forever before someone came out to yell at us to get inside. It was this large lady with shoulder-length curly brown hair with an angry demeanor that everyone was afraid of, and boy did she look upset. But, somehow, we didn’t really care. We ran as fast as we could across the field in her general direction, but did sudden stops so that we would skid without falling down. The sky seemed so bright. I could swear I skidded across the surface of the water.

The day started out cool, wet, and misty, with the clouds touching the earth.

 I walked through those  clouds this morning, as I navigated the muddy path. No longer overflowing with water, which had drained off during the night, the path now was a mess of slippery and slimy mud.

 I decided if I walked carefully and slowly, while holding onto my ski pole and the Bog Willows that grew on the sides of the path, I wouldn’t fall and get covered in mud.

 That was the plan.

I really should have told Uriah the plan.

Halfway into the path and feeling proud I hadn’t kicked up any of the permanent staining mud, I stopped and looked back at Uriah. He stood at the edge of the mud, tongue hanging out and a big smile on his fury face. He wasn’t looking at me; I turned back and saw a grey squirrel nosing around the base of a tree. My eyes swept the ground from the squirrel, past me to Uriah. I took in all that mud.

Then watched, in slow motion as Uriah stood up, and charged at the squirrel, mud kicked up over his head, as he raced past.  

What I said could not be printed here.

 Uriah didn’t even notice. In his head, he was chasing the big bad squirrel.

On my head sat a clump of mud, with some moss mixed in…

Within the next second he took off into the trees, barking.

I ignored him while I called his name. I walked all the way around the path and he stayed where he was, in the trees barking.

The fog moved through the trees, giving everything a soft feel. Birds yelled at me, or maybe Uriah. Crows, Blackbirds, and Blue Jays flew to the tops of the trees screaming in irritation. Cardinals were on the lower branches, as they followed me around the path. They landed in the trees and bushes just ahead, or off to the side.  As I passed they flew on ahead, waiting on the next branch.

I slipped through the mud, and I headed back towards the house.

Uriah stayed in the trees and continued to bark.

Finches and dark-eyed junco, and black-capped chickadees, flittered in-between the trees as I passed by. 

I noticed this year’s over produced bird, the Sparrow. At least fifty of them were in the grass around the burn pile; they flew up into the blue spruce, and chattered away.  I startled those Sparrows as I passed by, I stopped and  watched; they took flight heading over the roof in perfect synchronization, turning to the left, then right as they maneuvered around trees, until they landed in my neighbor’s trees and bushes. 

Last year the over abundant bird was the Common Grackle. The year before, Mourning Doves flourished.

It took only a moment for me to wonder, when the birds of prey will notice all those sparrows. Suddenly, a high pitch screech echoed above and around me.  The Red-tailed hawk,  had already seen them.

Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensi)

http://www.illinoisraptorcenter.org/Field%20Guide/redtailpictures.html

Actually they just drained the lake at Bryan Park, but it’s still treacherous.

So here’s the thing. 

I had this whole post planned with the title:  You Don’t Expect Me to Run Up THAT, Do You?  And the post was about the Wild Wild Wilderness Run hosted by the Kennekuk Road (and must.not.forget.the.TRAIL) Runners a couple months ago. 

That trail featured 7.55 miles of pure running torture.  (So terrible that I plan on running it again in the arctic weather we surely can expect during the Sibearn Express on January 2, 2010.)  Seriously, though.  It was terrible.  There was a nearly vertical hill that only mountain goats or really nimble deer should ever be expected to climb, one that hugged an earth wall and where a single step to the left would leave a person pummeling hundreds of yards to their demise in a thornbush-infested ravine.  There were three or four miles of challenging, but bearable terrain that initiated the uninitiated WWW trail runner.  Then (surprise, newbie!) the turn-off to the hill-from-hell.  Only to be followed by three or four miles more  of Really. Hard. Trail Running. 

Now, I love running hills.  But these weren’t people-hills.  They were animal-only hills.  And those super-runners who could just prance up them with ease–well, I’m astounded by those people.  They need a special category of fitness just for them.

As for me, I was so proud of Finishing Without Dying that I floated along on that experience for quite some time.  It mattered very little to me that I was near the Very End of the pack.  I was thrilled beyond words to have finished on my feet instead of a stretcher.

So that was the essence of the post I was going to write.  Because that was the craziest trail I’d run so far.  Until today.

