My upcoming bear of a week.

First: I have to be at the station *every* afternoon this week to finish training for Weekday "All Things Considered" so I have it *down* by the time I do it on Friday with no training wheels and no more experienced hosts in the room.

Second: I have to host overnight Free Form from 2-5 AM on Thusday morning.

Third: Charles is doing colour rotations at Sissy's *and* the manor. I have to work probably five hours every day, without fail, on that *before* heading in to the station.

Fourth: I have to get paid and pay rent and bills *this week*.

It's not impossible but it's the equivalent of working two and a half full-time jobs. If I don't post in here for a while, rest assured -- I'm alive. I've just to to fit in "sleeping" somewhere.

Then the week after that my mother and her freind come to visit and deliver me a gas stove.

Then the week after that it's pledge drive week.

My ON AIR shift went well today as far as the breaks were concerned. I screwed up one thing, though, because one of the programs I needed to run was 1:24 too long. If it's short, I can "pad". I can read weather again, or play music, or forward announce, plug upcoming programs, announce things on the community calendar, or what have you. But when something's too long is makes for chaos in the Control Room -- if you don't "make up" the time, it creates a cascade of off-timing that might last for hours across shifts, across shows. I *have to* make sure that when my shift is over, everything's running on time, to the second. Not ahead, not behind.

I had to skip two carts that were on the log, but not highlighted, meaning I *should* play them but that the station's not under contractual obligation to do so. Since those seconds were *crucial* for the rest of the night, I figured I had little choice but to skip the carts and start Stardate a minute early. That left the next show being only :30 long. After that we had to air the weekly EAS test *right* at the transition in Control. Communicated like mad with the Youth Radio crew who were taking over from me and figured it out to the very last second -- if we cut in at *precisely* 6:59:30 for the EAS test, everything gets done that needs to get done *and* the timing's back on track. I cede the board but stick around to literally do a countdown: 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - NOW. The EAS test announcement cart cuts in *exactly* after an interviewer thanks a speaker -- *perfect*. The EAS test runs exactly :30, and at precisely 7:00:00 the Youth Radio board op chimes in with Legal ID.

My screw-up was having everything laid out for the final transition before the show which was long. I planned to audit its final seconds in the cue channel to make sure it would be a smooth transition. The problem was having the fader slid up under unity but audible, planning for a smooth fade-in. So for probably about ten seconds, listeners to NPR *might* have also heard, underneath the interview, chipmunk voices as I fast-forwaded through the next program. I look down at the board and see the fader at about 40 and JEEZUS turn that channel OFF!!!

Maybe it was *already* off. I honestly don't know. I just know that I saw the fader slid up and hit OFF AND FADED DOWN IMMEDIATELY. It's not an uncommon mistake, buut sounds *terrible* if ot goes out over air and is *extremely* embarassing. No one called, so *maybe* it *didn't* go out over air. I don't know. Maybe I *did* only play it in cue. I don't know. Since I wasn't running AIR CHECK on the whole show, but just onbreaks, I didn't happen to be recording the signal right then. I might have to go back and pull it off the skimmer to absolutely know for certain.

I've got to be 100% on top of things for the rest of the week. There's no margin for error.

More stories.

Here's what's posted, as of now.

Nuclear Watchdogs test NM's Water
NNSA Not Compliant With Freedom of Information Act
New Mexico to Replace Older Aircraft
Richardson Presidential Bid Recap

Sure seems like I should have more stories than that for the work that goes into 'em! I guess not. Anyhow -- the Richardson recap and Aeroplane story are both "read this into a microphone" deals. No research, just basically me reading script to "break up" the voices on the air.

Three story day.

When it rains it pours, the saying goes.

I go in to the station and start to work on my story. I wind up falling asleep on the floor of the newsroom -- poor Elaine -- I freaked her out when she walked in this morning and saw what looked like a dead body laid out on the floor. Thank gawd she turned on the awful fluorescent lights -- that is the only thing that woke me up, and got me into the newsbooth to finally finish my river sampling story, just in time to air. It aired this morning.

Then I go home to sleep.

At two, I've got a press conference with Heather Wilson about SCHIP. Wonkish and scripted. Practically *begging* to be made into a gawd-awful story that no one listens to. I record the press conference and head back to the station.

Steve wants to do a "two-way" on it. I'm game. I've never done it, but why not? That means he sits down with me on mic and basically asks *me* questions, and I play some soundclips that I've gathered. It's *very* conversational. Even *fun* to listen to. I'm not scripting things out and elocuting them into a microphone. I'm sitting with another human being telling him just what I saw happen. And then we throw in a little analysis, a little commentary, and bingo: great radio, from a story that would otherwise have been as dry as dust. About the issues, too -- not about the personalities or window-dressing. (All the TV cameras got was Heather Wilson "dancing" with a lineup of insurance company executives and PR people.)

Then finally that's over and I ask if there's anything else I can do. Steve hands me a pre-written story about medical marijuana and says he's got a minute -- can I leave the first paragraph for an intro, and then read from there to the end, and sign off with my usual tagline? Sure. It takes me a minute to record and maybe two minutes to edit, and it "breaks up" the newscast just enough so it's not all one person's voice.

So in listeners' ears, I did three different stories today -- from River Sampling, to national legislative maneuvering, to medical marijuana at the state level.

I can't imagine what they think of me. If anyone's called to complain, I haven't heard of it.

Hurrying up to wait.

My story on the river sampling did fine. (I've still got to voice it, and edit it, and mix it down, which I'll do once I finish this post.) Could have done some things better, no doubt. Didn't get the last name of one person whose voice I recorded and wound up using inextricably in my story. DUH. The NPR standard practice, for which we strive, is "no unattributed sources unless someone's life and/or job is at stake". So -- I've spent a good part of this week calling dozens of people hundreds of times trying to track down this one person's last name. I can't call him directly since he's somewhere miles up some isolated canyon leading into the Rio Grande. If only we had a traffic helicopter, they could airlift me in.

One of the many people I called had given me a river water-stained business card from the brim of his cap when I was out at the Buckman site. It had a URL on it. I tried loading it three times, three different ways, and each time got redirected to a porn site. (Straight porn no less. Disgusting.) Of course, I wrote Jonathan Longcore, the KUNM Network Administrator, *immediately* telling him what happened, before I run the risk of being accused of deliberately using Newsroom computers to browse pornography repeatedly. At the same time, he's already going gangbusters with Tristan to solve the now-intransigent computer problems in the Newsbooth.

