I believe we are finally fed up with the builder who won’t return phone calls. We found a just too expensive place & are going to try talking the price down. The advantages are the yard & the quieter neighborhood; the disadvantages are the price & The now very quick purchasing.

I initially turned down this place because of its size (we will end up renting part) & it’s price, but the rooms are bright & big, the basement is nearly finished, & the garage is huge.

Now I’m trying to arrange what goes into which rooms

I just now realized that all the bankers had Southern Accents, Miles’s being the most classically drawlly. All 4 were broadly read & overtly religious just like in a Faulkner story. They care about family county country & continuity; I trust them.

It was just lunch but it went well; they poked knowledgeably at my desires & I grew not to suspect them of being fiscal opportunists.

Hanque handled most of the intelligent questions; I believe this will work & after some appropriate educational retrofitting Life will continue forward new-normally. I’ll get the nieces here to meet them & fade into the road again.

Every gain no matter how tiny these days has a loss as its date

But that’s for another time

Dad’s military service went off splendidly – order pomp gunfire. & over far too quickly. There’s even a letter of gratitude signed by the current President – you can hear dad growling

All the rest that follows will be murky preparations for lesser berths

I couldn’t move all the pieces quickly enough to get the house I wanted most (twice) but now that I have all the pieces in place I’m finding it very difficult to get the house I want now. Initially I figured the listing agent was dragging his feet because he wanted to get greased, but now it turns out the builder (whom I’ve met) is the one demurring. Just financially that makes little sense.

I’m shoving any supposition of racism down into the oubliette because there’s no cause to go there save as final exasperating explanation.

I’m irked; I’ve written to him.

Some days the legs just work.

It’s gone out of fashion to talk openly about Muses but since nobody has refuted their existence I’ll posit bravely that the Muse of Fixed Gear Cycling be called Fissa; I sacrifice to Her & sometimes she inclines ever so slightly in my direction, deeming my gift to her not entirely unworthy.

Best day I’ve had in a long time. I usually go to the hills on 17 teeth but today I left the 16 on & figured if I got blown I’d just do a quick Shelby Bottoms 30 & call it a day. Up the 3rd toughest hill I regularly climb I knew I was enough in shape to bite of a bigger chunk. That feeling beneath all the ache & fatigue we call Cycling which says Yes is the Muse.

The inclining influence of Muses tho has a mortal & counterposing correlative. Let’s call them Ruiners. Ruinare means to scud downward without control; Ruiners are quintessential Un-Makers, the counterpart of Carpenters Engineers & Poets. For every Arch may come a Parch – for every Limn, a Whim. Some Under Taker cloistered away in the bowels of the construction company building the house I want to buy coils a Ruiner, un-making my dream come true. It may just be normal bureaucratic bs, but I’d assign it a more nefarious name. Legitimate offers submitted get shuffled into wrong in-boxes. Calls go unreturned. Messages go missing. It irks me.

Nashville’s Rush-Hour is nothing compared to San Francisco’s. I learned to drive my first manual transmission car (Toyota Corolla) in San Fran solely because my father wanted my first hours at the controls to be tremendously difficult. I stalled embarrassingly but never quit & never hit any cars or pedestrians. I couldn’t uphill parallel park that first day, but within a week it was a mere parlor trick. Nevertheless, rush hour there is not for the meek especially with a stick. Lights do not cooperate; opportunities open suddenly & vanish mischievously; busses frustrate & cabs berate. It all makes you feel alive & insignificant.

Nashville away from the freeway has about 17 bad blocks of traffic, usually because of narrow bridges or poorly calibrated lights or ineptly thought out stop signs. When I first started riding Fixie I stayed away from all cars no matter how far it led me off course, but after about a year I sought out the traffic just to prove I was actually in control of the vectors & momenta. Bikes mixing in with cars offer a special degree of bas relief Freedom, like dolphins among netted fishing vessels. The danger/opportunity ideogram presents itself mile after exhausting mile. It’s nearly like chess but for the actual peril.

Trans-Facere – to Make A Way Across, to Do Through. Basically I’m just showing off.

I went all last season without saddle sores so I naïvely figured I had found the perfect chamois & saddle to ride painlessly forever. I don’t know if it’s the Humidity or the poor technique due to the long Winter lay-off, but I have disquieting saddle areas which persist beyond chamois choice, saddle choice, & route choice. It may just be that I’m getting old; old skin heals more slowly.

Twitter pal came through town on his way to Knoxville, on his way to see an old friend who had retired & was casting about for what to do with his life. A question alien to me: Ride, hit, read, write. It may be I have small desires, but I equally therefore have small worries . . .

Until the next disaster that is. Some of which has been once again surprisingly obviated by Dad’s having an unknown Life Insurance policy; he knew how to level many of the transition bumps. Such perspicacity is a trait I must develop to make the things my folks wanted to happen happen. Lawyers & Bankers as Salve, oh my.

Every weekend we look at houses. Three years of this & you begin to develop a sense of what you want, what you can live with, what you can’t stand, & what you can improve.

I want an exterior space that doesn’t oppose the interior space. I want an actual functioning basement. The rest is details.

I want one of these but not so enclosed. Makes me think of Marrât but I can live with it.

Family deaths mean survivor meetings with bankers investors & lawyers; there are myriad awkward conversations about things one personally knows little about but one, as a survivor, must voice some opinion before the conversation can move on.

Today a kind Southern Lawyer, straight out of Faulkner, stopped the expected conversation dead with a question I had never heard before: What Is It That You Want?

I know exactly what’s expected of me, my family’s wishes & my family obligations, & I’m perfectly happy to do what’s expected; I’m old enough to understand Duty. But beyond Duty I had not thought of What I Want.

The fine Southern Lawyer, like Gavin Stevens, let the question hang in the air not like a damp sheet but like a kite, & watched me wrestle angels for an answer. I still 9 hours later have no answer.

I’ve spent the day with this: had I moved Dad either out to Redwood City or North to El Dorado last month when the opportunities presented themselves he would not have fallen & needed bur hole surgery and now be back in rehab.

I don’t ride that way; I decide what to do & do it.

Troubled by the What Wd Freud Say implications.

Under 2 weeks till I see him