Doggone it, folks here in the Philippines really care about me and my adulting ways. Just to prove it, they’ve carved out a section in the drug store just for me. It’s stocked with vitamins, herbal supplements, dietary products, and all manner of items devoted to adult health and general wellbeing.
Unfortunately, the section was noticeably short on Scotch and beer,
which required a workaround.
—Mitchell Hegman
While Desiree has her Jollibee chicken urges to satisfy upon arriving at the islands, I have my own food craving to slake.
My craving is for a bright green, rather branchy-looking seaweed called
guso.
I love the stuff.
Along the coasts of the Philippines, guso is an everyday food, sometimes
called sea grapes, harvested from shallow coastal waters and sold fresh in
local markets. You will usually find it in small, damp bundles, its tiny
beadlike clusters still crisp from the sea.
Preparation is simple. Rinse it gently in cool water and serve it raw.
Most often it is combined with tomatoes and onions and dressed with vinegar or
calamansi limes. The flavor is clean, light, and not particularly salty. The
texture offers a light snap when chewed. There is no need to complicate it.
Guso is best when handled lightly and eaten fresh, a straightforward reminder
that good food does not have to be elaborate to be satisfying.
I also find guso to be gorgeous in appearance. I think a heaping bowl of
guso looks like an intricate carving of the finest jade. I am happy just to sit
and study it.
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—Mitchell
Hegman
Some of the most beautiful moments are those that pass quickly and remain uncaptured, existing only in memory. Moments you alone can testify to. I experienced one yesterday as a driver carried us along the ever-bustling, truck-filled highway out of Manila.
At
one point, a small paddock appeared beside the road. In it were five or six
children and a single horse.
The
scene was joyous. They were running and playing together. The horse pranced,
tossing its long, flowing mane. The children ran alongside it, smiling and
laughing, some with their hands lifted high.
I
saw them for only a moment before another row of concrete block and tin-roofed
buildings slid into place and the paddock was gone.
But
I know what I saw, and that is enough to sustain me for several dry years.
—Mitchell
Hegman
There are pilgrimages, and then there is landing in the Philippines and immediately asking, with complete seriousness, “Where is the nearest Jollibee?”
This
is not about fast food. It is about recalibration.
Founded
in 1978 by Tony Tan Caktiong, Jollibee grew up alongside a modernizing nation
shaped by an improbable mix of Spanish and American influence, war, and
stubborn resilience. While global chains arrived with polished sameness,
Jollibee answered with sweet spaghetti, crisp Chickenjoy (crispy fried
chicken), and Filipino staples like rice and palabok (pancit).
For
Filipinos abroad, its overseas branches became edible embassies. Under bright
lights and a smiling bee, homesickness softened. Birthday parties and family
gatherings were all celebrated under the red-and-white banners of Jollibee.
So
when a Filipino returns to the islands, locating a Jollibee is a small but
essential rite. The first bite of chicken, the scoop of rice, the pour of
gravy. That is not indulgence. That is alignment. Yesterday, on our first full
day in Manila, Desiree found the nearest Jollibee and indulged.
Desiree and I have spent the better part of two days on airplanes and in airports. Today, we find ourselves in Manila, in the Philippines, upside-down in time and suddenly swimming in heat.
Manila
has survived earthquakes, fires, and one of the most devastating urban battles
of World War II: the 1945 Battle of Manila. The city was nearly flattened.
Now
it rises taller than ever, a blend of old Spanish churches, American-era
buildings, and glass towers coexisting in an architectural conversation that sometimes
argues loudly.
Our
final layover took us to Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea.
Both Desiree and I find that Incheon has a festive aura, just like Fremont
Street in Las Vegas.
I’m
sharing a photograph of Desiree in the concourse at Incheon. Please note: for
the immediate future, my blogs may come at you inconsistently for a variety of
reasons, including the time difference between us and connectivity challenges.
We conducted a full-on draining and cleaning of our hot tub. What makes this blog-worthy is the fact that our island girl climbed right inside the tub and towel-dried the inside, barefoot and without heavy winter garb, on a winter day.
That’s
some pure Montana stuff there.
I’ve
posted a photograph of Desiree at work, with the snowy landscape all around her.
—Mitchell
Hegman
This is a tough one, folks. I’m about to make a revelation akin to telling a kid Santa Claus isn’t real. I’m not entirely sure how this happened. Did the belt slip on my critical-thinking conveyor? Did an elbow crack somewhere in my everything-considered piping system?