Yep. We got hit by "technical difficulties" in the newsroom this week. ("Technical difficulties" are what we call "gremlins" in the radio world.) When I came in on Sunday for my ON AIR shift, the computer wouldn't route through the board to the monitors in the Newsbooth, which is where I record the primary and backup CDs for "This American Life" and then audit them to make sure they're OK for AIR. Filled out a yellow sheet on that and turned it in. Winds up it opened up a big old nasty can of worms. Some things were simply operator error, but a lot of other problems weren't. Winds up the computer really *wasn't* routing through the board, and it's taken the better part of this week to get the Newsbooth back up and running -- and we're not all too sure until we've used it for a time without a hitch. We still haven't done that. I'll find out tonight how it works when I go in to narrate and edit my river sampling story. Finally.

So I'm down to having to use one studio -- Studio C -- for recording "narration" for my story, which is otherwise *so* fabulous (if only I could remember that one guy's name). None of which would be a problem in itself, except that *everyone* else uses Studio C as their primary recording studio for everything but live music (and what live music gets recorded "bleeds" through the walls from Studio A into Studio C). The time rolls around that the News Department has priority in Studio C, today, and guess who's in there this afternoon frantically trying to put together sound.

Then, all at once, all the people I'd left messages for all week start calling me back. All at once. Steve has to run down the hall at least half a dozen times to tell me: so-and-so is on the phone. Do you want to talk to them? OF COURSE I DO. (I am not in the habit of repeatedly calling people that I *don't* want to talk to.) I then run back down the hall to talk to them.

(All the people who ask me, in the field, "when will this air?" have NO CLUE what goes on at the station. I say this with the greatest possible respect. It's simply something they don't understand because they've never worked at a radio station. Sometimes you can say "it'll air Monday evening at 5:44:30", but usually you can't. There are simply far too many variables. Like gardening.)

In the meantime a whole different story has broken regarding the labs. Winds up a US District Judge has ruled against the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and in favour of Nuclear Watch New Mexico in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, and it's just now coming over the wire. While I was sitting around waiting for everyone to call me back, I figured "better to get at least 45 seconds of a phone interview than to just read this damn thing off the wires". If only I could get into Studio C. No, wait, I'm already there!

I call back the poor guy from Nuclear Watch New Mexico -- I swear -- FOUR TIMES this afternoon. I can't get the telephone patch to work in Studio C, 'cause it's *totally* different from in the Newsbooth. I apologise to him for -- you guessed it -- "technical difficulties" -- and keep trying, regardless. Again, and again, and again. He must think I'm a total moron. ("ME GRADUATE KINDERGARTEN. ME REPORT NUKULAR STUFF. ME NO UNDERSTAND HOW TO OPERATE BOARD.") I don't care. In the end, I wind up recording him, but not me asking him questions, because (surprise, surprise) I've got my mic faded up, but not turned "on". (It still bleeds through -- go figure.) But he says he can hear me loud and clear -- so apparently the mic was feeding over the Telos just fine, but not going through board. DUH.

Then his lawyer calls back. I run down the hall yet again and ask him to run the case down. He's hesitant -- not that it really matters whether I get his voice or not, 'cause I've got the guy himself saying it all without the legalisms. I listen to him for a while, and thank him -- he was my backup plan, but the main plan came through. Very nifty: it works out all around. But still I've got to hear him out. It helps.

Meanwhile the cord between the phone and the handset pops out. EMBARASSING. Bigtime. Lucky for me he's going on about how Judges don't like lawyers arguing cases before them "trying the case in the press", which I understand, so I pick up the popped-out phone cord and stick it in just like I haven't missed the last ten seconds of what he told me. I got the gist of it, regardless. He should run for Senator.

Meanwhile the entire "Youth Radio" crew is trying to charm their way into Studio C. I have to go back and apologise to them and explain that the Newsbooth isn't working and that Studio C is the *only* place I can do this (during hours we're signed up for to begin with) 'cause they're being *very* patient (in a predatory scavenger bird sort of way) while I'm literally running back and forth just sort of barking "I'm on deadline!" Rude, rude, rude.

Apologies, Youth Radio people -- I don't mean to step on your enthusiasm for a minute, 'cause that's what keeps Public Radio alive and vibrant long after my generation's gone and forgotten. It's just that I've just got to get this damn thing recorded and edited and saved RIGHT NOW, and there is *no* other place I can do it.

Anyway. I get the soundclips from the Nuclear Watch New Mexico guy edited down to 1:23, when I get a call back from the NNSA press guy I'd paged in New York, where everything shuts down early. (How *dare* the sun set early there. They must hate all us people around where their labs actually *are*, in the West.) He says he doesn't really know about the specific lawsuit I was talking about but will have someone get back to me by deadline -- which at this point is literally minutes away.

I go back to edit some more, and to write the script for the "wrap", and finish and save the story in the Control Room computer, when surprise! I get a call from the local NNSA press person, the very minute *after* I've recorded and edited and saved into my story that they hadn't gotten back by airtime. If I were lazy, I'd have let it run like that. Except for one small thing: it isn't true! She called at precisely 4:59 PM, when I'd told the previous guy I'd paged I was working on a 5 PM deadline. I've got to give them credit.

She tells me that in light of the fact that the matter is under adjudication, NNSA has no comment on pending litigation, or something to that effect.

Which is great! They called me back! Literally one minute to deadline. I have to go back, breathe deeply, and re-record the closing for that piece.

It all works out OK. I even cut two further seconds off the wrap. It's now 1:21, plus intro.

Remember the guy whose environmental website wound up loading porn? He gets me on the phone, too, at about this time, and it winds up he'd let his "dot-org" domain name lapse. It got snatched up by some Russian pornographer who's now trying to blackmail him into buying back his old domain name. (I'm just *supremely* glad I didn't go on air with his "dot-org" address.)

The others in the newsroom are visibly amused as I speak into the phone such words as "that's outrageous! but understandable. I'm sorry you're being blackmailed like that".

I'm MAD. Completely, stark raving MAD. This is what I do for *pleasure*!

Can you imagine?

Next time I meet some "prospect" of the Cragslist kind, it's bound to come up. "So what else do you like to do?"

I can picture the ensuing dialogue already.

"Well I do like beating my head against brick walls."

"And then what?"

