*

I’m watching “The Ascent of Man” with Jacob Bronowski. If you know me at all, you’ll know that watching this thirteen part documentary narrated by the male equivalent of Sister Wendy is my idea of pure bliss.

And I get to read Murakami afterwards until I fall asleep.

*

Still, I am sore put out, anxious, restless, depressed. All I can hear in my head is the great grinding of gears. Like the disfigured man at the center of the merry-go-round in Eraserhead, only not quite so upbeat.

*

I managed to put a good meal on the table tonight. Roasted new potatoes with cilantro gremolata and a roasted beet salad with cherries, ginger, feta, red onion, toasted cumin seeds, lime juice, cabbage, served on a bed of spinach leaves. Some hockey puck of breaded garbanzo and spinach burger thing from Costco.

I know, I know.

Still, it were pretty good. You would have loved it.

*

Watched “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.”

Went to Krav class and stabbed and shot and kicked and wrestled and hit the bags and did gun takeaways and knife defense.

Did some work. A suspicious death investigation review, set up a polygraph on a rape suspect, planned next months firearms training, met with a retarded attorney on a stupid-ass case he can’t figure out to save his life, etc.

When I got home, there was a red-tailed hawk trapped in the laundry room, and a very mad bulldog trying to get at it.

The hawk was successfully released back into the wild, a bit ruffled but not too much the worse for wear.

*

Right now life with my kid is like that scene in “Bowfinger” where Steve Martin gets Eddie Murphy to run into highway traffic as part of his guerrilla movie project.

She’s gonna get smacked.

But maybe not.

Fuck, I don’t know.

*

How can it be that our whole civilization burst onto the scene only about ten or twelve thousand years ago? After a few million years of hanging out, banging sticks together, killing deers and buffalos and mastadons and shit?

I wonder if there wasn’t a few abortive false starts that just got swallowed up in all that time.

I wonder about a lot of stupid shit, I really do.

Good luck catching me wondering about anything useful.

*

One thing I love is long walks. Especially in the woods or along the shore. Especially with  the Woman On The Verge. She soothes my mind. She is my great good mystery and fortune, the best thing about this whole damn disaster.

*

I am on the junior varsity of suffering.

This ain’t the show, not by a long shot.

***

Namaste.

***