The fog this time of year is something else. It covers the fields in sheets four feet off the ground. Driving my daughter to the train in the morning, I can see over the top of the fog, and underneath. Over the top are hills with a big orange sun rising. Underneath are fields and deer.

And then a deer, um, bounded across the road directly in front of the van in front of us, bounded from the stubble of the corn field on the left, or West, to another field on the right, which was East; so abruptly that the van’s brake lights didn’t even come on.

We watched it run off. Pretty reddish-brown doe.

Have you ever seen a wild deer up close? Well, wild. How wild can you be coexisting with the suburbs like that, coming down from the hills to the fringes of human settlement, nibbling hay and corn hunters lay out at the bases of their blinds in winter. Freerange deer. Have you ever seen one up close? Those guys are in shape, I’m not fooling. Talk about lean. Like that nervous skinny kid you went to school with who was so good at track and wanted to be a drummer. Only with more fog.

1. Regularly forgets birthdays

2. Has a thing about fog, and deer
3. And insects
4. Headlight burns out a lot
5. Very busy lately
6. Might be a Martian
7. Reads A Moveable Beast whenever internet connection not bogged down, as well as all those other guys over on the right
8. Likes the cello, and metal

“But Gretchen, I am your father!”

The screen door slammed behind her and she walked into the night and the fog in her mother’s coat. Far enough away to watch the house without being seen, she stood in the woods until she saw her dad come out, look around, then open the hood of the car and start messing with something. Nothing complicated, maybe just fixing a bulb in the light her mom had complained was burned out.

She thought about the sound of a screen door slamming. She walked through the woods to her spot by the road where she could stand and watch the cars drive past on the freeway down the slope, only tonight fog was heavy but for one spot; vehicles emerged from fog for a distance equal to the gap between two of those mercury lights along the freeway before vanishing again. She watched them and thought about the sound of a screen door slamming.

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Fog lifting over that field, the word “shroud” comes to mind. Some deer off at the far edge, “frolicking”. No other word for it. In the far distance, more deer jumping – the word “bound” comes to mind. Except then my eyes adjust and it’s just hillocks of grass coming into focus. Coming into focus, each one looks like a deer, boing.

Anyway. Busy, otherwise. Secret work stuff, unfortunately. “Secret” here being a euphemism for, for, the word “boring” comes to mind.

My daughter had her first troll yesterday. I’m so proud.

World, world, world. You are so nice. You must get tired of people sometimes.

A horse walks into a bar. “Doctor, I’ve got a bad case of diplomats,” it says.”
“Then you must listen Ramones,” the doctor says. The doctor can’t speak English so good, which is funny in this context.

“Ramones is only known antidote for diplomats, but still only work in special case.”

Fog today. Ten feet inside the fence beside the freeway, young doe grazes a mowed field.

Yesterday we wandered through the woods by the river. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time now. Not much to collect yet besides wild hops growing everywhere, made a door wreath out of them and a bunch of berry vines gone red.

Walked past some hand-drawn signs saying things like, “do not pass” and “wander lost here” and “bring water river” there. Nonsensical enough not to take seriously; at the same time, weird enough to make you imagine a crazy man in each hunter’s blind, and the woods were full of those.

[Insert crappy picture of cathedral here]

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