Cockpit serenade

I always breathe easier when I feel the first shred of Fall in the air, when the morning has a slight edge to it instead of monotonous sunshine that flattens out all detail and burns my skin.

I'm writing this from the cockpit of the Glory, swiping wireless internet from the hotel next door, wishing I had that disreputable crocheted afghan to throw over my shoulders so I could be warm out here, but I'm too lazy to walk back inside the boat. So, here I sit in the cool night air, less than a hundred percent comfortable, but isn't that about as good as it gets?

The Big Dipper is overhead, and Townes van Zandt is singing "The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty" on my iTunes--a song that makes me pleasantly, if illogically, melancholy.

"Living on the road, my friend,
was going to keep you free and clean.
Now you wear your skin like iron
and your breath's as hard as kerosene.
You weren't your mama's only boy,
but her favorite one, it seems."

It's one of the Keelhauler's favorite songs, too. He relates to it in a way I can see but not fathom, and so it makes me melancholy perhaps on his behalf. I am nothing if not empathetic in my country-western appreciation, everybody says that.

I have cheap red wine in an emerald green rocks glass I bought during a moment of sadness that took me to Ikea, and with all this fog and melancholy about, I couldn't be happier. Well, if I had that afghan, I'd be slightly happier. It's one of those terrible hand-crocheted afghans made from the remnants of the yarn basket by someone not too keen on color theory, and I love it like it was made for me, which it wasn't. I got it at a yard sale, and it cost me a buck, which is a slight rip-off if you consider how many holes are in it--not the intentional holes, but actual holes where the yarn has parted company.

Maybe if I had a candle, too. That would be an improvement. It would go with the Julie London song that's playing at the moment: "Time for August," which seems appropriate.

"I belong to the man of the month club,
and this July was only so-so...
but now that it's time for August,
I've got thirty-one days to glow..."

Are you feeling it?



Star of the day. . .Dave Alvin
posted @ 9:04 p.m. on August 22, 2005 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......