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And … A pomegranate!

The secrets of two professional people to be revealed later.

Doesn’t look like much, you say? Well I no longer call it Zuccotti Park; think of it as ‘Zuccotti U,’ as in, University, a new campus that’s sprung up for anyone who has the gumption to walk inside and get an education.

There are so many extra-mural ‘classes’ to be had as well—now that the city feels it needs to power clean the park, campus has expanded if you just look about you. I’ve had some instructors, like one, named Alan, who stood on a side street and told me about how student loan debt is being (mis)reported and (mis)managed. One in four people are defaulting on their student loans, he says. That means that, at the next dinner party I attend, I can come clean about my own debt, and others around the same table will have to see if they can meet my gaze.

Do you think?

What if we all said that this situation is untenable? Apparently, the statistics being reported thusfar are serving the needs of the banks and the educational institutions, and not us.

Many new contraptions that are totally DIY in construction, are springing up around central campus: portable platforms on wheels that can display signage. Fred and George, respectively, showed me how theirs are made: namely, from light hollow plastic piping, nylon chord with anchors, plywood, and a four-wheel dolly.

They are glad there is no patent, because they want other people to make their own. (Put a cooler on it full of food, says Fred, and you’re good to go.)

On Wall Street is the spot where George Washington was sworn in as president.

And tarps are also used by the Stock Exchange for display purposes, not just for the people around the park with their spackel buckets and plywood platforms. DIY? Whatever works? Or, great minds think alike…

This could be a new ‘revenue stream’ I had thusfar not explored. Hmmm.

In many ways it was very beautiful. The sense that people had after they received communion—of being lifted out of themselves and this tragic situation—was palpable as they walked back to their seats after communion. The pallbearers conducted the coffin out of the church with a kind of sobriety and simplicity.

But then, outside on the steps, came the truly hard part:
All the family—indeed, most everyone who had attended the funeral—started smoking. In fact, it happened so much in unison that I thought for a moment that it was a kind of ritual; you know, part of it. My son’s classmate, all of 10, looking so old in a tuxedo with tears streaming down his face. Lots of hugs all around. Behind me, I heard a disembodied voice saying, somewhat conspiratorially: ‘You know, she died of lung cancer; and look at all these people, lighting up, right in front of the coffin and that little boy. It’s such a shame.”

I just can’t come up with any answer to people’s behavior. Why they blow off steam the way they do; could you give a ten-year-old boy anything approaching a compassionate and true answer for why his childhood as been so abruptly taken from him?

A woman came up to me and introduced herself as his aunt, then sort of stuttered when she added, ‘I’m his guardian.’ She looked to be about 25.

I’ve started wondering: What’s her life been like? And what’s it going to be like now? Does this cycle end?

Life goes on. Get to work; stay healthy for yourself, as well as for the people who love you; face up to things that don’t have easy answers. That’s all I’ve come up with so far by way of meaning or comfort for myself, anyway.

And I frankly don’t feel much better about it, I can tell you that.

It just seems to raise more questions.

I don’t know any of them.

However, today’s productive writing spell of 5 and a half straight hours without a moment’s break (self doubt, lots of snacking, et al) tells me that I may have just exited a many-month-long writing slump. Let me share my insider tips with you.

First of all, don’t make yourself — or anyone else in your house — breakfast. This is key. Go out and eat a doughnut and get a cappuccino with this brand of coffee. It is great.

Let everyone else in your household starve. You need to control your movements and thoughts. Turning around in circles in the kitchen trying to find the butter knife or the coffee scoop wastes valuable head Chi. Keep it together, keep your eyes on the prize, and get OUT.

Step one and a half: write. Okay: so I write on deadline every week, and even if I’m in a slump I still have to produce. That said, it’s been like scraping the bottom of the well with a metal bucket lately, however, so when I say write, I mean just…write. Don’t solve the world’s problems.

Step two: Drink beer and eat pizza. In other words, DON’T COOK. Try to do this for lunch, pretty early in the day. If you don’t think that alcohol lubricates the word-forming centers of your brain, just pick up any novel by Hemingway (genius!), read it, and get back to me.

Oh yes, I still need to do the Schmerlreport! This just in: Cheap beer now comes in plastic screw-top bottles for added efficiency. It isn’t as yummy, but you don’t have to finish it all.

Hemingway wouldn’t approve of not finishing, and he was much more efficient with his words than I am. So I guess you can decide what’s what on you own beer/writing front. I was just after the breaking news.

Photog-of-the-day, Doug’s, images…

‘Nuff said there.

ooh, shadows on road work sign. calling Charles Sheeler…

..and what’s this? cat crawled in his trousers while he’s on the toilet. NICE.

Thanks for that last-minute submission! You just made our deadline!

Here’s Doug’s hands, my candy, his kid’s socks.

And we’re out.

* btw: Ferguson also said that Civilization isn’t some slow, geriatric decline but rather is toppled by abrupt shifts [Egypt, Libya, et al]. So basically we’re okay if we hurry.