Whatever
the cause, Cold Smoke Beer no longer reigns unchallenged as the absolute king
of post-chore refreshment. There are now moments when I reach, of all things,
for Kirkland coconut water instead of a Cold Smoke.
I
have no explanation. Only evidence.
And
apparently, electrolytes.
—Mitchell
Hegman
I don’t know why you’re still hesitating. For $72,800.00, the Unitree G1 Humanoid AI Avatar robot can be yours. It does back flips. It does front flips. Tariffs are included. Shipping is free. What more could a reasonable person want?
—Mitchell
Hegman
Here’s a question: when was the last time you fell out of bed and woke up later on the floor? For me, that would be the night before last. I woke sprawled out on the floor long after midnight.
The
house is a different place from floor level. For a few seconds, I thought I had
been plunked down on a new planet.
Strange
stuff.
Once
I determined I was still on Earth, I crawled back into bed and had a great
night of sleep.
—Mitchell
Hegman
While
hauling a 5-gallon bucket of split wood for the woodstove, I noticed a warning
on the side. Though the bucket originally held cat litter, the label shows it
partially filled with water and what appears to be a toddler attempting to lift
and carry it. This is not a job for a toddler. Obviously, this is a job for big
people.
Below
that image is another written warning stating that children can drown in a
bucket with only a little water in it.
Good
to know.
—Mitchell
Hegman
While sweeping around the woodstove, Desiree found what looked like a 3/8” nut on the floor. She immediately showed it to me.
“That’s
not good,” I said. Noting the nut’s dark color, I added, “It looks like it
might be from the woodstove.”
My
first thought was the nut might have come from the door handle, but a quick
glance at that proved the handle was intact. My next thought turned to the air
intake damper, which is located at the bottom of the stove. Having a
compromised damper is what my buddy Rodney would term “ungood.”
An
operating damper is required to control how hot the fire burns. If the damper
failed closed, the fire would struggle to climb. If the damper failed in the
fully open position, the fire might quickly drive the temperature to over
1000°F.
The
damper seemed fully functional, but I still felt fairly concerned. I waded
online and found an exploded view of the damper parts. No nuts there.
Yesterday
morning I stopped at the shop where I purchased the stove and consulted with
the experts. “I don’t think it’s from the stove,” one of them concluded, “but I
would hang onto it just the same.”
One
other possibility existed: the iron fireplace toolset holding the poker and
other tools. When I got home after visiting the shop, I inspected the toolset
and stand.
Bingo.
The
nut came from under the base of the stand.
Naturally,
this provided me with an opportunity to grab a Cold Smoke beer to pose with the
nut for a sense of size. The perfect way to end a mystery.
—Mitchell
Hegman
This “getting older” stuff I’ve been undergoing is getting annoying. I can tolerate the migrating aches and pains and the occasional brain cramps that prompt me to go blank when I reach a point where I’m supposed to fetch someone’s name, but now a couple of my fingernails are going wimpy on me. They are just not as tough as they used to be.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Most of us have at least one “junk drawer” or “catch-all drawer” somewhere in the house, typically in the kitchen. A few useful items are typically found there: screwdrivers, a flashlight, a lighter or matches, and a few random screws. But then you get stuff ranging from marginally useful to not useful. Mine has keys for things I no longer have, a small tape measure that no longer retracts properly, rubber bands, etc.
I
also have the equivalent of a junk drawer in my brain. It’s a place that stores
memories and information that are not entirely helpful. And the drawer is
always falling open and dropping stuff into my normal thinking.
Spoonerisms
are stored there. For example, I may say it’s a “lack of pies” instead of a
“pack of lies” when the drawer is open. A rainy day becomes a “dainy ray.”
My
old landline phone number is kept there.
And
then there are those useless memories. One of the more recurrent ones is of the
time a class of apprentices let me go the entire day with my shirt inside-out.
And there is that momentous day when I literally hit myself in the head with my
hammer.
I
really don’t need that stuff, but it remains rattling around in the junk
drawer.
I am a proponent of solar energy. It has a role to play in our energy production and has, in fact, become relatively inexpensive and quick to deploy and commission. At the same time, energy storage, mostly in the form of batteries, is becoming more feasible. My biggest beef has been the footprint required for large-scale solar PV arrays. In my way of thinking, we had to essentially subtract the land used for the array from all other uses.