Today I was introduced, quite accidentally, to the Backpack Trail at Forest Glen.  I personally believe they call this the Backpack Trail because most normal humans would need to bring camping supplies (or at least a meal!) in order to traverse the sucker, because it takes SO LONG and is SO HARD to finish this monster of a trail.

Now the introduction to the trail was only partially accidental, I confess.  Because I planned to do the 4.5 mile trail.  You know, the ”this-11-mile-trail-intimidates-me-so-I-want-a-shorter-version-of-the-Backpack-Trail” trail.  What I did NOT plan to do was the 11 mile version of the Backpack Trail. 

Had I completed the 4.5 mile version, I’d still have had plenty of material to share with you, believe-you-me.  But the fact that just one teensy-weensy turn to the left rather than the right had us move our bodies over 11 miles of terrain instead of 4.5 miles is just plain wicked.  Indeed, we made the left vs. right decision because some Very Helpful (sadistic) Campers advised us that everyone had headed toward the left.  Thank you campers. 

What followed was an adventure that my two running buddies and I certainly had not anticipated.  We were told that we’d be heading over a creek.  Indeed, we headed over multiple creeks.  “Creek” is a highly subjective term, apparently.  I’m thinking, it’s a little thing you can hop over.  Nope.  It’s several big things that, even if you don’t fall off the slippery rocks that pose as steps across the current, you’re going to be wading in the water at least up to your ankles.  (Before you Florida readers think me a wimp, now, please remember that it was 33 degress when I got in the car to drive to this adventure!). 

And there were hills.  So many hills.  This trail wasn’t playing.  And let’s not forget that it’s been raining for, like, 952 days straight here in Central Illinois, so it was Mud City everywhere we went.  Read that:  No Traction.  Slip-N-Slides are fun when you’re eight and in your front yard with your neighbor buddies.  When you’re 43 years-old and trying to find footing climbing up a Monster Mud Hill, there are few humans that would call the exercise fun. 

Indeed, as we got to the bottom of our 382nd hill (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but not much) we stopped thinking, “surely this is the last big hill we have to deal with” and started thinking, “surely this stinking trail has to end at some point.” 

Who knew that any trail, anywhere in the known universe could have So Many Gigantic Up’s and Gigantic Downs?  One after the other.  (Of course, happily interspersed with flowing creeks throughout.)

And the downhills.  I believe they were even worse than the uphills.  I’d always had the strategy of running on the downhills whenever possible.  It’s just that it was Very Rarely possible on this Sadist Trail.  The first bad boy that we faced, I remember clearly thinking that we’d taken a wrong turn.  People aren’t supposed to go straight down hills that steep with NO earth on either side.  Just a little mountain goat path straight down with an occasional tree mercifully situated for holding-on-for-dear-life on the downward descent.  I remember thinking after that first hill that the worst was behind us.  HA HA HA HA HA.  No.

All three of us in our brave little what-in-the-blazes-are-we-doing-out-here-without-a-GPS-or-a-cell-phone party fell nicely on our touckases at least once during the adventure.  We kept a good eye-out for each other and never got too far apart while out there.   We learned the difference between a shriek of  “Woo Hoo!” (“We’re awesome!  Look what we’re doing!”) and a shriek of “Woo Hoo!” (“Heaven help me, I’ve just fallen into the biggest mud pit in a five state region!”).  We learned the difference between this-hurts and this-sucks-but-let’s-keep-going-because-we-still-have-daylight.  And we most certainly learned to love the signs with the little red arrows and how to look for the red splotches on lots of trees. 

Most of all, we learned that there was more within us than any of us bargained for when we set out to Forest Glen for a little run one cold Saturday morning in November.  We learned we could do it.  At least for me, I surprised myself that I could do it.  And any one of us could have gone the 13.1 half marathon distance–so we learned that we were able to do that too!  I had another chance to give one something that had intimidated me a beat-down.  And we were blessed with the commraderie, the friendship, that comes from battling those stinking hills and creeks and elements together. 

Overall, it certainly was a day worth having.  Maybe even a day worth repeating.  A great adventure by some unlikely adventurerers.  And a great achievement by some tough-as-nails women who, though total newbies, were ready and willing to give it our all.  And we did. 

