I don’t have any glasses yet, but ever since I joked yesterday about losing my notes — “joked”; I really don’t know where they are but I know they’re around here somewhere — and partly also from that funny feeling you get reading the news with your shoes off and your feet up, I’ve had James McMurtry stuck in my head:

And the airline’s drowning in the belly of the beast
And they’re all bogged down from the weather in the east
And we’re not going anywhere soon

It’s thirty degrees on the Emerald Coast
I spilled my coffee and I burned my toast
And the rent car’s sitting on a flat
The internet’s down and they don’t know why
And I damn near made the desk clerk cry
And there wasn’t any reason for that

She’s camped in the shower and she won’t come out
And I don’t have a clue what that’s about
I’ll just have to wait and see
Can’t get online to check the bank
Twitter’s on fire, my stocks all tanked
But what’s really getting to me is

I keep losing my glasses

the antediluvian pattern of life — As usual, Jeffrey Foucault brings some of the best that words can do in his latest newsletter. (With an added a note via Frederick Buechner.)

A very strange moment to be coming of age

“All one can do is accept life’s inherent constraints and do the best work possible,” writes the editor of Mortise & Tenon. “Is this not the story of all good work? Every project worth doing requires us to reckon with limitations of skill, tools, materials, time, energy, finances, etc. It’s so easy to throw in the towel, to give up altogether. But those who make it to the finish line are the ones who are ready to pivot when things don’t go as planned.”

That is a great word for every aspect of my life as a “home owner.” Nothing is the way I want it to be, and every change or fix requires more time or money than I have. (Cue tiny violin, please.)

“All one can do is accept life’s inherent constraints and do the best work possible.”

And I thought of this line about 43 times yesterday afternoon as I repeatedly ascended the ladder with handfuls of scrap lumber — half of which belongs to half-started projects that (ahem) were definitely gonna be finished before I needed to put firewood in — to pass through the outdoor window to the attic in order to make room in the woodshed for a couple cord of firewood. Safer it was not, but it is easier and faster. Alone it would be about 6x faster than hauling it through the house and up the stairs and winding it over to the attic that way. But with my son in the house trying to help and wanting nothing more than to help, that makes using the ladder about 36x faster.

Do not misunderstand me; I do firmly believe it is my first and foremost job in life to let him help — indeed, to find as many ways for him to help as possible. But when you only have one afternoon to get a job done, that means distractions, diversions, decoys, and psyops are a necessary — if still unfortunate and even shameful — part of the game.

And don’t worry, he still helped clear the shed in the morning and stack wood in the afternoon.

Only time will tell if any finish lines are crossed in this old house, but we’ve officially survived a third year. “All one can do is accept life’s inherent constraints and do the best work possible.”

the Sun, the stars, the wind, and the waves

A fitting Robert Frost poem in my first issue of Mortise & Tenon, considering the “good blocks” I have waiting for me in the driveway on this fine Sunday.

as the rain rests shining / upon the leaves.

Worplace décor