I had a nice grandpa week. Got to spend time with the newest grandson, barely eight weeks old. He smiled when I held him, but it might have been gas. I think babies and old men have the same constitution. We like to sleep, be fed, and be rocked. And some of us, if we’re unlucky, need our diapers changed. Maybe my time will come. Who knows. A bridge to be crossed.

I mostly feel rootless. Like mosses or liverworts. I drift along on the surface of wherever I am, perfectly content to be there while actually being nowhere. Today I’m in Virginia. And I could live here. Easily. But then again, I could live in Big Bend, or Taos, or London, or New York, or the Black Hills. They’re all places I’ve been and all places where I felt comfortable once there. Of course, being rootless means I’d never stay. But why should that stop me from living somewhere?

I stepped back into my past yesterday. It went better than expected. Most the past was still there visible through the vibrant new schools built on and in the shell of the old. In 1960 I was in the first class of a new minor seminary just outside Richmond Virginia. I lasted two years. I think the seminary lasted about fifteen. These days the grounds are home to two college prep schools.

My first experience with the new assigned seating on Southwest Airlines felt successful. I liked picking my seat in advance and knowing that it would be waiting for me no matter how long it took to board. Although I’m not sure what it bodes for the airline’s future because now they’re just like every other carrier. They’re still the affordable alternative, but it’s going to be hard to keep prices low with fuel costs soaring. I wish them luck.

Spent an evening last Saturday in the company of a group of young musicians. They were contestants in a contest, but it was hard to tell from the laughter and overflowing camaraderie the winners from losers. They were simply musicians. Young. Full of life. Little fountains of potential. There were libations and a good fire, so they sat around and sang to one another late into the night.

We’ve always had fireplaces in our homes because, well, how was Santa gonna get into our home without one. So, when we built our current home, of course we needed a fireplace. Unfortunately, we didn’t really pay attention, and we got a firebox that was a little too small, and it also failed to draw. Now, why we didn’t immediately get with our builder and resolve this problem I’ll never know. But we didn’t and for fifteen years the fireplace sat silent.

The gutters of my house occasionally need cleaning. Fortunately, it is a one-story house. Fortunately, there are only trees on one side that drop leaves and tassels into the gutters. Unfortunately, I am the chosen one to climb and clean. Unfortunately, the ladder I use, although aluminum, is heavy and more than once it has pinched my fingers with its sliding sections.

‍ Data Centers seem very much in the news. Although, to be fair, it may simply be something that’s on my mind and the algorithms are making sure I see it. In either case, I want to talk about them, and I’m not sure I need an excuse. Mostly, the news I’ve heard is that people don’t want them, cities don’t want them, and states don’t want them because they use lots of electricity, they use lots of water, and they take up space with ugly buildings.

“I had an assistant once who believed in fourth dimensional traps. They sprang up unannounced. You’d lay something down, go back to get it and find it missing. Then some time later, maybe even days, you’d find it, often in a totally unexpected place, sometimes in the same place. The thing had slipped into the fourth dimension and returned.” I wrote that in August of 2014.

I’ve almost always felt that I was, if not the sharpest, then at least one of the pointiest tacks in the box of life. As has been happening with my faulty misconception of being well read, however, I have discovered that as tacks go I might be fairly dull. Here’s a short tale of discovery to illustrate my point.

The redo of the guest rooms is down to decorations, putting up pictures. It’s a fun part. To ensure the area gets used while I wait for a guest to show up, I made one of the rooms a music room. To get furniture in the music room, I rotated chairs from the front room to the music room and from the bedroom to the front room. That little dance decluttered my bedroom, which is a nice side benefit.

I am going to pick a bone, and it mostly has to do with any food establishment where I prepay for my meal and before I close the transaction, I’m asked if I want to tip. I usually tip for service and the quality of the meal, but in this case the only service I’ve had so far is the person processing my order. In addition, I have to go get my own drink and find a place to sit. So, I find it difficult to understand who exactly I’m tipping. Granted, in some cases someone will bring me my food, but I’m simply a number on a placard, it’s not usually a long walk, and sometimes the food is to go.

There’s a gentle rain falling in the Hill Country, although I can only speak with confidence about my little patch of ground. We’ve had a good stretch of recent wet weather although no creeks are flowing from what I can see on drives around the area. It appears most of the water is soaking in which is certainly good for the plant life. I know my vegetation is in a state of green bliss. The rose on the front porch is blooming.

It’s interesting to note how the life of a house changes as the life of the owners change. Sixteen years ago, our guest rooms were bustling with family and friends, and I actually worked in my upstairs office/library. Then grandkids grew up, friends moved, family moved in, family moved off, illness came, and death came knocking. My living area shrank and I was good with it, because it was manageable.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night, and I can’t really say why. I wish I was mulling over some huge philosophical issue of great importance to humankind, but it was just my brain refusing to disconnect. It happens occasionally, and I just let it ride and try to catch up the next night, and as I’m going through the following day I try to keep important decisions to a minimum because I’m probably tired.

The Two Day Two City Tour 2026 is in the books. Life on the road is a grind, and I’m glad to be home, he said with tongue firmly in cheek. Yesterday’s event was held inside because of rain with no amplification, which meant I didn’t get to use my new tremolo pedal, but it felt just like home because mostly I play in picker’s circles in people’s front rooms.

Day one of the 2026 Two Day Two City Tour (TDTCT) is over. My friend Rob McDonald joined me on stage at Folkfest in New Braunfels to replace the friend David Pagan originally planned. David threw out his back. The three of us make up a group when we play together that we’ve come to call the Withered Roots, because we’re all old. Yesterday’s show went on without much of a hitch and we even had a good crowd, mostly made up of friends, but there were some strangers who stuck around to hear us play and sing.

Thoreau wrote about his trips down the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, Twain wrote about the Mississippi, John Graves said goodbye to the Brazos. It seems we’re always saying goodbye to our rivers as they ran in their natural states before industrialization and civilization swallows them whole. I feel fortunate to have canoed the Guadalupe in an almost natural state in the 1970s before it became a lazy river with wall-to-wall tubers.

I’ve spent several days in the last week talking about truth spurred by a documentary on Thoreau and his search for truth. Then I spent this weekend confronting my own truth. I’m dying, not in a specific way such as a horrific diagnosis, just in the general way that everyone dies. Time is running out. I’m entering my eighties, and for the first time, when thinking about a tree to plant, I realized I might not see it through to maturity. That’s a sobering thought.

The odd thing about the truth is that any claimant can wear its name and once clothed it becomes indistinguishable from the real thing. And we are so in love with the idea of truth that we will die to protect it or kill. So, we’ve done a lot of horrible things to one another and had things done to us all in the name of the truth. It continues because sadly, the idea of truth is a useful tool if you’re selling something or want something from someone like money or a vote.