Three other Very Important Points: 

1.  Hats off to the Kennekuk Road (and Trail) Runners who gave every one of us a round of applause as we staggered off the trail.  These Super Runners had been done for well over an hour, but were still glad to cheer on the lost-little-newbies that somehow finished that 11 mile beast without dying! 

2.  My trail shoes are now officially trail shoes.  Here’s the after picture: 

Shoes: AFTER

3.  WW Activity Points mean I can EAT after today.  Yes!

4.  I’m certain I’ve forgot to mention much more than what’s been said here already.  I’m sure you’ll get more tidbits as the days and weeks move on…

For now, here’s proof of the mud: 

Muddy!

And proof of the buds:

We Made It!

I kept on getting annoyed with my mom the day I got home for Thanksgiving break because she worries when I hang with the guys, maybe because she knows that when I’m home, we do things like have fort wars and firecracker battles. I suppose she was right to warn me not to get myself into trouble. “What trouble could I possibly get in?!” I continually insisted, with an extremely impatient tone. Jesus Christ. If only I had known.

Other than fort wars and basement ball, my friends and I also enjoy the occasional off-roading adventure in my 1996 Chevy Blazer. Especially now that my four-wheeler is completely toast, and everyone else has pussy little cars, the Chev Blaze is pretty much the go-to vehicle for some moderate to INTENSE off-roading. I have been cooped up in a dorm room for the past three months, my desire to whip my car around in the mud festering all the while. So naturally, that activity was on the list of things to do today. And will never be on any future list. Ever. Sorry boys.

My friends Pat, Johnson, Tubby and I all  climbed aboard the beast and set out on an adventure… that would continue for about five hours. I drove down the street, and but my blinker on to go to our normal destination. Pat, however, was having none of this, and had the great idear to go to these realllllllyy great trails behind Home Depot in Bellingham. I’m feeling adventurous, naturally, so I go. Why not? However after fifteen minutes of driving I go to pull into the trails and see a No Trespassing: All Violators Will be Prosecuted sign. I have no problem breaking laws, however, I’m not stupid (despite what the rest of this post may suggest), and I know there are repercussions for breaking posted laws, so I headed out. We had seen a trail by our friend Tights’ house on the way, so we figured we’d hop on that and get to it. So we turn around and go to the entrance of the trail we had passed, which runs beside the power lines.

We scope it out: no cops around, no other cars, no gates. Looks pretty solid. In I go, cautious but excited. Everything seems to be going pretty well; the ground is solid, the car is moving, we’re getting knocked around. Then wham. The mud starts flying, the car stops moving, and the wheels keep spinning. Son of a bitch. This car is fucking STUCK, and stuck good. No problem though – we’ve been in this situation before. Rock it back and forward, and it comes right out,  easily done. Nope. Still chuckling at our predicament a bit, I roast the tires, rocking it back and forth, digging myself into a foot of mud. And probably sewage. That’s fine though – all we have to do is get someone bouncing on the back, no problem, the tires will catch and we’ll pull right out. Nope. The three guys hopped on the back of the car as I, getting perpetually less happy, try to ease out of the hole I have dug myself in. No such luck. Plan C – gets sticks under the wheels to get traction. Yeah right. Not even close.

My friends all assured me that all we needed was someone with a big truck and no problem, they’d come down, hook up to my car, and tear us right out of the mud. However, none of us have a big truck. Luckily some friends do. As the son sets, we’re all on our cell phones, frantically trying to find someone stupid enough to bring their beast out into this hellish mud-hole and pull out my car. We get two bites. The first comes with his truck and pulls down a few feet onto the trail. However, then he stops. I whisper to my friends “what the fuck is he doing? Is he gonna come down or not? What’s going on? Shit.” My fears were confirmed when  he pulled up, and after stopping to let my friend Tubby in the car, who had grown tired of standing in the freezing cold mud over the past two hours, left without a goodbye. Great. (Quick digression: Tubby, Fuck you). The next truck comes and scopes it out. This truck is the most  badass truck I have ever seen, but we all agreed, there was no way it was getting down there and not getting stuck. Shit. So here I am with two friends and a car buried in the mud, shivering from the cold, soaking wet, and in the dark. What the fuck do we do now.

