One hundred and seventy six dollars later I’m no longer driving a window-rattler on wheels. After having Tuffy give me my usual free inspection, then quietly laughing at the ridiculous price they quoted me, I called around to a few other places and eventually went with Zandees for the car repair. Partially for the price and partially because it meant only having to walk a quarter mile home after dropping my car off this morning. This turned out to be an important detail because I walked back through a snow storm this evening to reacquire my car.

I stumbled onto this band while listening to the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack (song ten) this afternoon. I don’t know why I dig the retro-synth-space tunes so much. Maybe because it’s impossible to take it too seriously. Music should be fun. I’m now on the lookout for a cheap used copy.

These two paragraphs are from Caught Inside, a book I’m about seventy pages into.

I decided right then, on the spot, that I too wanted to become vaguely bored by this place, to drink so much of its daily beauty I no longer felt that remorse you often get from visiting magnificence, about how you really ought to change your life to include such places and moments, but know perfectly well you won’t.

Walking back the sprinkler-soaked, muddy road between fields, board under one arm, I heard the low chugging rumble of the South Pacific rolling down from San Fransisco. For some reason, I saw us from above or afar and knew I was alive in a moment I’d dreamed of and wanted to inhabit absolutely; so often one says to oneself, This is it!, and yet feels, with disappointment, no different from before. But surfboards and dirt roads and farms and trains hit some giant, perfect chord for me, made me crazy with desire to be alive enough to somehow be the moment itself.
“Dude!” I said. “You hear that?”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to see the train?”

The prose is maybe a bit on the flowery side, but I can’t argue with the author’s intentions or his attention to the world around him. I’m enjoying this book immensely so far.

I made a slipperyamoeba.com logo. See it there on the right column? Maybe not the most photorealistic amoeba shape, but if you squint just right…

Maybe it just comes down to being happy with where your at. We had a burst of sunshine and temps in the forties today, so Mary and I took advantage of the day (before yet another cold front rolls through) and took the dogs out to Lake Michigan. For just a moment I thought, you know, this isn’t so bad. The sun is shining. Lake Michigan is only a forty-five minute drive away. The dogs are soaring over the snow chunks and teasing the tide. But just for a moment. Then I caught the acquiescence and realized that that’s how it should be all the time. The sun should be shining more than fifty percent of the year. The drive should be ten minutes. And the dogs should be leaping into the surf not dodging it. I won’t settle yet.

That said, it really was a great afternoon. And suppose there’s something to be said for a greater appreciation of the weather after a miserable winter. This was Taylor’s first exposure to a large body of water. She approached cautiously and freaked out a little when I tried to carry her closer. Trammell on the other hand dashed in and out with confidence and seemed oblivious to the cold. I love watching their two personalities when they have unlimited room to play and new terrain to explore. Mary had to work at three so I don’t think the dogs had their fill of romping, but they were still tired enough to sleep on the car ride back.

I spent most of the evening tonight looking into the feasibilty of moving to Hawaii with a couple of dogs and without regard for the actual cost of moving. Basically I was just looking to see the availability of homes and vacant land at something within shouting distance of affordable. Sadly, Honolulu is out of the question. Good grief. The cheapest I could found was a couple of shacks for $190k+ and those all had lease terms. The Big Island showed a little more promise though. I think if we played our cards right we could probably find something livable reasonably near Hilo. The other option of course is buying land and building. This might be possible as well assuming we build nothing bigger than a two bedroom house.