"Well, I'm particularly fond of getting people to talk to me who want nothing to do with me, whatever."

"That's weird."

"But it doesn't stop there. I also like to try and get people who want to talk to me to quit talking to me."

"And then what?"

"Then I like to take everything I've got and put it together into a radio story."

"You're twisted."

"Yes I am. Please tune in."

Plutonium in my shoes.

Comfortable though they may be, Converse high-tops are *not* the proper shoes to wear when wading into the Rio Grande.

It was a lovely day. Woke up at six AM, headed to the newsroom to gather a recording kit. Got a map of the street I needed to get to. It didn't help much, since the road curved around and wound up nowhere near the river. Called CCNS, and lucky for me, Joanie Arends picked up. She gave me directions.

Again, lucky for me, the convoy of cars hadn't taken off from their initial rendezvous point when I got there, half an hour after they'd been supposed to leave. I found the road all right, but there's no way in hell I could have found the proper turnoff to the right dirt road. And there's no way on that ten-mile, one-lane washboard of a road that I could have found my way to the right spot on the river.

Aside from being a rough and noisy ride, it was breathtakingly beautiful. Through uncut Junipers and Pinons, past cows bigger than my car beside the road, past the Dead Dog Windmill with gourds sprouting all around, past towering Basalt canyon walls built up over millenia, and through the Buckman wellfields from which the City of Santa Fe draws some 40% of its water.

The road becomes increasingly sandy. Lucky for me it rained yesterday night -- it kept the dust down to a level at which I could actually breathe. Lucky for me it didn't rain while I was out there -- I would have been stranded. Everyone else was in big SUVs and US Government pickup trucks. I followed in my rinky-dink old Geo Prism held together by a stunning array of embarassing bumper stickers, practically *daring* the world to run me off the road again, like my car has a giant "KICK ME" sign taped to its back. I go last for a reason. It also lets me pick up their trail when I lose them around a sharp turn. My brand-new tyre held up just fine.

Everything in a watershed runs toward the river. Everything. Boulders. Rocks. Wood. Weeds. Seeds. Silt. Sand. Styrofoam. Coke cans. Beer bottles. Bricks. Trash bags. Mattresses. Cigarette butts. Fishing line. Matchbook cars. Perchlorate. Plutonium. You name it. The closer to the river you get, the more you see of what our fossil legacy will ultimately be. It's how things run. Physical objects of all kinds and in all states of transformation obey one law in common only: the law of gravity.

You know you're getting close to the river when the woods change. It's not Pinons and Junipers, it's Cottonwoods and Russian Olives and Tamarisks. The Tamarisks, introduced in the 19th Century to prevent erosion, are also known as Salt Cedars, because they soak up the salts in the sands where they grow. You can taste the salt if you chew on the leaves. They are invasive -- they crowd out the native Cottonwoods. The Russian Olives do the same, to a lesser extent, but they've got nasty, viscious thorns that thrash you in the face as you walk by. They are both hateful trees.

When I first heard the government was using Imazapyr to kill the Salt Cedars and Russian Olives, I was doubtful as to their good intentions, because I've never been so close to both of them at such close range. Imazapyr's a nasty herbicide that *someone's* getting rich on. It has a halflife of 17 days [see correction in "Comments", it is actually 17 months], and quickly spreads downward through woody stalks, into the roots, into the soil, where it can spread to other plants, and ultimately kill them too. There are something like four plant species known to be immune to Imazapyr's deadly charms.

But as usual, there's another side to that story: the only other way to *eliminate* Salt Cedar, for the sake of *restoring* native species, is to cut it back down all the way to the stump, haul out branches, burn the stump, and return every year for three years within a period of about two months to eradicate new shoots before they start putting out flowers and seeds.

There's a legitimate controversy for ya: Imazapyr is probably the cheapest and easiest way to do it, but has unintended consequences; whereas the more labour-intensive way *never* leaves you certain that you're rid of the manmade scourge of "weed trees" to begin with. Do you run the risk of killing "desirable" species, or run the risk of *not* eliminating "undesirable" ones, which will, in time, eliminate the desirable species regardless? (And I do work in gardens. I *know* the difference between a "good" tree and a "bad" tree.)

The Salt Cedar flowers and puts out seed from April to October, the Cottonwoods do the same only for three months in Spring. The Tamarisks and Russian Olives use a lot more water, too. They are literally killing the Cottonwoods. Choking them out. I know a weed when I see one. Still -- is applying Imazapyr *really* the *best* way to get rid of them? Time will tell.

But that's not what I've driven eighty miles to cover. That's not the story for today. The story for today is runoff from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the efforts being made to monitor the downstream drift of Plutonium, Perchlorate, and a ton of other stuff, besides.

In the 'forties and 'fifties, the labs literally dumped all their untreated wastes into Los Alamos Canyon, as well as countless other Canyons leading off the militarily defensible, far inland, out-of-bomber-range, high-ground, and otherwise isolated Pajarito Plateau. In other words: nuclear wastes, high explosives wastes, and chemical wastes all got dumped into the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

Who could blame Oppenheimer for wanting to locate his project there? The land is peerless in its beauty. And who could blame the government, in time of war, for wanting to keep a secret project, well, secret? So they sited their secret city just the same way that the Hopi sited their own cities many centuries prior, and even handled wastes in the same way.

It's more than "direspect". It's more than "degradation". It's more than "human nature". It's more even than "instinct".

It's physics. When threatened, you "take the high ground", where you can't be attacked near as easily as you can counterratack someone coming at you. You also let the water take your undesired castoffs -- away. Wherever that "away" may be -- not your immediate problem. It is as natural as gravity, more ancient than the most ancient peoples on earth.

It would take decades for the U.S. Government to develop protocols for handling nuclear waste, and those are still evolving. They will continue to evolve until the human race exists no more. And even then, the laws of physics will continue to march on.

Try and say that, and more, in five minutes. (4:59 is better.) That's my challenge. I am facing a *very* generous deadline, for my story, of Thursday morning.

Out of control in Control.

As I speak. Running Radio Theatre now, nothing to do but monitor levels, and John Bergund's levels are solid and predictable.

News Dept. barbeque last night was wonderful. Too much food, but had some amazing conversations. Steve's got an *amazing* house and is an excellent host.