Fortunately,
this may not always be the case. I read, for example, that in some places,
communities use the shaded area under PV arrays as garden plots for plants that
don’t appreciate full sun. I also just read about an array constructed in
Nevada’s Mojave Desert that provided surprising benefits to the ecosystem
there.
The
Gemini Solar Project adopted a different approach during the construction
cycle. Rather than scraping the land clean in a “blade and grade” fashion,
developers preserved much of the native soil and its dormant seed bank. Years
later, researchers discovered that life had responded. Beneath the modules, a
rare desert plant known as the three-corner milk vetch began appearing in
numbers far greater than before construction. Instead of sterilizing the
landscape, the array altered it in ways that allowed certain species to
flourish. This suggests that design choices matter and that, under the right
conditions, a solar installation may influence its surroundings in ways that
extend beyond electricity production.
—Mitchell
Hegman
I was born on a planet where rainbows appear following rainstorms, and we construct houses from wood and stone. We’ve developed technology to melt rocks but still hide when the wind blows. Our waters flow downhill, our sky never stops roving, and we have a single moon waxing and waning as it circles about us. We regularly celebrate something called a “weekend,” which defines a two-day period in which beer tastes better.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Yesterday, I taught a class at a facility on Alice Street in Helena. Alice Street is unusual because it is literally the edge of town. A hard edge.
On
one side, you find a standard cityscape: paved streets, parked vehicles,
apartment buildings, commercial properties.
On
the other side runs a seemingly endless strand-wire fence. It stands as an
absolute demarcation, like glass holding back water. Beyond it lies undeveloped
prairie stretching for miles.
It’s
strange to drive along Alice Street with the city shouldering against you on
one side and open land rolling away on the other. The two worlds meet, but they
do not blend.
I’m
sharing two photographs today. The first was taken through a window in the
facility where I was teaching and shows the fence and prairie on the
undeveloped side of Alice Street. The second is a map-view capture from above.
—Mitchell
Hegman
— “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”
— “If
you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”
— “Whoever
is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important
matters.”
It’s not a mistake to stand in the sunroom in the late afternoon on a winter day. The sun is especially friendly in the fading hours, as if it knows it is being granted only a short visit. On the back wall, the hoya plant is a solid listener, less judgmental than the orchids, which, truth be known, strike me as a bit too self-aware.
The
geranium is just hanging on and whispers.
The
palms are appreciative but absolutely quiet.
The
lemon tree is sturdy but not producing. Still, the lemon tree and I enjoy a
shared moment or two in a final embrace of full daylight, me with a Cold Smoke
beer in hand.
It’s
not a mistake to sip a Cold Smoke beer in the sunroom’s sunlight on a winter
day.
A while back, Desiree and I stocked up on paper towels. I lugged a couple of packs into the house and stored two others on a set of shelves in the garage. The day before yesterday, needing to replenish our indoor supply, I retrieved a pack from the garage and plunked it down on the kitchen countertop to break out a few rolls.
That’s
where a plot twist occurred.
A
rather large, albeit dead, black widow spider tumbled free from the plastic
wrapping and landed on the counter.
Live
black widows pretty much top my list of creepy things. Dead ones still rank
very near the top, barely
conceding the difference. A dead black widow is proof, which I do not require,
that black widows consider my garage a suitable address. And they remain
entirely scary-looking even when dead. The too-deep black is still black, and
their legs pull up tight, forming what looks like a grim, grisly birdcage.
All
I wanted was a couple of rolls of paper towels.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Following is a conversation between me and Desiree while floating around in the hot tub:
ME
(closing my eyes and lifting my arms): I’m going to meditate… (After only a few
seconds) Nope. I can’t do it. I think I’m incapable of that. My thoughts
ping-pong all over inside my head the instant I close my eyes.
DESIREE:
I’m the same.
ME:
Oh?
DESIREE:
When I close my eyes, I start thinking about how I want to cook food.
ME:
Well, at least that benefits me.
—Mitchell
Hegman
While grocery shopping, Desiree and I came upon a small display of yellow dragon fruit. I’m always willing to try an unfamiliar fruit, so we chose three and tucked them in with the rest of our groceries.
Yellow
dragon fruit is native to northern South America. Botanically, it is a climbing
cactus that favors warm tropical climates, ranging from dry to humid.
The
plant produces spectacular nocturnal blooms known as the Queen of the Night.
