082218 start sliding cardboard boxes across the garage floor, and see what happens, you know? maybe nothing, always something. It was the end of a work party. It had been mostlyoutdoors, finely mown rolling hills--almost golf-course-like. fuzzy stars in a winking sky. people not wasted, but generally speaking in a pretty good mood. little tables here and there with semi-disposable tablecloths billowing in the soft breeze. warm enough, not muggy. sparkly music bouncing off of everyone and everything and making little pools of sonic gold here and there. laid back--the principal wasn’t even wearing his nametag. in between all that enchanting yardage and the front of the property, where less delightful things like garages and the rest of the world were found, was a long sideways narrow house. there was a front area which was somewhere in between a porch and a room. exposed bricks, rough and ruddy, formed the inside wall, and the outside wall was mostly screen. there may have been a way to crank down a less permeable membrane, but winter was not even a distracting fly of a thought at this point, so. i was lounging on one of the several plush couches in there, with a few others. W__ was getting her stuff together, packing up whatever and stuff, and she set her baby down by me on the couch. the baby who immediately smiled and snuggled up to me. everyone said awwwww. then i slowly started extricating my right arm, and everyone was like, aw, mat, don’t be like that, let her sleep and snuggle there with you, but see they completely misunderstood. I knew it looked as if I were gingerly pulling my arm out out of awkward unwillingness, but if they had just waited they would have seen that i was just repositioning, so that we both--baby and i--could be comfortable and snuggle all the more securely. i repositioned my arm *around* her, and settled in, and we--baby and i--smiled and closed our eyes and made little private sounds together, and everybody said an extra charmed awwwww. i kissed the top of her babysmelling head, and stroked her hair a bit. i was so sleepy though, i just gave in and lay there with her in smiling sleep zone number one. a reason to be familiar with synonyms and related words: you can distribute them throughout a passage, thereby giving off a general aura or flavor or mood, without having to repeat the same word over and over, which can be kind of cool but imparts a very distinct flavor of its own, not appropriate in every dish. using synonyms or related words is kind of like leaving a little minefield of the precipitate of your playful word association for someone else to discover and be tickled by. um. or something. anyway, half awake, i was thinking into the future, when the baby would be at every meeting and would gesticulate urgently over mom’s shoulder when i was near, and so i would be given her to hold, and everything would be funny and peaceful. and then at another meeting, i would be so bold as to enter the room and say, “Where’s my little buddy” until the baby was brought to me and we were reunited. It would become like this thing, and I would have become like a person. OK, I just want to listen to some music today, with my new speakers. I’m not sure if they sound quite as good as I think they do, but I think they sound pretty good. Crisp without being metallic. The bass is tight. Integration with the sub seems fairly smooth. The stage isn’t super duper wide (I guess I could try to find a way to move them farther apart) but it has a certain 3D sense to it. But mostly they just seem (with a decent source of course; the love in a small town CD was just exquisite; so was the intro music and soundtrack for that newish Groening et al series, Disenchanted) so very clear and bright and distinct and punchy without being violent. The resonant buzz on top of a brass note is glass-sharp, the mids are open and warm and don’t bleed all over each other. It’s really enjoyable to just sit and listen. So yeah, I’m having a hard time regretting the impulsive unnecessary purchase. Some jackass across the street is mowing with a very jangly jostly loud riding mower at nine o clock in the fucking morning. He’s fat and saggy like a good old Wisconsin farmer. You know how they tend to have that permanent noncomittal frown. On their roundrect big heads. Kinda like they’re judging everything, as a matter of course. Like it’s their job to see nothing without judging its potential to grow into something appropriate, vs be a challenge, like a weed.