Disastrous weather report at 5:38:30 tonight. Was getting all fancypants, what with high-altitude low pressure systems and cyclonic remnants moving this way and that before drier air punched in even though a cold front's expected to bring unsettled weather and moisture on the periphery of our broadcast area by the end of the week. Had it all scripted out and everything and still flubbed it completely. Skipped a line, and then tried to go back. Not wanting to apologise and start over, for which I didn't have the time, everything I said from that point on came through as total gibberish. Then wound up cutting off the first words of the satellite feed anyway, even though I didn't get to the "punchline" about the cold front's effects -- even though I'd done my transition *flawlessly* transitioning to NPR at five o'clock. What a mess.

The lead-in to the 5:18 report was sloppy, too -- left the "This American Life" CD in the player and faded up the wrong fader -- fixed it -- same mistake I made my first day playing on board but kind of fixed it this time. Since I had a minute to kill at six (there were two carts missing and Radio Theatre's 56 seconds short) I went right back and un-flubbed my 5:38:30 report.

Played Brubeck underneath the weather since he's *great* for moisture. It's also the 50th anniversary of his performance for the Monterrey City Council, which led to the establishment of the festival, and since NPR's been talking about it intermittently I thought it made sense thematically.

I'm figuring out a routine for the weather reports, though -- predictable, reliable, so listeners know when to listen for what they care about. I'm leaning towards something like Current Temps at 5:18 with Forecast Lows and Highs, then sunset/sunrise times and even lunar phase if I have time. At 5:38, discussion of weather patterns with current temps, if they have changed since 5:18. Pad at 5:59:30 if need be with Currents if changed and -- well, whatever I have got time for.

This was frankly an embarrasing broadcast, but, I think, productive.

Back in the Newsroom.

Went in today planning to write out a summary of everything I understand about my big complex super-involved story. Didn't get that far, but got on to some other tracks that may render good stories. Get ready for alphabet soup.

CCNS is doing their annual trek through the headwaters of the Rio Grande on Monday. I figured this would be a one-day event. It's not. Long story short, it's actually not CCNS' event. It's NMED's, and CCNS is going along for the ride. NMED is charged with oversight of monitoring emissions of various nasties (e.g., Plutonium, Tritium, PCBs) that come from LANL. And it's not a one-day thing -- it's a four-day event involving teams of scientists trekking up into the backwoods to gather water samples, and in some cases hiking them out *very* fast for testing by the labs. It involves 12 rafts starting at Otowi Bridge and meeting up with six more at Buckman, downriver, a few hours later. The coordination for this effort is immense. It involves at *least* LANL, NMED, various LANL contractors, CCNS, and Amigos Bravos.

I got the "OK" from CCNS and NMED to show up at Buckman, and left messages with the people from LANL. There's certainly no guarantee there'll be room for me on one of the rafts -- even if there is, there's no guarantee I can get *out* of wherever we wind up in time to get back to my car in time to get back to the station to edit for the next day's news in time to show up at work in the garden the next day. Which is totally fine -- if I'd known about this three months ago, I could have planned for it, but I did not. I'm planning for next year, already, though. I figure I ought to get a good five-minute story out of whatever I get at Buckman on Monday.

Then Steve -- god bless him, he's so insanely easy to work with. Since I was hanging around the newsroom with nothing better to do than wait for callbacks he put me to work voicing a one-minute story we lifted from the paper. Hardly award-winning journalism, that! But heck, it is part of the job, in radio -- get out there in front of the wire services, and vary the voices that go out on the air.

Tomorrow morning I go to work in the garden. Tomorrow evening the News Department is having its first ever barbeque (in recent memory, anyway) at Steve's house. I got a bunch of steaks. It should be fun, and if Jim's there, I can discuss my super-big, complex, and super-sensitive story with him. It's literally something I don't want to talk about over the phone. I've had six different people warn me to be careful, or make jokes about my being found floating face down in the reservoir at Elephant Butte. The first two or three I took as a joke, but when I hear the same from one of the women who founded the Houston Pacifica station KPFT (which had its transmitter blown up -- not once, but *twice* by the Klan) I admit that I kinda got chilled. The story's still gonna happen, but I've got to get creative in how I *make* it happen.

Rainy payday.

Gorgeous day, but not particularly suitable for gardening. The rain came down in a beautiful drizzle for hours, turning the exposed land into a bog. We went over the floors in the guesthouse (where we use the bathroom and get ice and water and the like) with a fine tooth comb. Best intentions aside, we're out working in dirt and it does get tracked in. In minute amounts, true, but the goal here is total perfection. At my house it's like "ooh! a room full of cat hair! Close the door and hope nobody notices!". At Sissy's it's more like "ooh! a single cat hair underneath the couch! Quick, run it outside and bury it someplace where it won't get tracked in ever again!"

I exaggerate, but the point is that the house where I work is a drop-dead gorgeous *showplace*, detailed to the hilt. Which *would* be annoying if Sissy didn't actually *live* in that space, but she does. It's her refuge. In a strange way it's mine, too. Not that I own any part of it, but it's perfect for relaxingly obsessing over things. I'm done with non-routine deadheading and have gotten into pruning things, because that seems not to get done. I'm about to launch into "defining the beds" -- they're stunning, yes, but when you look at the models Charles works from, and understand what he's *really* aiming for, they clearly *are* a mess. There is *plenty* to do, and not one thing about it is asinine (unlike at the manor). It's just a matter of making a project out of one thing at a time and doing that to perfection.

Charles heads up to Colorado tomorrow so I may skip a day at Sissy's and head on in to the newsroom. After the deluge this evening I'm sure nothing needs to be watered, and it's *still* too wet to do certain other things that need to get done. Probably will spend some time there Saturday and Sunday and then skip Monday for the News Department meeting and figuring out how to handle my "big story" with Jim. This may work out OK after all.

And I got paid today. A decent amount, no less. I can pay bills. Yay!

Today.

Worked my way up to pruning the fabulously complex, shaped and potted Japanese maples on the back patio of the guesthouse. Only did the two simplest trees in the bunch. That's not a thing that you can make mistakes on.

Visited Bill, with Charles, in the nursing home where he's recuperating. Poor Charles. Best intentions on earth but it's all so foreign to him. Bill's doing much better but we're still terrified what happens when he's on his own, and bored, and lonely.

Steve's having a News Department Barbeque this Saturday. I can hardly wait.

Catch-up.

I'm leading a double life. By this point I shouldn't be surprised, except that it works at all for me, and that I seem utterly incapable of living otherwise.