I called my mom and asked her to come pick us up. On a happiness scale, I’d put her at about a 2. If she were a camper, she would not be a happy one. If Angry was one of the Seven Dwarfs, and my mom was a Seven Dwarf, she would be Angry. She dropped us off at my friend Anthony’s  house, where Johnson’s car was sitting with a hole in the oil pan, needy of a tow himself. I left them alone and walked down to my house where my dad was on the phone with AAA seeing if they would come for a tow. They said they would if it was 50 feet or less from a paved surface. “Oh yeah I assured him,” fully aware that it was like 300 feet, but hey, whatev, right?

He and I got into his Jeep and went to meet the tow truck at an intersection to lead the driver to the scene of the stupid. He took one look and I could tell prospects were grim. I watched him and my dad talking from the car, head held in shame, headlights beaming down at my fallen soldier of the road, only wishing that I had not chosen today to go off-roading. They both shook their heads, and glanced back at me. At this point my friends pulled up behind my dad’s Jeep in Tanner’s mom’s minivan. They had been waiting by Johnson’s car, but turns out we stole the tow truck that was heading for them. Haha. I got out and hung with them for a few minutes before the driver came and told me he needed to go get more chains to get it out and gave me the glistening piece of news that it would cost $75.00 an hour starting now. GO!

I agreed to the price, and he climbed in his truck to head back to the shop. My dad went back up to the house to get a couple shovels so  me and the boys could work on digging the wheels out of the mud so we could hook the chains on the frame. In ankle deep mud we dug and dug. As I walked up to my dad’s car my fingers swelled from the cold, covered in dried mud. My friends returned to Johnson’s car to meet a different driver there to tow his car.

Our truck returned, followed by a Jeep operated by the driver’s cousin, and reluctantly backed down a few feet before stopping. The same feeling set in that set in when our friend had come with his truck earlier. He kept backing up though, a few feet more, inching foot by foot into the ever-softening ground, the two ton vehicle sinking slowly but surely just as my car had. He stopped once more. I went down by the truck to meet him and his cousin and helped pull out a 100 foot wire to meet my car. Which it did not. However, the driver had brought three or four long chains. We attached them all together and hitched one to the frame of my car. When we went to connect the chain with the wire on the tow truck, we were about three feet short and the driver insisted that any further, and he would be stuck. He called the driver of the truck that had gone to get Johnson’s car and luckily he was coming by us anyway. He brought us more chains, and finally, after an hour, we got the tow truck connected to my car.

We had been pretty lucky during this whole ordeal to not be graced by the presence of Medway’s finest, but that luck can only last so long. As the car was being hitched up, a police car pulled up behind me and my dad, who were in his Jeep. “Fuck.” After sitting in his car for a few minutes, he got out, and so did my dad. I didn’t hear what they said, but after a short discussion, they two shook hands, the officer wished him a good night, and he was on his way. My dad got in the car. “We’ll, you’re in big trouble.” I looked at him, nearly with tears in my eyes. Then he laughed. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” I told him with a smile.

The guy’s cousin hopped in my drivers seat and backed up slowly as the truck reeled him in. It was kind of like The Old Man and the Sea. That would be a more apt analogy if the car didn’t work when we finally got it out, but thank God, it did. One-hundred fifty dollars and five hours later, I mounted my driver’s seat and drove my beautiful red steed off the to the gas station. Because I was nearly out of gas. How much would that have sucked?

Here she is, in all of her muddy glory:

I need new shoes. The end.

Must have been trying pretty hard last Sunday, as it’s taken all week to recover. Didn’t bother with the mid-week run as I was still pretty sore in the calves and ankles, particularly my right calf which was still a bit tender this morning.

Decided to go for a short run anyway over my normal ’short’ training run course. Quickly remembered why I decided to take a different route over the winter months as it was a bit of a mudfest. Reduced to walking round the worst bits at least three times. (That’s each bit once, not the same bit three times . . . ) Even with the enforced breaks, still found it hard work. Temperature was about 8 degrees C, but felt a lot less when I turned into the wind. I think when it gets below 5 degrees I’ll ditch the shorts and go with the Ronhill Tracksters that I picked up on Ebay.

In an effort to get really fit over the winter, decided to take on the one hundred push-ups challenge. Day one was last Monday, but after doing the initial test and just squeaking into the top set of three for Day 1, I completed the task but strained everything to the point of not being able to do push-ups again until today! So I’m going to re-start next Monday with the medium level set. At some point hope to do the sit-ups and squats challenges too.

Meanwhile, the official Boscombe 10k results are out and I came 247th out of 436. Dang, still below halfway.

