The “My McDonalds” advertising campaign started the day after my birthday in 1997.
It was six months that broke America forever.
Not sure why it rubbed me in such a coarse way. At the time I remember thinking:
“Why does this bother me so much?”
And that is where I left it this morning.
The longer I worked on the real problems of the day, the less prepared I felt to write on the topic. I also just want to write about some positive things. American Exceptionalism is positive, mostly, but I think I will need to consult my spiritual advisers before I can dig into the core of how I hope to construct a written view on the topic.
Somewhere in an analysis of Huckleberry Finn’s father, and biography of Buckminster Fuller there have to be some ideas of how to capture the energy and imagination of America such that we might slow our destruction by some percentage.
So instead I will write about what I am grateful for in Pelican City tonight.
I am certain it is a blessing to be home with my family. In that fact alone I am the luckiest man on earth.
If I didn’t have that, I should also know to be grateful.
Our day was a pleasant and murky high cloudy but arid day. The town has been a bit viscous since the time change on Sunday. A blitz on road construction isn’t helping the sleeping masses. With sanity, perhaps we abolish the time change next year. Three days per hour? I think in Autumn it is five. The light reduction isn’t helping matters. It won’t be long before it just makes sense to give up for the year. Usually in mid-December I try to hide for a month or so.
It is my belief that this is natural. To gather in groups in darkness makes a lot of sense on every level. Primal. I get stressed out by all the time and money involved in this process.
I know that for a lot of people this translates to thought and bonding. There is no harm in it. I just never understood why people want to cram a boat load of obligations and expense into a time when the days are shortest.
There is a part of human connection I still have to learn I guess.
To me it just appears that others have an ability to stretch time and money that I never learned.
It takes all my time and money just to be me, and I don’t even want a lot of normal things out of life. Just some exercise and an artistic outlet. Some good food is nice too.
I’ve been riding Carmen a bit this week, and confirming my climbing claims. Now that I’ve gotten used to the geometry it rides really well everywhere in Moore Park. Soon I hope to get shut out of the trails by rain or snow. I welcome the rain excuse to put my mountain bikes away for a few months. Let a few things in my spine heal before next spring.
Today I made another incremental move forward in plastering my basement stairwell. I stuccoed and then put a base coat on the last section of formed mesh maximum stretch ogee ceiling. If that doesn’t make sense, here is a picture of the new rough ceiling tonight.
Tomorrow I will smoothenate it to about a Level 4 finish and eventually my daughter will design and paint a 3 dimensional mural for the entire stairwell. It will be her biggest mural challenge yet, and perhaps one element of a scholarship to college if we are lucky.
Art school is expensive.
The shape of the ceiling is dictated by a cast iron claw-foot tub that sits in a bathroom above the stair. In order to get reasonable headroom in the stair I had to modify some things, and this is about as wild a solution as I have found in remodeling. I should have just knocked the place down when I bought it.
Now I am in way too deep to do anything but die here.
Look at all I have to be grateful for.
If I wake tomorrow and I am alive, the work here looks like a pretty good prospect for the day!
A lot to be happy about, and much cause for reflection too.
The strokes of plaster application find rhythm in reflective meditation.
Joy in work.
Peace.