But the ironies are *far* too glaring for me to write it off as mere stylistic posturing on my part.

In my job -- you know, that thing I'm paid to do, from day to day, in order that I can pay rent and stuff -- I'm known by my first and middle name, exclusively, and seem to be making a name for myself. But in my "recreation" -- you know, the whole full-time "volunteering" for "the news" for "public radio", I'm known by my first and last name. It is two different worlds, and I'm two different people.

It's also almost painfully pleasant: my "job" -- the thing I'm paid for -- is to make "aesthetic high" experiences ever higher. When I get frustrated by volunteering I can throw myself into work, and the worst I can face is how I treat the various plants, which learning about is a pleasure. It's not hard, and is *far* from unpleasant! There are people who dream all their lives of doing, for fun, what I do for a living.

While true, from time to time, that I may be called on to assist in moving a cast iron fountain or the like, for the most part, it's just about my *understanding* what a certain person's *trying* to achieve by having looked at late sixteenth century Italian gardens and "getting" that it really, truly is *far* more important that I keep the lawns out of the flowerbeds and the flowerbeds out of the lawns than it is that I know how to sculpt a topiary to perfection in order to frame the view. (If I keep the zones defined, then designs will suggest themselves.)

My "job", then, is to help lay out the gardens that may last -- if I am lucky -- more than a generation, more than a century -- and possibly, just possibly, even longer.

Where is my best work done? In the newsroom or in the garden? I honestly don't know.

Meanwhile, what do I do for "recreation"? For "fun"? Oh, right, that thing that most people won't dream of doing unless they get paid *very* well for it. Expose systemic corruption. Show how government *really* works. Call up people in multiple government offices, repeatedly, then wait for them to call me back, knowing damn well they won't talk to me "on record", even while all they're doing is denying wrongdoings I've never accused them of in the first place.

And then, just when I seriously start to fear for my life, I disappear! Time to make me a fabulous garden retreat.

Man, those ox-blood crepe-myrtles are looking fantastic after transplant, even though they do not tend to transplant well.

God bless Steve who called me while I was relaxing at work about some phone conversation I had yesterday morning with some minor state functionary or other about some life-and-death issue or other.

Persons fully in one camp or the other of my two lives keep me centered. Keep me moving back and forth. I can't afford to get comfortable. Anywhere. Lucky for me, I have got people on both sides.

Down to El Paso.

Rear tyre blew out, on the way down, just outside Belen. Drove several miles on the rim, and finally gave up and pulled into the nearest place that could replace a tyre -- a WalMart. I refuse to shop there -- haven't in years -- under *normal* circumstances. This wasn't "normal circumstances" and the next nearest place was three miles down the road. Figured I'd rather compromise my high-minded morals just once than wind up spending an extra hundred bucks or more by ruining the rim, and running the risk of the shop down the road not only not having the tyre but not having the rim, and then having to pay to stay overnight in a motel. I despise WalMart, and nothing from this trip has changed that. But this is twice now it's been the only place available to me while I was on the road.

El Paso was lovely, mostly because I saw almost none of it besides my mother's kitchen and garden. She and I cooked for 45 people who came over for her best freind's tenure party. About a year ago we cooked for 60 and realized that was the limit of what we could do in terms of entertaining. Cooking for 45 was fun, and eminently doable. We even got to socialize with guests and what have you.

Drove back up just in time to get "This American Life" downloaded and burned onto two CDs -- one "principal", one "backup" -- and check the wires to do weather. I think it wound up being one of my best-sounding shifts so far. Didn't read weather over the NPR music bed, but over music I'd selected: South Texas Polkas, which was appropriate for several different reasons: first, it's the 16th of September, second, it was upbeat and matched the lovely weather, third, "Radio Theatre" (which followed the news) was a local production about a small New Mexico town, yada yada. Three mistakes this broadcast: (1) cutting off the first note of the ATC theme music when switching to satellite, (2) announcing specifically that I was "switching to satellite" (listeners don't care), and (3) skipping a line of handwritten weather text to say "scattered thunderstorms" when I meant to say "scattered clouds", and then doubling back verbally to "fix" it when it wound up being about the same thing. I'm into fine-tuning, now.

What else to say? I've got to focus on working this week. For the coming week at least, my life'll be less about radio and more about gardening with Charles.

Yuck.

The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach defies description.

I'm starting to get a taste for the cynicism that I see in more seasoned reporters. I think it starts with the realization that your government may, in fact, be irredeemably corrupt. If you believe that -- really, truly believe it -- then there's no role for a free press to play, and you may as wel check out of the system. You have to get past that to go back and keep asking questions. That's roughly where I am. It's well expressed by a gesture I see from time to time: one hand holding the observer at arm's length, the other beckoning you closer, simultaneously. Sometimes people want to plain old use you to get their message out. Other times people don't want to talk to you at all, lest you reveal their secrets. Sometimes they want a little bit of both at once, and it is *deeply* disconcerting when it happens. Today, for the first time, it happened to me.

Today was profoundly frustrating. Public officials refused to talk to me on the record, but did agree to talk to me -- just not on the record. (We pay their salaries *why*, again, exactly?) Then they fed me what I *know* is a load of bull. They scattered whole cartloads of red herrings in the road in front of me, hoping I wouldn't find the needle in the haystack down the road just half a block. (I don't mix metaphors half-heartedly.) They're not *exactly* lying, but they're not telling the whole truth, either. If they were, they'd *want* to use me to get their message out. I'm too close to something too big for them to be wholly comfortable even denying anything, and their being there makes me uncomfortable too. I seem to know something they don't want people to know, and can't *quite* let on that I know what I know, until *someone* tells me *something*, one way or another. If my suspicions were just plain, flat-out untrue, they'd have no qualms whatever going on air and telling me I'm wrong in front of everybody. But they won't do that. I can not help but wonder why.

What the hell's going on?

Nothing to do but keep digging.

Frustrations of radio.

If this were a print article I'd have enough good solid evidence for a *really* big story.

Since it's not print, but radio, I have to get someone to talk to me, and "hang" the story on what I record.

Right now no one will talk to me. But they know I am on to something. They won't even let me record them saying "there is no wrongdoing".

I'm almost ready to post a craigslist ad: "Wanted, whistleblower. Willing to meet in parking structure late at night. If interested, respond to this address".

Patterns.

Hosted my usual show tonight and noticed, for the first time, a distinct pattern in the quality of my announcing.

