Just reading about Look Restaurant's sign being knocked down by a big truck & later stolen with a little truck. Drag. Will maybe go there for lunch, wonder if they're open.

Slow morning, still in pajamas, coffee, catching up on Scrabble games, Roman history. Tough business, being a rhetor.

Wall-mounted statuette inspired by song 'Honeycomb' I made years ago from a free sample of Tempurpedic foam spontaneously fell to bits yesterday, end of an era. Walking, talking piece of foam.

Lot of good Ricky Nelson songs.

OK, too literary, back to business.

Feet got very sore, dusty on long walk through the corn fields. Really, really dusty actually, dirt roads were a lot like a beach, guess we could use some rain. Soaked my feet for a while, still a bit sore. The pictures make it all worthwhile.

Recuperating with soup, Phil Ochs & pale dry ginger ale.

More fair pictures.

Felt like I'd been neglecting Peretz with all the fair going, so set out on long walk with him through the cornfields to the river, past the airport, behind the fairgrounds. Took a little rest in Sheldon Field watching hip kids play kickball, Peretz played with a corgi. Took pictures of all that too, uploading those now.

Blandford Fair was very nice, coming to the conclusion that I like the small town ones better generally. Produced extensive multimedia documentation. A sample:



Also took a bunch more photos. Uploading those now. Producing a lot of data lately.

On drive down to fair, decided that I should really stop smoking, thought that I would have stopped some time ago had horrible things not happened & that horrible things were no reason for me to waste money on harming myself, quite the opposite actually, that I could reinvest the money saved in further evil works. Anyway, after about three hours of not smoking, found myself composing angry & hurtful missives in my head, as this isn't anything I want to be doing, in my head or elsewhere, went & bought some cigarettes. Don't say I never did anything for you.

Photo upload only a quarter done, will link to them in a bit.

Woke very early, been doing a variety of activities to personal soundtrack, discussing formal wear & maybe playing out with my brother when he's here on IM, drinking lots of coffee. Blandford Fair shortly. Maybe some dishes first.

Footloose & fancy free.

From Aug. 12 Globe story:

"The University of Massachusetts system and the state and community colleges have a backlog of $5.5 billion in capital needs. The governor lays out a five-year, $776 million program, a tripling of current spending in the first year. This money will go for such projects as elevator repairs at UMass-Amherst and renovation of two Framingham State College buildings."

Wheeeeeeeeeeee.

Well, that's one less bottle of vodka cluttering up the place anyway. Neat as a pin in no time, presuming I don't start smashing up the place.

Never did get to Kinesics & Context, too busy drinking, playing with my friend Internet.

Eating more soup.

Have had quite a lot to drink.

Spent some time playing with the 'Causes' application on Facebook, joined some to which I feel sympathetic, started one for Reader to Reader, now I just need to catch up on updating their website.

Got started on cleaning out refrigerator & freezer, freezer's all done, actually, though I have more vodka than there's any reason for an individual non-alcoholic to have on hand. Refrigerator is more of a multiday project.

Mac 'n' cheese came out nicely, gruyere adds a nice flavor but makes it a bit less creamy than my usual formula.

Another beautiful sunset.

Think I'm going to spend the evening curled up with alcoholic beverages, Peretz & Kinesics & Context.

Pleased to report that the Tajik guy is getting his cattle.

Mac 'n' cheese is baking.

Roasted eggplant/pepper dip complete, mac 'n' cheese underway, trying something a bit different with that, adding in some gruyere I had lying around, hope it'll be good. Weekends are really turning into a bit of a one man dinner party, sort of sad, sort of nice.

Liking Four Sail better than I remember liking it.

Sounds like I may be getting a tux for wedding, Jesus.

Roasting eggplants, peppers.

Took another bowl of soup & another long walk to settle my mind, but it's cookery today, fair tomorrow.

If my mind had needed any further settling, finding two Love albums waiting in my mailbox would've done the trick nicely.

OK, music, food.

Finally getting around to eating some of the soup I made yesterday, tastier than I thought it would be, thought it would be pretty tasty, so that's a little surprising.

Torn between going to the Blandford Fair & taking more pictures & staying in with P, maybe making eggplant dip, mac 'n' cheese.

Warming up some more soup while I think about it.

Took a long meandering walk with Peretz, produced some photographic documentation of the destruction of green field, pleasant neighborhood, etc., P frisking beside the ruins.

A weird thing about all this is that if I had to bet, I'd wager that most of the people planning this stuff are pretty into Joni Mitchell. Not everybody takes their art that seriously, I suppose.

Aestheticize, aestheticize, aestheticize. If that doesn't work, aestheticize some more. Bit of a one trick pony, lucky for me it's a pretty good trick.

Honestly a bit surprised I got through August, reached into my bag of tricks, I guess. Also, I have Peretz.

Coffee, coffee.

Should check my car's oil.

Reading about UMass Library elevator incident, made my heart skip a beat, nobody hurt.

P was very playful when I woke up this morning, nice to be playful in the morning.

Eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, thinking about the first time I had it at the Ben & Jerry's in Burlington as a kid, realizing that it would be a big thing.

Taking an astonishingly long time to upload photos of fair, fucking upload caps.

Oh, they finally finished.

Quite an active day, quite an active week actually, bit achy.

Strange that the Three County Fair would be less impressive than the Cummington one, that's how it is nonetheless. Still pretty OK, french fries, fried dough a welcome respite from nutritious vegetables, nice chickens.

Took a bunch more snapshots, think I've taken more photos the past week than over the previous two years, strange.

Watched some of the demolition derby, pretty neat, but I got lonesome for Peretz & walked home again, we're lying in a pile now.