Alright, here is the second part of the blog about signs. This will finish them up for this time at least until I find more that I can share with everyone. Have fun!

Please comment I would love the feedback

If it is not in use, then why is it there?

if there is a sign, is there not already a problem?

invisible what? People?

hahaha wow

where are we not supposed to swim?

where am I supposed to park my flying car?

what to say about this one...?

100...mph?

to..ease congestion?

keep left...when there is a huge hole there?

have fun with this one

hahaha wow

evil construction workers..

even though this is not a sign, it is still amazing

how do I get in?

better hope it is not to serious

I am glad they made it plain

watch out for those dangerous gravestones

All customer complaints should be taken care of this way

I hope they have a cell phone

Thanks to whoever made this bilboard

poor cockroaches...:(

what is this gate guarding?!

does this guy still have his job?

bummer, I wanted to cross when cars were moving

does the local trafic have flying cars?

only in America

but...I don't speak dog!

but I already gave my arm and leg last time I got gas!

can buggies go 55?

fine failure

I am almost done weathering the vehicle, some dusting, rain marks and wet effects are left. I also have to finish the base, I am not too convinced with my groundwork, seems a bit out of scale but hopefully the laser cut leaves will bring it all together/hide the bad parts. Then it is a matter of finishing the driver figure.

For anyone that has downloaded, or even looked at, TBAmud, one of the first things you’ll realize is that there are only four classes: Mage, Cleric, Warrior, Thief.  In game terms, that means all four of the standard D&D roles are filled; range damage, healing, tank, and melee damage.

But in order to make your MUD more interesting, you need more classes.  Why?  Because it’s boring with just the standard four.  What about the Paladin, a Cleric/Warrior hybrid?  Or an anti-Paladin, a Mage/Warrior hybrid.  By combining classes into hybrids of two or more, you can create some more interesting classes.

Instead of combining classes, another challenge is to create something new.  How about a Ranger, who has some elements of a mage (limited spellcasting) and a rogue (sneak/hide), but also has the ability to tame and control animals?  Or has the ability to fire ranged weapons from outside of combat.

Alternatively, combine these skills with healing, and you now have a Druid.  He can cast spells out of combat, while still able to deal damage to the target.  Much better than a cleric (especially if some cleric spells are out-of-combat only, such as Sanctuary), although probably not as versitile.

These were ideas I struggled with in SIGMUD.  I finally settled that I wanted a total of 6 classes to start, preserving the initial four and adding two more – Paladin and Necromancer.

The Paladin is a warrior/cleric hybrid, with some healing spells and the ability to swing big weapons at things, with a few added tricks that Clerics and Warriors don’t have access to.

The Necromancer is a toned down mage/cleric hybrid.  But instead of fighting in melee and healing others, he raises his own undead minions to fight for him, and heals his undead minions.  To benefit groups, I gave him a plethora of curses and other fun stuff to do to mobs.

I would really love to know what people think when I tell them I work as a model. I swear somethings I actually do “normal” model type stuff like wear pretty dresses and walk down runways. But for the most part that isn’t the case. I prefer doing things that are out of the ordinary like posing in rain forests, getting tied up from the ceiling and well…playing in the mud. Usually when I shoot mud/quicksand fetish videos it’s at an indoor set built in a studio. Most recently however I did a shoot for DIDVP out at a marsh. Working outdoors has some interesting challenges including bugs and birdwatchers. During this shoot we actually had some guy come up to us asking about a bird he though he saw in the area. Mind you he didn’t bother asking why we had video cameras and two girls wearing heels and nice clothes in a marsh. But he really wanted to see that bird and didn’t want to leave! People can be very silly.

Your earliest memory, from the cot dreams

toys hoofing in a ring of light, to the tune

it’s a small world, after all that is poetry in itself

apropos of such unfolding, in nonage, in infancy

marriage at twenty-five, offspring by thirty

was never yours, nor office administration

not even the longest term mortgage, to settle you

into the long haul, the long yards,

the back yards, and cats and dogs

none of them yours. It was written in a villanelle

it was ordained by Auden, it killed your chances

you slid by the cornfields, under Van Gough’s sill

you fell into a lustful fate, a pond of muddy water

you swam with the eels, your electric adult

on the blink, powering down and dreamless.

