Fling Open

the windows. Get a breath of air into this place, man. You're taking things way too seriously.

Across the street, a construction worker with saddlebags of gear slung on both hips, in an orange t-shirt, stands out against the airbrush fog of the sky. People make fun of construction guys for standing around, but that's what the good ones do. Look at it. Think it out first. Measure twice, cut once.

This guy is roofing a vaguely Japanese gate that will brand the extinct Hollywood Video store as a new branch of the Umpqua bank. I like the Umpqua bank. They sponsor New Music Monday on some radio station or other, here -- new songs by local bands. All I know about it. So I'll forgive the Japanese gate. Besides, its new wood is a brilliant warm orange-yellow -- an unearthly hue, though natural. The gate and the worker on top of it float, a superrealist vision, above the quotidian world, in this thin unexpected November sunshine.

Already the sunlight is draining away. Somewhere to the east the cold fog is rising up over the sun.

Time to get on my bike and ride on down to the Foundation, enter the final batch of last week's gifts, and run the weekly reports, so as to have them ready for the 9:30 meeting. Later, compadres. Go with God. Be gentle as pigeons and wise as snakes, and keep your powder dry.