We gots possums.



This guy has been eating up all the catfood and or table scraps. The possum, or, Possum Steve as Corey has decided to call him, isn't much afraid of the cats and simply stares up at us innocently whenever we open the door and walk up on'em.

Last night after the encounter with Steve I decided that I'd wake up at 3:30 and watch the meteor shower. I threw some clothes on after the alarm awoken myself from deep slumbers of the darkness, and I walked through the cold dry air and through the noisy ankle-deep leaves in our front yard and out onto the gravel, all the way to where our long driveway meets the paved road. Supposedly this thing was to have peaked around 4:15. I saw two or three and got cold ears and chapped lips. The meteor shower sucked. The end.

Weird though. It was a full moon last night. You could see everything.

Last weekend I was in a huge-big Wal-Mart Supercenter in Hot Springs. Jason was on a mission to get everything he would need for deer camp. Going to the quote: deerwoods, requires you get everything and anything you might possibly need and want and cook and eat. Also drink. If that’s your thing.

We walked around and checked stuff off his big deerwoods stuff list. Mainly it was food. Mostly varieties of meat and several brands of pork n beans; also some other non-food items like charcoal and shotgun shells.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more-busy sporting goods section. All of us rednecks were out and about, grabbing last minute hunting stuff. Guns and ammo, orange and cammo.

People buy all kinds of cool camouflage clothing. I am severely impressed and jealous of the cammo clothing. I’ll have to get me some.

Sometime.

Filling up a walmart buggy with more stuff than even your standard reinforced buggy can hold, and listening to the wheels creek and slide and make black marks on the white floor tile as we turned around every bend, reminded me of way back when.

Back when we’d go camping someplace or another, and before such a thing when we used to go with mom to the store for pre-camping supplies. We didn’t have much money, and going to the store with mom usually involved coupons and arguments over what us kids wanted and what mom wouldn’t buy because she was on a budget. Price saver cereal and lots of cheap food that you can make a lot of meals out of, …were what we were used to taking home. Stuff like spaghetti and rice and bread. No Drew. We’re not getting the five dollar Count Chocula.

Shopping for camping was different because it was, well, different.

It was the only time that we’d walk out of the grocery store with twelve pounds of Snickers. It was the only time we’d throw enough marshmallows in the buggy to fill three pillow cases. For camping we went all out. Heck yeah.

Me and Jason still knew how to do it last week. Anything and everything for every possible camping scenario. But he bought. He’s the one with the job and I’m just the younger unemployed college-boy brother who goes and looks for the butter.

Sitting around at school working on this and that and crap for class blah blah etc...



I don't really care about much anymore. Most things don't mean as much. School. Work. Food . Sleep. Having fun. Who cares. Alot of times at school I'll turn around or look down and think about how little all this day to day goal-oriented crap is, compared to my brother and his life and our life and how thats gone and over and ended. Who cares.

Such a big chunk of stuff has been taken away that all the other things in life kind of slide to the back . You laugh at that stuff now and wonder how it all used to seem so important.

Notes on the past couple of days:

1. My paintings look a whole lot better when you step back, say, ..50 feet.

2. I haven't been doing much lately besides putting things off and fiddling my time away. And this seems to be when I'm most happy. And or less sad.

3. Most of lower Arkansas is owned by International Paper and Georgia Pacific. Most of lower Arkansas is a clear-cut, and or a pine plantation. And it is funny to me, how people who've never spent much time outdoors, would look out the window at those eighty-mile stretches of bleak eco-disaster areas, being ignorant and oblivious, smile, and call them forests. Those trees might as well be corn.

4. There are alot of deer down there though. And it is fun to sit with friends and watch a fire, to sit with friends and eat something that three hours before was walking around; something that's never been cold.

5. Fall is nice. Yellow and red leaves are nice.

6. Bad things happen that change things and alter perspectives. "Moving on" becomes more something like "wading through".

7. The older I get, the wider my perspective and the less I am seeming to know.

8. I don't think I've ever said "seeming" before.

9. "Seeming" is probably a word that is only used by nerds.

I know somebody and they cry for you.
They lie awake at night and dream of you.
I bet you never even know they do.

but.

somebody's crying.

I know somebody and they called your name.
A million times and still you never came.
They go on loving you just the same
I know that...
somebody's trying.