Venerdì 27 si terrà la prima di alcune lezioni preparatorie per l’incontro con la nebulosa della New Italian Epic. Una nebulosa a tratti criticabile, a tratti sintomatica della condizione dei tempi italiani, repressivi e censuranti, localisti e “tribali”, ma privi d’autenticità e visione del passato.

La proposta di Wu Ming è in sintesi quella di una ripresa dell’attitudine epico-collettiva nella narrativa italiana, un’attitudine etica scagliata contro il pastiche postmodernista, tesa a ritessere assieme memoria e storia in una concezione corale e transmediale della letteratura, che esalta dell’epica il ruolo dell’eroe come testimonianza anonima, un nessuno-tutti, forse più jedi che cavalier cortese, più Vikram alle prese col vampiro del Baital Pachisi indiano; ovvero più stereotipo atopico, a tratti fumettistico, che prototipo, e spesso protagonista di una storia collettiva. Un eroe-testimone che può rappresentare un vettore di valori per la collettività, per una comunità sempre più MUD (multi-user dungeon), prigione segreta anarchica di utenti attivi e partecipanti, fondata sulla condivisione dei saperi, anche se in modo solo virtuale.

In questo orizzonte mutato, l’epica new italiana si ammanta dell’utopia di un incontro tra condizioni di vita e d’arte -nel repentino scivolare del web 2.0 nella versione 4.0- attraverso la sparizione dell’Autore (già predetta da Foucault e Benjamin nel saggio L’autore come produttore), e grazie al  potere liberatorio del medium. Per iniziare però, ci proponiamo di fare un passo all’indietro, con molta cautela, e di spalancare il concetto di epica/epopea a partire dalla sua antichissima origine (v. l’Epopea di Gilgamesh) come atto inaugurale della storia di una comunità, ma anche atto difensivo (v. il Shāhnāma di Ferdowsi, scritto in difesa della lingua e cultura persiana). Ricorderemo poi parallelamente la valenza dialettica e rigenerante dell’epopea comica, della mock fable, dell’epopea medievale degli animali (v. il Roman de Renart), della Βατραχομυομαχία riproposta da Leopardi nei Paralipomeni, ovvero della parodia come travestimento burlesco dell’epica, e origine del romanzo moderno.

Ten solid days of rain can have its effects. It takes its toll in a variety of ways on the human psyche–the bleakness seeps into my brain, making my gray matter much grayer than usual. Everything slows down to a crawl and climbing out of bed to another dark day requires commitment and effort.

Managing barn chores and horses these days is a challenge. Despite years of effort to create well drained paddocks with great footing, there is no such thing when the ground is super saturated from unrelenting inches of rain, and when the barn and paddocks are unfortunately placed on the downside of a hill. Every bare inch of ground has become mud soup with more water pouring off the hill every moment.

Mud in all its glory rivals ice for navigation hazard. Yesterday it was a boot magnet as I tried carefully to make my way with a load of hay to a bit drier area in a paddock, and found with one step that my boot had decided to remain mired in the muck and my foot was waving bootless in the air trying to decide whether to land in the squishy stuff or go back to the relative safety of the stuck boot. Standing there on one foot, with a load of hay in my arms, I’m sure I looked even more absurd than I felt at the moment, and at least I gave comic relief to people driving by. I won’t say how I figured my way out, but it did require doing laundry later.

I remember quite a few years ago when my daughter was about 5 years old, I was busy with chores as she was exploring a similar muddy paddock and I realized I hadn’t seen her for a few minutes and I went looking. There she stood, wailing, with one stocking foot in the mud, an empty boot stuck up to its top, and her other boot so mired, she couldn’t move without abandoning it too. By the time I got her extracted, we were both laughing muddy messes.

More laundry.

The Haflingers are not averse to the mud if they are hungry enough. They’ll hesitate momentarily before they dive in to reach their meal but dive in they do. Those clean blonde legs and white tails are only a memory from last summer. Even their bellies are flecked with brown now. Later, back in the barn, as the mud dries, it curries off in chunks and I start to see my golden horses revealed again, but it seems they will never be truly clean again.

What lures me into the mud, enticing me deeper in muck that covers and coats us so thoroughly that it feels I’ll never be clean again? Whatever I want so badly that I’m willing to get hopelessly dirty to reach it, once there, it is tainted by the mud as well, and never as good as I had hoped. I become hopelessly mired and stuck, sinking deeper by the minute.

