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Friday was a low key radio day... things flowed well, got in some of the newer techno-Dub from DC (Desmond Williams and Bim Sherman changing the style in a rootsier way). Strange how I got two calls from people requesting songs for the Other alt station in town. Very Twilight Zone. One more letter from the prison, from the "Captive Audience." In lockdown confinement for not cutting their dreads... the one thing a Rasta won't do. Yet they add more to their sentences when they don't. Rough way to build character. Finally got back into the woods, today (yesterday, now). This part of the world is like the jungle, I swear. Leave it for just a week, and the green is impenetrable. This whole land ownership thing is a trip. Mine is one of those old VA families that had it all, and let it all erode. So, what once was 400 acres, is now 5.67. And I had to earn it. Big time. Family obligation has a lot higher price tag than just surveying, chasing down lawyers, the anaconda of red tape... and that was just so they could find out what they had left! No survey since 1940. When it's handed to you, I guess you just have no concept of being or belonging there. Yes, no room to bitch, I know. Beats the Slammer, by a long shot. Can't help thinking that there's a curse on those hills, though. Things happen. Nothing overt, like ectoplasm or rattling chains, just odd little things. When the whole deed process was going on (like seven years), whenever I'd make an effort to do something up there, fucked up things would happen. Getting rear-ended by a semi. Friends, neighbors and relations dropping like flies. Got a little twitchy about following through. Wasn't expecting the icy hand of fate, today. And it wasn't really icy, to be truthful. Since Dianne seems to need to be with Eva (stepdaughter) every week (and ONLY 120 miles away), I sent her on her way without me. (I'm beginning to think I'm getting in the way, anyhow). Solo, to the bush. The sun was sinking behind the mountain, I'd been flailing away at weeds, saplings and blackberry vines with machete 'til I was badstinky, when I thought I'd snagged my wrist on a blackberry thorn (may as well be concertina wire). Wrong. Hacking around the roots of an overturned tree, I stumbled, unknowingly, into to a yellow jacket terrorist camp. Little fucker got me before I knew what I'd done. Must have good adrenaline glands in my DNA, cuz I was twenty feet away in a blink, looking at the swarm from afar. Just wait til I come back with a flamethrower, infidels! Tried squeezing the venom from the point-of-entry, or maybe the stinger, if there was one (this breed has not tasted my blood, before). Stung like hell for a bit, backed off... and then the swelling started. For Most of the evening. I thought, if I'm allergic, I'll just croak right here, and they'll find the body in a week or so, minus giblets. And eyeballs (maybe I should be the one with the cellphone). But, not dead. Kept it together, did some more hacking, back home. Of course, my left arm, from the wrist to the elbow looks like the Michelin Man. But, not dead. A Steve Irwin/John Edward Moment. Survival note: Get bug bit/stung away from a medicine cabinet? Go To the Fridge, cut off the butt end of a tomato, and tape it to the insulted area. The pain DOES go away. And so stylish.
Now, to find an exorcist. And, how prophetic is the Image, up top? |
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