polished glass on the beach of Monday

Verdict on Outer South (in a word): Fabulous. Perfect for rocking out to on a road trip, or enlivening a Monday morning. (Also for remaining cheerful in situations that would ordinarily ignite firestorms of road rage. The traffic on the way to Grove City consisted mainly of assholes who drove barely over the speed limit in the passing lane, boxing me behind them. One considerate gent gave me just the slightest opportunity to gap him on the right, and I blew through that hole like the Black Stallion. Pissed, he accelerated to try to prevent me from getting around him in time to avoid smashing into the back of the eighteen-wheeler ahead of me, but he underestimated my Toyota, my spacial relationship skills and my temper. He then proceeded angrily to ride my tail for the next few miles, although at that point I was doing a brisk eighty-five and he had only been going seventy. I didn't take any delight at all in boxing him in.)

The visit with MP and David was delightful, and a good time was had by all. They have the most adorable house in a picturesque little neighborhood. My favorite part of the house is the finished efficiency apartment on the third floor which they have adopted as the master bedroom. A tower-type bedroom is the coolest thing ever.

Today the migraine persists, as the colder weather persists, and, although it's sunny, I'm just about screamingly ready for some sultry June haze and sticky heat. (And I swear it will be at least a week after it hits before I start complaining about the sticky heat. At least it will be seasonal.)

Maybe warmer weather is good for my pain-prone head. I'll have to keep tabs this summer and see how often the migraines come and go and compare to winter. Since Cindy passed along the invaluable cure (cup of black coffee and two Excedrin tablets -- a kill-by-caffeine method to which this caffeinatic has no objection) they have been significantly more manageable, but I hope the warmer weather keeps them away altogether. I would like that.

Also this morning, having worn a flouncy skirt and strappy sandals to work with the thermometer kissing fifty, I am freezing. But it's springtime, dammit, and I'm dressing for spring.

Further along office lines are speculative stories we tell about the backyard next door. The old building was long ago turned into apartments, and the most interesting conglomeration of crap has accumulated over the years in that fenced-in yard, of which our second-floor kitchen window affords a perfect balcony view. Broken-down metal playground equipment from the 80s, broken-down plastic playground equipment from the 90s, a collapsed pool, a sand pit (once the location for the pool and at that time covered with a giant braided rug which has disappeared; the pool has inexplicably been moved, still collapsed, to a different part of the yard. Crop circles?), a sporadic clutter of chairs, an overturned patio table, a park bench: These are the backdrop to a daily different scene.

Today’s stage featured a badly failed attempt on someone’s part to prop a twenty-yard clothesline using dismembered pieces of the fence, which were not pounded into the soil but simply leaned at angles into one another and wound around and around with clothesline. An enormous, solid, very present tree at a convenient angle to the fence would not suffice, apparently. Predictably, at some point over the course of the blustery weekend, the whole thing collapsed “like a flan in a cupboard,” and now a colorful parade of drowned laundry trails across the lawn like a torn-down circus banner. Off to the side, this aftermath of tragedy is quietly witnessed by a red pair of grandpa slippers resting in comfortable solitude on the park bench.

The funny part of these bizarre tableaux is that you never see anyone back there. I have yet to witness a human being arranging any of this junk. It’s very much a work of chaotic art, a stop-motion film featuring the completed efforts of absent hands. Every time I look from my vantage point to the oddness below, I am overwhelmed by the ultimate question: Why? The flotsam and jetsam give no answer except to convey a sort of resigned restfulness, a waiting for eventual decay disturbed by the unfathomable proddings of humanity, which cannot leave entropy to itself but assists in its own strange and whimsical way.

I don’t know why, but it comforts at the same time that it amuses. There’s something loveable about the weird scenarios which engender our unanswerable speculations, something precious in the stubborn refusal to give up the ghost against all reason. And you never know what it's going to bring tomorrow.