Last night: I’m sitting by a quiet riverlet. It’s 7:40 on a Sunday evening.  September 24.  Three days into fall and it’s dark outside.  I’m in Pittsburg, NH, less than 10 miles from the Canadian border.  And I’m wearing a freaking t-shirt!  Today was 80 degrees!! I haven’t turned on the heater in the Tiny White Box since I got back two days ago!!!  I’ve got a fire going as I look at the moon, but I’m sitting far away—it’s just for ambiance.  I know, deep down in my dark heart, I will regret these words but I want Fall to feel like Fall, not midgoddamnedsummer.

Monday afternoon:  This is the time I should be eating my words, whining about how COLD it is, and wishing I’d never cursed the summer away.  HAH!  It’s now 85 degrees with the leaves changing to peak, I’m wearing shorts, sandals and a t-shirt and staying out of the sun.  When I was in the sun, my brain was boiling.  How do I know?  Here are some biscuits from a baked brain.

–If I didn’t need Facebook to spread word about the Tiny White Box, I think I’d resign my commission.  It seems very few of my Facebook friends go to dead-end jobs, fight with their kids or eat meals of canned chili, shredded cheese and Fritos.  Instead, they’re all cavorting, hugging precious children and taking pictures of beautifully-designed-for-viewing-as-much-for-eating meals.  Even with my simplification, I can still look longingly at a loin of lamb.

–Have the last 10 words in the previous sentence been uttered before?  If not, why not?

–Am I the only person who believed in junior high I could somehow wriggle my way into a girl’s heart by befriending her younger brother?  Did this ever work?  Has any young teenage girl ever been smitten by a friend of her dumbass kid brother?

–With the weather so hot so late in the year, will mosquitos hatch, then be killed off by the eventual first frost?  Or has natural selection taken its course in the evolution of mosquitos so they’ll be a year-round companion?  What effect will Off spray have on women’s winter furs?

–Do I know anyone who actually has winter furs sans the faux appellation?  Does faux rhyme with pho, the Vietnamese soup?

–Did I use the word appellation properly above?  Is there even such a word, or have I made it up, a forced combination of apple and jubilation?

–Why do I almost never finish reading a novel but almost always finish reading history and other nonfiction?  Of how many novels have I read eleven-twelfths then lost interest?  How do An American Tragedy, Rabbit at Rest and The Executioner’s Song even end?  Do all the protagonists somehow recover and escape their fates?  ( And pipe down over there about Mailer’s book—he won the goddamned Pulitzer for it as a novel.  I think.)

–As I eat rice and beans and vegetables tonight, will my stomach be dreaming of chili and cheese and Fritos?