10/28/97.. Homeric hiatus.

It’s dark by 4:30, now we’re into "daylight savings". That means Peggy can go to work in the gloaming, for a while, but only teachers and cows seem to appreciate the new hours.

I hauled the boat today, jacked the trailer up on blocks, spread all her gear out to dry in the northwest wind, ran the motor dry, squirted varnish inhibitor in the tanks, sponged her out, and covered her up. The end of another season. We never get out often enough.

While the sails were fluttering in the breeze I did a drawing of the scene, and got chilled to the bone. So long as you keep moving, the raw cold doesn’t get you, but sit still for an hour or so, and the Old Hag lays hands on you.

This is Her time. A coven of crows loped over, crawing. Death of the year, and the carrion birds are partying. As the light squinted down I stowed the canvas and shuddered into the house. Lit the stove. The inner life beckons.

Of course the Trickster loves the 'tween times. I reported how he squeezed Owl at the fanbelt. He's been playing prank with all my best intentions for a couple of weeks now. Some days everything I lay a hand to goes haywire.

I had a commission to do Badger and Toad from the WIND IN THE WILLOWS and spent a week trying to get Badger right. I couldn't find our copy of the book with the original illustrations, and discovered that there are six different editions now in the stores, all with new images of the characters. I finally decided there was sufficient precedent for doing my own version, so I went to pictures of European badgers. It is an English story after all. But every time I made a badger he wasn't Badger. And I'm running out of ebony, for his black stripes.

There was a time when any badger would have done, but I had a feeling I was chasing, and an image out of childhood to reckon with. The third version had distinct personality. Although he still wasn't the reassuring Elder One of my remembering, he was certainly A Badger. The day after I finished him I encountered a copy of the original edition. The European badger (and mine) has a black throat.. but the Badger of the book didn't. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. My week to get badgered.

Toad, on the other hand, stepped out of the woodpile like magic. The lady who commissioned Badger and Toad wanted them to give as 60th birthday present for one of my dearest patrons. They have recently joined company. She had no preconceived image of what Toad and Badger were up to this time, so I tried to capture something of their new life. Toad is carrying a young plant, and Badger wields a shovel. A hopeful gift for the end of the growing season.
But I was breaking tools and blooding myself. My color copy center had their Xerox repro-ed, just as I was getting orders for toonscape copies and placemats. And the Owl was screaming. Fortunately Peggy was having a wonderful fall back at school, and would come home just in time to rescue me from myself, round about sunset. Get me laughing at my absurdities.

That's when Homer hiccuped.

A year or so back I wasn't going to get seduced by the computer revolution. I'd done my time in cyberland in the Navy, and I was a primitive sort of guy. Pen and ink was good enough for me. The only reason we bought a laptop was for Peggy's sabbatical trip, and we could remain aloof from all the nerdish hoopla. Just another tool in the box. We could do without.

Like hell. The day Homer seized up and refused to digitate I went into a blind panic. NO EMAIL?! Impossible. Find me an Apple shop IMMEDIATELY.

Homer lost his mental stability on a Sunday morning. He's been exhibiting spastic symptoms intermittently for a spell. Lazy keyboard syndrome, can't remember printer selection, loses track of time (clock gains an hour a week), cranky on morning wakeup, accursed cursor curiosities. We've managed to fiddle our way round the glitches while ROM burns.. until Sunday.

Won't boot. Finally wakes up, but is too groggy to follow simple instructions. I get him organized enough to recite from memory, and I shove everything I want to save onto disc. Next time up he goes blank.

I start thinking about backup computers.. that new machine we had imagined for the New Year. Call my guru. He diagnoses the problem to be a bad restart battery hardwired to the motherboard.. indicative for most of the symptoms. I hunt for a doctor service. Begin to experience separation anxiety and walletOsuction.

Monday 8AM I'm at the door of the nearest dealer/shop, thirty miles away, when they open up. I describe symptoms, tell them the diagnosis. "No problem. A tech can look at it at 3PM. We'll call you."

Only they don't. At a quarter to closing time I call. "Oh. We couldn't get to it. Tomorrow at 4." In dread of non-computatation, I order a sellout Mac clone under instructions of my guru. 240mhz. 2Gig hard drive. 48Megs of RAM. Enough horsepower for the visuals I want to wallow in. The whole hog.. but slow freight from Ohio. Scotland forever.

Tuesday morning I decide to chill out. Do something mindless and manual. Something easily accomplished. Yank the boat trailer out of the puckerbrush, maybe. As the sun comes up I'm out bushwacking in the back point four oh. I slash the head-high jungle away from the item, but the tires on the jewel are exploded. Rather than try and jack it up in the muck and tangle, I lever it out into our ritual circle of poles and ornaments. Then I discover that my hydraulic jack can only lift 1/2 inch at a time. But this is therapy, right?

When I begin torquing the nuts, it takes a three foot cheater bar to start them. All except one, which refuses to budge. Pretty soon I've got the whole toolbox laid out in the wet grass. But to no avail. Short of torches it's stuck. I take the cold chisel to it.

Usually you can notch a purchase on one face of a nut, then whang it round with a hammer. I once resorted to this extremity in the middle of a snowstorm on a midnight road downeast, and felt proud as punch when I finally got the spare on. But not this time. All the nut does is smudge like butter.

Two hours later I'm still on my knees in the soft clay. Whangwhangwhang. Howling at the sky for mercy. Whangwhangwhang. Sucking my pounded thumb. Whangwhangwhang. Making abject promises to Mechana, or whichever goddess is pulling my chain. Whang. What's a prayer circle for?

Eventually my prayers are answered, after I remove every last fragment of the lug nut from the stud with a prick punch. I roll the blasted things down to George's for a pair of takeoffs. At least I didn't think of Homer all morning.

Wednesday I go into a tizzy. I play phone tag with the macshop. "Sorry, definitely tomorrow." I thrash around in the dooryard and garden. Everything I turn a hand to goes upside down. I describe Homer's malfeasance to a friend as acting like the command key is being held down. I wonder who's got his finger on my button.

I'm beginning to realize there is a subset of CyberTime called TechTime (you'll notice my growing facility with CompuSpelling). Knowing how a few minutes at the screen easily turns into lost hours, I might have guessed that professional computists have a skewed temporality. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Waiting for all those downloads makes any sense of the here and now tenuous. Maybe tomorrow. By Thursday afternoon I'm pretty burned by tomorrow promises.

"A tech looked at it for half and hour, but couldn't find anything wrong," they tell me.

"I have no reason to believe you. I'd like to have you replace the startup battery, clean the keyboard, and have it ready by 8AM tomorrow. Can you do that?"

"No."

"Then I'll come in at 8 and wait until it gets done."

8 AM I'm in Augusta being a pain in the ass. I look over his shoulder while the tech strips poor Homer. We stare intently at his innards. The tech checks the voltage of the battery (6.6 volts... maybe 2 batteries in series?) He can't find specs in Mac databases, just how to order new parts. Of course nobody has parts in stock. So we say a few words and reassemble the poor thing. Boot up and.. NO SYMPTOMS. I order replacement parts, just in case, and lug Homer out to the Owl. Back in comms!

I think. When I get home.. nada.. same old malarkey. ARRRRGH. I pound on the command key. Homer snaps awake. Master, you called? JUST A STUCK KEY!!!!!! Is there a ritual site where we can take our computers and chant the healing words over them? Or do we just have to pound on the keyboard?

I put the remounted wheels back on the trailer and Mr. Mann helped me yank Sharpie out of the Cathance. In an upsidedown time I'd just as soon have the sailboat safely on blocks.