Rescue comes from an outreached hand with strength greater than my own. Cleansing may be merely skin deep, only to last until my next dive into the mud, or it can be thorough and lasting–a sort of future “mud protective coating” so to speak. I can choose how dirty to get and how dirty to stay and how clean I want to be.

I need to go do laundry again.

So, in all today was a good(ish) day. I woke up semi-early, as James decided to call. I couldn’t go back to sleep because my brother was playing his shitty music intensely loud throughout the house, and at 3pm I met up with Josh and Manny and Colleen and we hung out at Peter Pipers Pizza. good stuff.

Of course, in between the shitty music and my brother dropping me off at PPP, he and his friend Carlos decided it might be fun to go mudding in the lot next to ours. mudding. yes, they did it. I was held as the cameraman and they got some good video. I have shitty cell phone video, but alas, if i need to implicate them in something, I’ve got it.

So after PPP’s, Josh and Colleen had to take off to his uncle’s in Monte Alto to go to a fish fry. So, it being about 5p, we decided we’d hang out a little longer and went to the skating rink. I suck at roller blading. Of course, we stayed there for a long ass time and Manny and Noe still wanted to hang out. I didn’t so much anymore, but they made me. Which later developed into my parents being utterly angry with me. Not fun. But skating was fun. I fell a total of 4 times. Which is decidedly less than when I went ice skating, but then again, when I went ice skating I was holding on to the wall and I still sucked.

I’m just not good with finding my center of gravity.

Either way, after that, we headed to Manny’s house. Still didn’t get dropped off, and headed towards the outlets. Got some Whataburger, because, c’mon, that is GOOD. and eventually, after about 2 more calls from my mom, Noe and I headed back to drop me off. He decided to ignore his GPS’s directions the first time, and that’s where everything pretty much went south.

We got stuck about a mile from my house. 2 miles. whatever, it was pretty close. But fuck, that road has potholes like you would NOT believe. My mom kept texting me angrily, and when I called to see if they could come in the truck to pull us (finally, as we tried to get out by ourselves for a while) she yelled at me, threw the phone at my dad, he didn’t say anything… but he did hang up. SO, we were fucked. So, I called Abraham and he was at BK, but he said he’d come when he was done. Which was more than I could hope for anything, so yeah. We scraped around, sunk our feet into mud and Noe got really down and dirty. It was pretty bad. Finally, my mom called me that she was on her way and that there were at least 3 more pot holes from the one we got stuck in. Either way, we were going to be fucked.  She was yelling at me, told me to walk to the Jimmy and I did. But Noe didn’t want to leave, so I told him to call his dad. I called him after I reached the Jimmy, but he still insisted on staying and for me to leave (as the ‘rents were being atrocious) So I’m home.

Abraham just text me saying that he did go to our stuck site. Then kept texting me that he was helping Noe and that it was really stuck in there. Then he said that as he was leaving Noe’s sister was showing up. So as of 12:10a (we got stuck at 10p) Noe is still stuck over there on mile 1 1/2. FUCK THAT ROAD.

But, because I basically abandoned Noe there, in the mud… I gave him an avocado tree on FarmVille. It doesn’t help, but at least it adds to his tree collection. =]

and P.S. FUCK THAT ROAD.

and also P.P.S. I pretty much really really want to move out right now. I mean, wtf, my dad hung up on me when I actually needed his help with something. What the fuck!

A group of McCarthyists heckled a woman whose daughter in law died because of a lack of health care. Real classy… that ranks up there with anti-war protesters carrying signs saying, “fuck the troops”.

Anyways, listening on the main chat channels on the game i play yields some funny things.

Karok wisps:

I am so hungry
it is time for a breakfast
I have no bacon

Acantha wisps:

Pancakes are frying
Breakfast has great potential
I have no bacon

Obatanan wisps:

I have no bacon
and well, neither does karok
but I have egg nog

Acantha wisps:

Eggs and pancakes cooked
hot breakfast on winter morn
I have no bacon

Karok wisps:

my kidneys could beat up your kidneys

Yeah, this isn’t happening in the Mission, but they have tats, are wearing a hella cool tshirt, and look absolutely elated.  I love this photo.

Get the scoop on shirts at Endless Canvass.

be Like a kid and have fun! Dont take things so seriously!  Wiggle your toes!

www.getoutthebox.org

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