Each creamy white flower can grow nearly a foot across and releases a sweet
perfume into the evening air, an open invitation to nighttime pollinators like
bats and moths.
Today,
yellow dragon fruit is still grown primarily in South America, though smaller
operations have appeared in Israel, Thailand, Vietnam, and parts of the United
States where the climate behaves properly.
Inside,
the fruit is exceptionally juicy and mild. It nearly dissolves on the tongue.
I’ve always found red dragon fruit, beautiful as it is, to be largely
flavorless. Yellow dragon fruit, however, has something to say. I like it.
—Mitchell
Hegman
I purchased an inexpensive underwater sport camera for an upcoming trip to the Philippines, and now I need to hire a team of scientists to put it together.
First
order of business, I downloaded instructions from the interweb and read through
them a bit. Actually, the camera itself isn’t terribly complicated; it’s
standard stuff: charge the battery, format the SD card, set the electronic
options to your liking. I can manage that, provided somebody smart (read:
Desiree here) can help me if I get a brain cramp.
The
mounting accessories are the impossibly complicated part of this toy. There are
handfuls of weird parts with ears and knobs and shoes and clamps for mounting
the camera to handlebars, helmets, vehicles, clothing, and possibly a UFO if
you can catch one.
To
simplify, I may just hold the camera in my hand while it’s tethered to my
wrist. I’ve posted a photograph of the camera and its attendant accessories.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Somewhere in the gene pool, a glitch occurred when the selections for me were being sorted out. Now, all these years later, this mistake in human design has left me stranded on Super Bowl Sunday.
I
won’t be watching the game. Here’s the thing: my genetic mistake makes watching
football entirely tedious for me. Over the course of my life, I have watched,
surrounded by others who were intensely thrilled, exactly one Super Bowl game.
Aside from that, I once watched almost the entirety of a regular football game
while captive at a bar in East Helena in the early 1980s.
The
sport evades me. It strikes me as a lot of standing around, followed by brief,
intense moments of people with helmets and numbers on them rioting whenever a
football is picked up off the ground.
They
migrate back and forth on a striped field doing this stuff.
Hmmm.
Instead
of watching the game today, I’m going to walk around in the scattered timber
below my house and look for chickadees. There seems to be a critical shortage
of them this year.
—Mitchell
Hegman
I’ve
developed a new habit. I’ve started talking to the drivers of other cars as I
negotiate traffic in town. Mind you, they can’t hear me. They’re in one car and
I’m in another. And I’m not bellowing at them. I’m actually speaking in my
calm, nurturing voice.
I
coax them along:
“Pay
attention, Dude… Stay in your lane… Right on red, Lady… Give me a signal… I go,
then you go… Easy peasy… Take your proper turn at the four-way…”
When
I’m driving alone, I talk my way through the entire trip. If I ever get in a
wreck, I can already see myself explaining it to the responding police officer.
“I told that guy not to pull out, officer. I said it twice.”
—Mitchell
Hegman
—Mitchell
Hegman
How long would you be willing to drive around a crash-repaired car with a mismatched hood, two off-color fenders, and a missing front driver’s-side hubcap?
—Mitchell
Hegman
I must admit, I like some forms of chaos. For starters, I like some of the rocks strewn around my house, especially the ones my sapphire-mining neighbor, Blaze Wharton, calls chaos stone. I’ve posted a photograph of a specimen I unearthed on my property, a stone alive with swirling, unruly colors.
Good
stuff.
For
the last week or so, Desiree and I have been working on another challenging
jigsaw puzzle. This one features a panda bear in a thicket of bamboo and is
rife with disparate colors. Yesterday, and I’m still not quite sure how I
pulled it off, I snapped together six pieces I consider pure chaos. Even
assembled, they look wrong, as if they don’t belong anywhere in the larger
picture. I set them aside as a little island of order and have yet to place
them properly in the puzzle.
I
like a good chaotic challenge now and then.
I’ve
posted photographs of the puzzle and the chaos pieces.
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—Mitchell
Hegman
Back in February of 2018, the Washington Post, for no apparent good reason, used a massive travel-time database developed by Oxford researchers to ask a deceptively simple question: how far are Americans from civilization? For the study, they defined civilization as a metro area of at least 75,000 people. Using these criteria, roughly 98 percent of people in the contiguous United States are anchored within an hour’s drive of an urban area.
Surprising.
But
the study also asked the inverse question: which town is the most remote?