When I take over board, I sound like a goddamned windbag. "THIS IS KUNM! ALBUQUERQUE! STAY TUNED! FOR THIS! AMERICAN! LIFE! FROM WBEZ CHICAGO! THEN AT FIVE! IT'S ALL THINGS CONSIDERED! FROM NATIONAL! PUBLIC! RADIO!" Hearing the aircheck I want to tell myself to shut the fuck up and get over myself already. It's a "radio voice" in the worst possible sense of the word: overblown and stagey.

But then as one break follows another I gradually fall into a natural, relaxed rhythm. I sound decidedly better by the time I'm giving the 5:38:30 weather forecast. I can talk about slow-moving cold fronts *very* conversationally, almost like I'm sharing a secret with "the listener" that I just happen to be privy to. Kinda "yeah, it's comin' through right now and may leave rain in certain places, but by midweek we should be getting warmer." Now if only I could sound that way when taking over board, I'd be set.

It's not a particularly hard shift -- Sunday evenings. But the transitions from one shift to another are super-tricky. I'm taking over from "Singing Wire", which is the Native-American music/call-in show. They've got *tons* of listeners out on the various reservations, and it's a great show in how it serves its audience. They do "shout outs", which some people at the station say sound "too commercial", but which in context of an American Indian music show serve a definite and valuable purpose to the community -- for many people "shouting out" it's their best way to communicate with people who care about them, far, far away.

Then I waltz in outta nowhere with my super-faggy, super-white-guy little "This American Life" thing, and it's no wonder they don't want to cede the airwaves until the last possible moment. In the pressure of that moment, I don't care. I'm not there to re-enact the buffalo hunts from the trains, and there's really no weird racial ideology at work here. I just *need* to get my own damn show started at precisely four o'clock, following a legal station ID which might take two seconds. It's not that we're reenacting the "Indian Wars" in the control room every Sunday, it's just that we're suddenly, abruptly changing format completely from one thing to another. I *love* the Singing Wire crew. David Paytiamo got me into the newsroom last week after I'd locked myself out of it. But the format transition is so abrupt, so sudden, and so complete a break: one minute we're playing centuries-old pow-wow dances for hours on end, then suddenly we're all urbanite wine-sipping sophisticates talking about "relationships". All this matters precisely because that's when our listening audience *changes*.

Most of the "Singing Wire" listeners tune out at the exact same time most of the "This American Life" listeners tune in. So it's a super-delicate balancing game in the ten or fifteen seconds that I've got -- who is my audience? Sophisticated, self-important latte-sipping urbanites? Or traditional, family-oriented people driving from one reservation to another? As an announcer, I have to address myself to "the listener" -- the single person tuned in at that precise moment. The simple answer is: it's both! For those few seconds I have got to address and reach *both* audiences, as wildly disparate as they are. Those seconds ae *crucial* and I have yet to master them. Flood warnings are the best thing I can think of to happen right then -- they give me an easy way to provide a public service to the rural drivers *and* transition casually into David Sedaris' frivolous stories about alcoholic squirrels on fire.

I love radio.

Then transitioning out is tricky, as well. Either John Burgund takes over the helm for Radio Theatre or someone I've never heard of or met before takes over for Youth Radio, which follows Radio Theatre. John Burgund is, well, a control freak. I say this with the greatest possible respect, because I am one, too. We've done the transition a couple of times now and I think it's fair to say we've got it down to a science -- which is good! He took over from me today and between the two of us obsessing over details we figured "Radio Theatre" had 30 more seconds to play with, per hour, than it had previously.

When Youth Radio takes over, the transition's more uncertain. Sometimes it's *very* tightly run. Sometimes it's not. Today was lovely because I actually got to "train" one of the Youth Radio board engineers in how to run a show before he got pulled off to prepare for his program. Gave him a *lot* of information, very fast. Sometimes, you never know for sure who is relieving you until ten minutes before you're set to go off the air.

Long story short: it's never the same scenario from one day to the next. It's *always* interesting. It's *always* challenging.

I love radio.

And then there was the call I got after the "floating cutaway" in "This American Life". I kinda cringe sometimes, I admit, when I hear the phone ring in Control Room. This guy asked if I was listening to the show, and I said "kinda", 'cause it was true. I'd audited the whole CD before I aired it to make sure that it was free of glitches and whatnot, but was more attuned to when what breaks happened and when I could air what carts and make announcements.

Winds up he *loved* the story on "This American Life" about the Iraq War veteran who joined the Muslim Students' Association on returning to the states despite having no interest in becoming Muslim. It reminded him of an Iranian friend he'd had in college and he wanted desperately to get in touch with. I offered him some email addresses but it winds up he's living "off the grid". So I wind up looking up this and that for him online from the control room and giving him mailing addresses and phone numbers.

Then he asks who I am, and I tell him, and he says "weren't you on the air the other night?" I respond "yes, I was", because I was, and he says he enjoyed the program. Very goddamned fuckin' nifty. He goes into how he's kind of an insomniac and listens late at night and blah blah blah -- long story short, he *liked* the program I put on. He starts talking about his parents' record collection and how much he liked hearing showtunes along with all the other stuff I played, and how it brought back happy memories and stuff. Very neat. Very, very neat.

Have I already said that I love radio?

If not -- I do.

Second anniversary.

Two years ago tonight I got pulled over three blocks from home by a cop, because I'd hit a curb, and my car was sending out sparks from the rim of the tire I'd blown.

Because I'd had a modest helping of thirteen martinis before driving home, I wasn't in the best of shape to answer the officer's questions. "Where are you coming from?" I answered "Home." "Where are you going?" he asked next. I repied "Home." (Which was perfectly true. He never asked how many or which bars I'd been to on the way from home to home.) Finally he thought to ask me if I'd been drinking, and rather suspecting the smell of gin might be palpable upon my breath, I said "yes" in response, because it was not only true but undeniably obvious, and because the officer would have had to be a complete idiot to think otherwise, and because under the circumstanced I'd have been a fool to lie about it.

