I love to see mothers and children in a bookstore, gathered, laughing, talking. My favorite store favors them. On almost any day I chose to visit there will be children, with mothers, mostly, but sometimes fathers. There are toys and games. The children play at the feet of mothers who stand, talking with one another. It makes the store feel like a living space, and sometimes I stay to drink a bit of coffee and eat a roll, and maybe to start a book I just bought.

Well, I slept all night, except for one tiny wake up. But it only means I was really tired from not sleeping the night before. And the experts are in agreement that you can’t catch up on sleep. So, I’m not really sure what to do except plod on. And that seems to be a recurring theme in my life, and life in general. Plod on. But since I’m now a slow-moving, sloth-like creature it means I get to look around, and that’s a good thing. It plays straight into my natural tendencies.

The inevitability of life. Not sure what that means, but it popped into my head last night while I lay in bed. It seems like a good idea, too. An idea I should spend some time parsing. I think it has something to do with things I want compared to the things I actually get. And it’s not about shopping. In a small way, it also has something to do with acceptance, an acknowledgement of what’s real, and right now. Somewhere in there, of course, is striving, of working towards something.

I went to see Butch Hancock last night, and I almost hate to admit it, but it was my first time. Of course, there are lots of artists I haven’t seen in person. So, I’m not singling him out. I just wish I’d seen him when the songs were new. It was the same with Jimmie Dale Gilmore. I got to his music late, and I’ve never seen him in person, but when we still bought CDs, I bought a few. I mention Jimmie because I realized last night that Butch wrote one of the songs Jimmie performs that I really like, Just a Wave, Not the Water.

I lost a day yesterday. When I got up in the morning, I thought it was Monday. I was surprised my doctor’s office was closed. I wondered why a music festival friends were attending had its closing day on a Sunday. I even texted another friend to ask if we were still on to meet and listen to music that night. He said, yes, but, and this is when I snapped back, he said today is Sunday, the show is Monday. It was a disconcerting moment, because I was truly in Monday mode.

We fried things last night. Fish and potatoes. Lovely. The fish was cod, cut into bits, dredged in mustard then cornmeal and panko. The potatoes were Idaho, sliced on a mandolin to paper thin sheets, soaked in ice and water, then dried and fried. My host had two fryers with clean oil for each. We started the meal with a heaping helping of cold shrimp dipped in an array of sauces. Lovely, again.

This is a short sleep story. I have figured out how, after waking at three or two, or one, to get back to sleep.  I lay down, roll over, say, begone to my ruminating thoughts, think of sleep, and there it comes. Hardly a great self-help manual, but that’s what I’ve got. Somehow, I have managed to find the stopcock that will open and dump everything from my brain except the need for sleep. Maybe it’s my years of training coming into play.

I’ll admit it. I’m happy for all the enthusiasm for Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl. I’ll also admit that I’ve tried to dive into her music but came up short. I like Shake It Off and Electric Touch, but they’re really the only two songs I can name off the top of my head. I suppose it just makes me happy to see so many other people happy, especially when some of them are friends of mine. Maybe happiness is infectious.

I disappeared yesterday. I was with a group of people. They were talking about plans. And poof I was gone. Of course, although I might have felt invisible, I was probably still there in body, but nevertheless, I felt gone, disconnected. It’s not a new feeling for me, and I’m pretty sure, unlike Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five, I’m not actually traveling in time or anything. But the feeling of profound solitude and aloneness is real, even in a crowd.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the United States dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the second bomb falling on Nagasaki. Nearly a month later, September 2, Japan surrendered. It took close to a month for that decision to be made. In retrospect, given the ferocity of the violence of those two bombs, the surrender seems a long time coming. 

Yesterday I was driving 70 down a road north of Fredericksburg, and I wondered why I was driving 70 down a road north of Fredericksburg. It’s a road with pretty scenery, courtesy of the Llano uplift, and trying to see it while driving 70, even if it is the posted speed limit, is a great way to get yourself killed. I don’t know about other people, but I tend to drift when I start looking at things along the road. So, I slowed down.

I live in a town that’s on the way to everywhere. The Highland Lakes are to the north and the wine country to the west. Two major metros are close at hand: Austin to the east, and San Antonio to the south. Those metros are growing. Highway 290 on the west side of Austin is expanding, widening, and lengthening, as is Highway 281 on the north side of San Antone. They’re daggers pointed right at the heart of the Hill Country.

I love the internet in so many ways, but hate it at the same time for so many others. Chiefly, I moan the loss of human contact in the area of giving and receiving instructions. At the moment, I am wrestling with a website trying to fulfill their requirements for them to stop charging me sales tax on goods I’m buying from them to resell. It seems obvious. They’re a print on demand company and the orders are coming from my website.

Played a song yesterday for friends of longstanding at the celebration of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. There was a smallish crowd of close friends and family, so I got to play totally acoustic, sitting among the guests. As usual, I remember only the mistakes I made, but most everyone seemed happy with the result. So, I’m happy. And now I’m part of another good memory of dear friends, and that feels good, too.

At some point in my life, I became nearly obsessed with knowing what I see. I suspect it started with birds, and I can pinpoint that date to 1983. Then it was plants. Followed by rocks and mountains, much later in life. That semi-obsession accounts for my bird, plant, and geology books. I’m no ornithologist, botanist, or geologist by any stretch, but I’ve got just enough info banging around in my head that I stand a fairly good chance these days of knowing what I see.

I was speaking with a friend recently about the flooding in Kerr County along the Guadalupe, specifically about the county's inability to get an early warning system installed and why. My story was answered with, "I didn't know that." It stopped the discussion and got me thinking about how we get our news these days.

There’s a scene in the movie Bridge of Spies when the attorney James Donovan, played by Tom Hanks, says during a prison interview to the spy, Rudolf Abel (played by Mark Rylance), that Abel doesn’t seem very upset or concerned that he’s facing the death penalty. Rylance looks at Hanks and says softly, “Would it help?” Since seeing that, I've asked myself that question whenever faced with what otherwise might seem to be an upsetting situation. Getting upset. Would it help?

I think you’re supposed to write like no one is looking. And that worked for a long while, until I realized people were looking. And that was okay, until I started to meet the people who were looking. Then I came to understand that while they were my audience, I knew they had opinions about other things, and I began to worry I might say something to offend them, because every once in a while, I wanted to write about something other than my yard.

It’s hard to believe I could take a vacation while in retirement, but that’s exactly how my most recent trip felt, like a vacation. It was getting away from the mundane, the pattern of an ordinary life. While I’m at home, basically, I’m a maintenance man. I clean. I cook. I tend the yard. I tend the pool. I tend my car. I keep things going. It’s pretty much the life I’ve always led. There’s not as many plates to spin, but that’s still my job.

Well, the long trip is over and it was fun. But it’s nice being home in the comfort of one's own bed. I had a long day yesterday. My flight was at 5:30, so I was up at three a.m. to get to the airport on time. But the beauty of early morning travel is the lightness of the crowds. Combine that with a small regional airport and it was smooth sailing. Of course, I flew east to west which meant by 8:30 last night I was exhausted and fell into bed without any qualms.