Facebook gallery is here.
I (sort of ) apologize to those of friends who have a more precise approach to grammar and the use of language.
Several writers, including a Hugo award winner, have been my friends. Lot's of teachers, several college professors.
God bless my poor sweet lost soul, buried in an oubliette of freedom, swept up in a forest of mixed metaphors.
It's gotten me in trouble, as I am cursed with the need to say what's on my mind first - or worse, what's in my heart. The verbs can be as tensed or relaxed as they like.
Direct expression is driven by the need to get an idea across, to sketch a feeling, to catch lightening in the bottle of words.
I got my hair cut today. The crew at Satori, particularly Paige, my stylist, are a mixed and enthusiastic lot and I think I see some of the same shared madness that characterizes the Orchard. This is a comfortable vibe for me, fun and familiar.
Since it is the first Thursday of the week my leaving Doctor's Row was marked by a parking ban on my side of the street. In Autumn it allows for street sweeping - in Winter, it's snow removal. This meant a police car drove down along the snowbanked curb, followed by a small army of tow trucks, all hungry to catch the unwary car left by its owner in defiance of the ban.
This parking ban tow routine is a fixture of life in Portland's Wintertime. Cars get towed when snowstorms demand the streets be cleared and you don't get it back unless you pay cash for the fine - and any unpaid parking tickets.
Today while coming home from a hair appointment I was delighted to see a small train of big, big trucks stopped in front of my apartment house. It was the work of only a minute to dash inside, throw down my coat and bag, grab my camera and start shooting.
I think they were clearing blockage from the front of the giant snowblower. Two city guys were stabbing at the inside of the business end with long steel rods, probably clearing out the intake.
The engine roared to life in short order and the parade was off, down the street.
The snowblower was chewing up the snowbank, right to the curb. Snow would come flying out in a solid stream into a dumptruck that was slowly leading the conga line.
Needless to say it was loud, it was messy and it was really, really cool.
Just like the other night it was fun to see the kind of hard work it took to get things to work in Portland. The conga line slowly headed down Doctor's Row, roaring the the bright morning sun.
Perhaps I am something of a geek - things loom so large for me, situations that other people seem to just sail through seem to freeze me into paralysis of confusion. I'm sure everyone has things that happen that way but they seem to be a lot more strange for me.
At the same time I can get a huge jolt out of such a simple, complex thing as big trucks throwing snow in the bright, bright sun of a Winter morning in Maine.
Go figure.
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