My next response to his next question baffles me to this day. He asked me how much I'd had to drink. In response, I checked my watch, and said "two". It's even in the police report that I checked my watch, first, before answering. Some part of me was sane, even right then. It was so true on so many levels, and so untrue on the grounds that it didn't accurately answer his question. Since I was doorman at Foxes at that time, looking at my watch and saying "two" was one of the most common answers to one of the most common questions I got asked each night: "when do you close?". The answer, except on Sundays: "Two". At the same time, "two" seems to be the "standard" answer given by drunk drivers, asked how many drinks they've had. You'd think we'd be smarter than that, and answer 3.14159 or something. The point is I *could* say I didn't understand the question, *because* I checked my watch. The irony is that even then I *knew* it wasn't "two", but more like "2:34", or thereabouts. Drunk off my ass, incapable of driving, I *still* knew the time to the minute, and *still* checked my watch before answering.

September Eighth. Katrina had just hit and people were just starting to realize it was *far* more serious than NPR and countless other mainstream news outlets had originally reported -- that the storm had passed without doing more damage than half-comically blowing the windows out of one side of the New Orleans Hilton. People -- tens of thousands of them -- were stuck at the Superdome, shouting "HELP! HELP! HELP!" en masse to any television camera or radio microphone present. I'd been following it minute by minute until I got pulled over.

The guys at MDC, which was fast approaching 200% capacity with prisoners sleeping all over the floors, had *no* idea. Being in jail is kinda scary to begin with, but even if you don't know sports from shit, you can find "common ground" with fellow prisoners by telling them the latest that you've heard about Katrina. Basically -- telling them the weather. "Yeah", I'd say, "the levee definitely broke. The lower ninth ward is completely flooded. Guys in orange jumpsuits just like ours are stranded on interstate offramps. You didn't know?"

Horrible education in how to do weather reports, but I wouldn't trade those three worst days of my life now for anything on earth.

So. Precisely two years to the day that I looked at my watch and answered a question that had not been asked, I receive my board certification. It's totally kick-ass. It's a gold-coloured DVD which says "Sept. 8 2007: KUNM 89.9 FM Albuquerque Certifies [Real Name] for Digital On-Air Control Room Operations". I don't want to watch the videos on the disk. I want to frame it! I've *never* been a paper-chaser! I don't care one whit about certifications and diplomas and the like. But this CD, or DVD, or whatever piece of plastic it is, really *means* something to me. The timing just accentuates the countless ironies involved. I would *never* have believed two years back that I'd be broadcasting.

Two years ago I didn't think I'd be alive 24 hours from then.

Life is very good.
Life is good.
Life is very good.

Durango.

My first music show: Long story short: I have a newfound respect for music DJs! NEWS IS *EASY*.

Overnight Freeform. 1-5 AM, Tuesday morning. Didn't prepare correctly. It was kinda rough. Only gave myself 24 hours to prepare. Not enough. Found myself sleepless, thinking "I could start with this, and move to that, then that" and so on.

Come 10 PM, with three hours to air, I'm panicking that I don't have four hours of material all pre-scripted out and recorded to play. I haven't had the chance to digitize those LPs that I want to play. I'm panicking. What I *do* have is a couple of half-hour segments and a shorter one. All old stuff from the archives. "Free Form" thrives on the blending of as many genres as possible and as much new stuff as possible. You also get "points", so to speak, for emphasizing local music that might not otherwise get airtime.

Give me news! Give me from 18:30 to 19 to tell the weather to a *huge* and disparate state. Give me facts to report. Give me a minute to do rewritten headlines from wire. This whole "flexibility" thing has me more panicked right up to the minute I go on air than *anything* else I've *ever* done in radio. When I do go on air, though, I've got a full half hour of programming lined up, which gives me time to search the library for what works right, *after* the last thing that I play, and then what works right after *that*, while hopefully eventually leading into my next prepared segment. I wind up enjoying it completely. *Especially* those parts of the program which sent me off in different directions and *made* me break my precious plan. Even if I sounded dumb.

I start with the Wurlitzer. Why not? No one else plays theatre organ music. Or old Broadway showtunes. Or soundtracks. That's all together on one CD I've prepared which buys me time: it's stuff nobody else plays, which I play from front to end while I prepare for the next segment. All the time I'm panicking 'cause I don't have double and triple backups synched online like we do for network programming. Finally I get to where I've got all four CD players lined up and *can't* check any new music in cue. I'm forced to relax. And I *love* it.

Then a little Rufus Wainright -- just a bit, and *not* his newest song, either. Then Camper van Beethoven. That leads, naturally enough, to a new CD (thank god!) from some group called "the Waterboys" (I'll leave it to your vivid imaginations why that name caught my eye in the first place), and then "Amplified Heat" from my personal collection. A little more "hard rock stuff" rounds out that portion of the evening. I'm shocked how much I've played. It's not music I am innately drawn to, but I think that which I played is some of the best. Anyway -- time moves on, and I can't get stuck in a rut. We get progressively experimental.

Back to the '20s and '30s for songs from the Mexican Revolution. Then to a hip-hop track. Some Portuguese Blues, which I broke my "don't apologise on air" rule for in order to apologise for butchering the performer's name, because I *know* I did. One piece from a Kenyan vocal group was terribly misplaced, but I hoped the listeners might get lost in the John Cage set that followed. Naturally, from there we went to Gamelan. From that we went to Chinese traditional ensemble music, which led right into Messiaen, and finally wound up in Bach. I gave the credits right down to BWV numbers. From "I was lucky enough to hear this band in Austin when they were doing benefits for the Humane Society" to "that was, of course, none other than the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, under the conduction of Sir Neville Marriner". Then to one last cut of Rufus -- another old one -- to transition to the satellite feed. The whole song played out. If I do this again, that may be my "sign off" song again. It's *too* perfect for that exact time of night. I *did* cut off the "G" from NPR's "good morning!", but not too shabby for a first-time music host, if I say so myself.

Then home to crash.

Then up to Durango with Charles. This is a long, complex, involved, and evolving story. Forgive me if I lose anyone.

Charles is the guy I work for. For money. We're basically servants in the 19th Century sense of the word, with a few of the more onerous restrictions on servants considerably relaxed since that day. (Thank gawd.) The main focus of what I do for Charles involves gardening.

Bill, with whom Charles lived for some years, is in very bad shape. As in "multiple undetected small strokes" bad shape. Bill is the landscape architect. One of his designs, executed by Charles, made it into Martha Stewart's "Living" magazine before the whole Martha Stewart fiasco -- another made it into "Better Homes and Gardens" -- all of which should, if nothing else, attest to the quality of work that the people I work for are *recognised* for.

