Fall was here. C. was here. Now it seems that both are gone. Well, one of them is actually gone. That’s not really something about which much speculation is necessary. The seeming goneness of the other is simply due to the frigid cold (I could see my breath!) today. The cold damp leaves are stuck to the pavement like fish scales.

We went hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains last weekend. Having no car, we had tried to arrange a small rental one for a day. It was the only autumn weekend C. could manage here before returning to the autumnless desert she calls home, so we planned a trip. The rental company, however, ran out of small cars and we were upgraded to a black extended-cab pickup truck with tinted windows. We were headed into rural Virginia, so to be safe I donned my faded black “United States of America” tee shirt. Those camo-clad guys with the beer guts who lined the highways with their wives and their yard sales can spot a commie pinko like me from miles away. Clad in patriotic garb and driving a huge made-in-the-USA pickup, I almost felt like I could fly under the radar unless I had to open my mouth for some reason. (My voice sounds so flat and dry in response to a deep nasal drawl rumbling from beneath hick jowls.) Then again, the nerd glasses and abstract forearm tattoo probably give me away long before my polysyllabic and abstruse vernacular.

tell anybody who asks that you got the tattoo in prison. it works wonders for me.

I prefer “One for every year she’s away.” Nothing wrong with me a hundred dollars wouldn’t fix.