The
answer landed in northeastern Montana. As it turns out, Glasgow, a prairie town
near the Canadian border, emerged as the most isolated town of its size in the
lower forty-eight, roughly four and a half hours from a city in any direction.
Once buoyed by a nearby Air Force base that closed in 1976, Glasgow now sits
amid distances measured in hundreds of miles. To most, it looks like the middle of nowhere; to
Montanans, it looks like room to breathe.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Johnny Cash was building a tall post-and-pole fence on his property when Genghis Khan rode up on one of his horses. Reaching Johnny, he dismounted and studied the fence. It struck him as straight and sturdy, the kind of work expected to last.
“You
have some skills,” Khan said. “Is the fence meant to keep things in or to keep
things out?”
Johnny
Cash nodded toward the horse. “I need to hold a pair of those inside.”
Genghis
Khan smiled at that. “Our Mongol war horses carried us to victory, but two horses
would never do. Each warrior rode three to five horses in rotation, so no
single mount was worn down while crossing long lands.”
Johnny
grinned. “I’m not planning any conquest beyond the fence.”
“I
understand. There is no need. Our achievements already stand,” Genghis Khan
said. “What do you consider your greatest success?”
Johnny
didn’t pause. “That’s easy. My love and partnership with June Carter.”
“You
fell into her burning ring of fire.”
“Happily,”
Johnny said. “And it centered me.”
They
talked a while longer as clouds slid overhead. At length, Genghis Khan swung
back onto his horse and rode off beside the stretch of newly completed fence,
the posts standing straight behind him.
—Mitchell
Hegman
February has arrived, but the weather is behaving badly. Here, the forecast calls for temperatures in the 50s over the next few days, which is a curious development for a month better known for shoving us down to -30, and occasionally into the -40s. At the same time, the eastern and southeastern parts of the country are being hammered by a bomb cyclone, delivering record snow and cold with little restraint.
You’ve
likely heard the old saying, “he doesn’t have the salt.” It’s usually reserved
for someone who softens when things harden, someone who looks capable right up
until the moment endurance is required. The phrase comes from a time when salt
meant survival more than flavor. Long before it sat on tables, salt preserved
meat through winter, sustained armies on the move, and kept bodies from failing
under heat and labor. To lack salt was to weaken or spoil, and over time it
became a way of describing people who simply don’t hold together under
pressure.
In
some of the places now getting battered, salt is used to melt and clear ice
from the roads, and they quite literally don’t have enough of it to fight their
way through the storm. Meanwhile, if you stop by a local grocery store here
today, you may spot a few residents wandering the aisles in shorts.
—Mitchell
Hegman
If you marry a tropical island girl from the Philippines and then drag her off to far-north Montana, you should expect to adopt a few houseplants as part of the deal. Island girls love plants, and in all likelihood, you will end up with some that produce edible parts or fruit and some that hang around just looking pretty.
None
of this qualifies as a bad thing in my estimation. I like a friendly plant.
Desiree,
not one to shirk her island girl duties, has filled our sunroom and available
window spaces throughout the house. We have nurtured indoor tomatoes,
eggplants, lemongrass, a lime tree, a lemon tree, and hordes of what I consider
“non-game” species. You know, the merely decorative ones. Among these are
several orchids.
Orchids
range from finicky to persnickety in matters of care. They have their own
regimens to adhere to: watering with ice cubes, keeping savage light at a
distance, and providing a soft touch with fertilizer. And, for those unaware,
regular old dirt can kill an orchid.
Recently,
to please a pair of rather muscular orchids, we had to import part of the
islands here to Montana in the form of chipped coconut husks, ideal stuff for
transplanting orchids.
Fortunately,
I can leave all these island details to Desiree. My skinny old Christmas cactus
is fine with standard-issue potting soil.
—Mitchell
Hegman
There are occasions when weird things are in order. One of those occasions arrives while driving across Montana on the Interstate highway system. To be more precise, it involves stopping to use the bathroom. And drilling down further, it has to do with the walls inside some of the newer rest areas.
I
actually get excited as we approach them. If I’m traveling with someone new, I
always offer a bit of instruction: “When we go inside, you have to touch the
walls.”
“What?”
is the usual response.
“You
have to touch the walls. Just trust me.”
So
far, nearly everyone who has followed through has been impressed. Many of them
make a habit of touching the walls on every return visit.
The
rest area walls are a tactile incongruity. They’re made of concrete block, so
you expect cold and abrasive. Instead, they’re warm and soft. Almost velvety.
