Bart the Bear has his trainer's entire head in his mouth.

Terrible Ideas

by

Dan Jewett

All posts tagged as: the-days

Up early to make sure I experience all the satisfaction of the day after. The day after Kamala Harris handed that shit talking bridge-troll the one part of his body that isn't the color of dried apricot.


Looks like I'm getting back to a schedule more like I kept when I was coaching. A 4am wake up wasn't planned but I don't mind it. I don't really differentiate weekends from weekdays anymore.
Good morning all.


Good morning Micro.blog and Mastodon! It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day here in Lawrence, KS. Hump day! All easier from here on out!


A New York Morning in Kansas. 69° here in Lawrence this morning. I love going out on my little back porch and being reminded of boyhood mornings in Chautauqua, NY.

Our family would vacation at Chautauqua Lake. I would be out early looking for nightcrawlers to go fishing with. A very happy memory triggered by this morning's cool air.


What a gift to start the day this way. Listening to the solo performances from Bill Evans Complete Riverside Recordings.

The finest combination of beauty and genius.

Cover of The Complete Riverside Recordings of Bill Evans

Approaching the final steps of dismantling my coffee infrastructure. Down to decaf these last weeks. Time to replace the ritual itself. #removealljoy


This is the last evening before classes begin for the '24-'25 school year at the University of Kansas here in Lawrence. This is only significant for me as a marker. I'm not associated with KU other than that my daughter Marilyn will be starting her senior year there.

As markers go, the start of the Fall semester does have a somewhat melancholy weight to it. I don't experience Summer the same way I did when I was younger, but I still feel a tinge of loss at its passing. Vestiges of youthful freedom that defined that part of the year.

It reached 100º here in Kansas today. It allows one to pretend that there is some Summer left even as our minds and bodies shift to cooler pursuits.


Hazy, dirty lens photo of coffee shop counter.

Kelly Moon

I went for a walk downtown.

I tried the door of a restaurant but it was locked. I went somewhere else to eat. I went into a store and bought a book by an author I've read before.
I stopped in a coffee shop and got a large cup. Paper or styrofoam? Paper please.

I walked home, taking a different route.

I don't know how far I walked. I didn't take the device that measures. There will be no more ledgering the vectors of trips like these.

I have a commitment to measure something I'll do later this month. After that, I will lop off those metrics forever and see what might replace them.


A man crossing a busy street with his eyes closed and wearing headphones.

Couldn't row this morning so I took a long looping walk through downtown. I think my walking playlist is getting pretty good. It's big enough now that putting it on shuffle and heading out is starting to provide surprises.

It did occur to me that with my luck, I'll get hit by a car and bystanders will catch me with I Can't Wait by Nu Shooz blaring out of my earbuds.

What can I say? It puts pep in the step.


Photo shows a flagpole in the distance with anU.S. flag standing straight out from a strong wind.

Wind's a bit brisk today.

Every morning @5 am, I look out my kitchen window to check this flag. I can see it even at night.
I check for two things.

  1. Does it look like it does in this photo? (Straight out, wind from the south.)
  2. Is it a Chinese or Russian flag?

If the answer to both of these questions is no, I proceed with my day as normal and head for the river.


Socked in like a New England lobster fisherman. It looks like snow blowing by but it’s actually fog. Some run-off foam in the water just adds to the allure. (Yesterday morning.)

KU Crew Dock, 2021-03-26, @5:15am

A goose landing on water.

Photo by Inge Riis McDonald

We have challenges enough, do we not? With every day presenting its difficulties, a multitude of small assaults on our well-being. We build up no credit for facing these struggles, and instead are told it's possible there may also be bombs in the basement, strapped with electrical tape to the pillars of our sanity and our humanity.

Why then choose to add more difficulty to the day?

A particular individual has decided to get up early in the morning and go down to the river with the understanding that a number of other individuals will do the same. If that happens, they will form a group, and as a group they will put a boat in the river and attempt to row it.

Rowing a boat, any boat, is difficult and so these individuals have been made a promise. They've been promised that if they keep coming down to the river and trying to row the boat, something good will happen.


Today as we began the last part of our row, turning to head for the dock, I caught that look of frustration. There had been moments of good movement over the course of the practice, touches of the ideal, grasped but then let slip, making the bad strokes feel even worse.

Two metal towers of the city's water intake system protrude above the surface of the river and a pair of geese have taken to resting on the one closest to the riverbank. As we pass by them, trying to find a few good strokes before we land, the gander raises his concerns.

He yells.

"Always with the noise, and the straining, and the flailing! What kind of bird are you? You have eight wings but you never fly!"

I can only respond, "We want to fly. We are trying."


Well gang, I guess it’s time I confess that I’ve been posting these last few months from my cell in a remote Russian gulag.

I finally received a second pillow for good behavior.

Picture of my unadorned bedroom.

I’ve been told I can hang a painting after the next security check.


Fox standing in a front yard in Lawrence, KS.

You seen any chickens?

On the way home from rowing practice this morning I came across a pair of foxes. They wouldn't stand together for a photo, but they seemed to be having a good time.


Disarray

listening my-big-mouth something-beautiful first-paragraph music-art-film-design learning-fun-interesting rowing-c2 information people this-blog cartoons-memes the-days books-reading-writing poetry-lyrics small-web computer-web-tech fun health-lifestyle lawrence observations django watching defined places quotes-excerpts walking politics