The same day Charles pulls me from one account to another, Bill slumps over the steering wheel of his car at Plant World. He's taken in an ambulance to hospital, where he's apparently denied potentially life-saving medical care by one of the state's leading insurance companies and hospital operators (I'll call them LHP for no particular reason) on acount of a single past-due bill for eighty-four dollars.

I help Charles track Bill down to the hospital to which he's been finally transferred, but eventually go out to deadheading roses and watering flowers again -- not because it's my job, but because it's a joy. Charles is left dealing with clients, which is what he does best.

Charles has no legal rights that I know of where Bill is concerned. Charles was Bill's closest freind for many years. Charles was in large part the reason Bill's business continued to flourish, even as Bill's health deteriorated rapidly. But now he's got to deal with hospital bureaucracies that at a whim tell him he can or can't see Bill, or even find out how he is doing. Charles isn't Bill's next of kin, you see. The next of kin, who live in the same city, would see Bill *maybe* one time per year -- at Christmas -- and otherwise don't seem to care about him until his fabulously quaint estate comes on the real estate market. And now who gets to make medical, legal, and financial decisions is already shaping up to be a royal mess.

I love Charles, but he doesn't understand bureaucracy. He is an artist. So was Bill. What several hospitals have done in dealing with Bill, and Charles' relation to Bill, I am nearly convinced, are thoroughly illegal. Meanwhile it's kinda up to me to navigate the medical bureaucracy as best I can as a disinterested outsider without getting directly involved. This isn't for the news. I just don't want to see my freinds get totally screwed over.

But it doesn't stop there.

Charles' cars are still in Bill's driveway. And a lot of Charles' heaviest antique furniture remains in Bill's house. Last we heard, Bill was heavily sedated and restrained in bed to prevent him from tearing out the IVs from his arms. More specific details are harder to come by, and open to a wide variety of interpretation, since Charles has no legal standing on which to base his decisions.

Charles and Bill cared for eachother and took care of eachother in ways I think most hetero couples would struggle to begin to understand, because they can afford to take certain legal relationships for granted. Watching this happen is an excercise in watching a train wreck in slow motion, and hoping for the best that may result.

Bill was my lifeline to the world when I was in jail -- if I hadn't gotten bailed out by an anonymous drag queen from Ireland, I would have had to depend on Bill to make all the financial arrangements to spring me, which I *know* he was doing when I just happened to get sprung. I think after I got out, I non-specifically said "thank you" to him. But that's just not enough.

Bill paid for all those collect phone calls. I still don't know what that cost him. I was afraid to ask, lest he present me with a bill. He never did. He started juggling his assets and his credit just to bail me out before the drag queen from Dublin swooped in from out of nowhere and saved me. Bill bent over backwards to get me out. He was the most hopeful prospect I had in jail. He kept me going, day to day. Hour to hour. I *knew* someone was working for me on the outside in large part because of him, and that kept me alive. I want to tell him that before he dies.

Charles, for his part, helped out the best he could -- he broke into my apartment in order to feed my cats. Charles *hates* cats. And he's *not* the sort of person to break into *any* building -- even under specific instructions -- least of all by someone in jail. Charles still feels guilty for not having stood bond for me, but as far as I'm concerned, he did the single most important service anybody did while I was in that hole. I knew my cats wouldn't starve because of him, and therefore lived another day.

Long story short: Bill and Charles were a *huge* part of whatever "support network" I had that got me out of that rut.

Now Bill appears to be dying. I've been through this sort of thing before. Sometimes it happens fairly quick. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it drags on for years. Charles has never been to a funeral in all his life of thirty-some-odd-years. He's flying by the seat of his pants. I try and help him navigate. He's got the helm, I've got the compass. That's how I see it, anyway. This isn't my story. This story's his. The best that I can tell is my peripheral observations on it.

So. Long story short: Charles needs someone to drive up one of his other cars to Durango, where he's now living, and which he considers "home". Rightly. I offer. I juggle like mad. He juggles no less madly. Somehow, it works. He's a strong-headed man. He's never had help moving before. So it's a tricky thing to negotiate, even right down to "can I help you carry this up?" or "shall I stay and make sure the dog doesn't go down the stairs?".

Charles' German Shepherd is also in the process of dying. She hardly eats and has gone mostly blind. She's weak in her hindquarters, and bumps into things, and falls down stairs. She's to the point where she won't eat a morsel unless Charles has cooked it, himself.

Charles is amazing on a grill. He breaks all the culinary rules and (he being Charles) there's not much you can do but stand back and hope for the best. Good intentions, misdirected, might be met either by his calm and pleasant "would you mind?" voice, which would make *anyone* roll over; or possibly, and increasingly rarely, by the "evil" streak he swears he inherited straight from his grandmother. Since you're a guest in his home, the best thing you can do is let him do whatever he needs to. Take nothing personally. Thirty seconds later, he will *always* be cool. And the "evil" moments are fewer and further between, and less intense. Charles may not be perfect, but he's clearly *aware*.

What results is absolute perfection. Medium rare steaks come out medium rare by his "two cigarette rule". Pork tenderloins seared in a pot *far* too small for the purpose are still tender and juicy and can be cut by the side of a fork, while the crust developed in searing retains its original "crunch". Then there's that one caraway seed between the meat and your tongue. He uses *just* enough caraway seeds that they *always* surprise you. Again and again.

Durango was lovely. This wasn't the same town I've visited counteless times as a tourist, out to go on the train or show an out-of-country visitor what we americans did for fun.

Durango was a town where people lived. A lovely small town. A precariously built tinderbox set aside a mountain where nobody locked their doors or had curtains to shield their activities from public view. I *love* Durango like I haven't loved it since I was five years old. A hillside city of creative geniuses waiting to either burn away or be washed into the river of lost souls. I wonder how long it will last.

It was a beautiful trip. I'm glad to have played some small part in it.

There's enough from these last three days for a novel.

This isn't a novel.

This is an online journal. Anyone can read it, and know truth from fiction.

I wore the single most expensive article of clothing on this trip that I have ever worn in my entire life, simply because I got chilled and Charles offered it to me. I learned a lot about coutoure (sp?) by looking and listening and asking questions. Charles has *exquisite* tastes. Perhaps if I am lucky something small rubbed off on me. Not like I care if I'm fashionable.

We sat up laughing 'til late hours, even hounded by death everywhere. Infinitely more important. I hope that in my own dying hours some memory of these few days may come through.