The blocks have been sprayed with a clear finish that completely transforms the
surface.
I
highly recommend getting a little weird and touching the walls if you visit any
of the new rest stops along our interstates. I’ve posted a photo of Desiree
doing just that at the westbound rest stop near Columbus, Montana.
Desiree and I are spending our last day in Colstrip, a town thoroughly steeped in the coal industry. It isn’t just home to a coal-fired power plant; it’s encompassed by coal mines as well, a virtual hub of industry. And in case you somehow lose track of where you are, the motel where we’re staying offers a helpful reminder: a sign posted beside the door leading into the common hallway. I’ve shared a photograph of it so you can see for yourself, just in case you needed the confirmation.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Montana is known for its mountains. In fact, the name Montana is derived from the Spanish word montaña, which in turn comes from the Latin montanea, meaning “mountain” or, more broadly, “mountainous country.”
But
mountains are only half the story. Drive east for an hour or two after crossing
the Continental Divide and you may pass an island mountain range or two, but
eventually you will find yourself in the “Big Open.” This is country that
surrenders the vertical ambitions of the western half of the state and applies
itself instead to horizontal expanses and a sky that feels structurally vital.
At times it is all sky, save for the two-lane highway threading ahead into what
feels like the nearest thing to infinity.
Yesterday,
Desiree and I drove nearly six hours east, much of it through the Big Open, to
reach Colstrip, Montana. There is something to love about not encountering
another car on the highway for nearly an hour and passing through tiny towns
where a single grain elevator serves as standard bearer. We drove through river
bottoms and badlands, alongside ragged ravines, and across broad plains.
I am
not opposed to this sky-bound country.
Not
at all.
I
have posted a “driving on” photograph taken through the windshield of our car
as we sailed into the widening landscape.
—Mitchell
Hegman
This
is brief, lovely, and entirely to the point. Don’t miss the video I am sharing
today:
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RTPDDeRat2A
—Mitchell
Hegman
Desiree and I have been watching a series called The Surgeon’s Cut. The series documents brilliant surgeons on the leading edge of skill and technology in whatever their chosen specialty may be. Honestly, these are people performing miracles.
Watching
one of these surgeons perform life-or-death surgery on a baby still inside the
womb, with exactly no room for error, I thought about the way I have remodeled
various rooms around the house. All the miscalculations. Boards cut too short.
Nails and screws missing the mark. Long pauses, staring at the wall, trying to
figure out what comes next.
You
should feel profoundly grateful I’m not your surgeon.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Once again, the title I’ve tagged to this blog delivers a glancing blow to accuracy. Per usual, the problem I’m about to expose is less about my soft water system and more about me.
First,
a brief look at water softening systems. They’re tasked with removing minerals
that make domestic water “hard.” They do this by passing raw water through a
tank filled with resin beads that attract and hold those minerals. Over time,
the system saturates with what I will call “gunk” and requires flushing. Salt
is the agent used for that flushing. To that end, I’m regularly required to
purchase and pour salt pellets into a plastic tank feeding the system.
A
problem called “bridging” sometimes occurs inside the salt tank. Bridging
happens when water causes the loose salt to form a solid crust or mass, making
transfer into the beads ineffective.
On
occasion, this bridged salt must be broken apart. This is where you enter
Mitch, stage left. And this is where the danger comes in.
Yesterday,
my tool of choice for breaking up the salt was a long, serrated bread knife.
One
could argue that a knife of any kind should never be my tool of choice for
anything, but we are well beyond that point. I’ll spare you the precise details
of what followed. Let’s just say serrated knives, salt, and Mitch form a
disadvantaged mix. As you can see in the photograph I’ve posted, I now have a
bandage on the pinky finger of my left hand. And finally, that thing they say
about salt in the wound. I can confirm the accuracy of that claim.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Here is my latest self-assessment. I am as follows:
And,
to toss proper math out the window, I’m 100% enamored with Desiree Hegman.
—Mitchell
Hegman
A chill wind unbound two of last year’s fallen linden leaves from the grass and sent them skittering across the drive, only to catch on the grass on the far side. Now they remain there, clutching one another. As witness to this, I am to find meaning, and I find none.
This
has nothing to do with love, or worldly events, or the magpie that unfurled and
sailed over at the same time. This is simply two leaves sent forth only to get
stuck in a new place.
This
is something that is nothing.
—Mitchell
Hegman
