October 29th, 2020. Rain rain rain.

I Love the sound of the rain. I always have. I Love the feel of it. It’s an all over reminder that you’re covered in skin. A thorough reminder of the physicality of the world around you that also drapes things in mists, hiding the streets around you while muting light yet somehow heightening colour. Everything is richer in the rain.

It hasn’t been raining LONG… Saturday Kristen and I took my mom for lunch down in Ellicott City when the sun was shining and the air was warm!

The smells sometimes leave something to be desired though. Here in Catonsville, right on the very edge of Baltimore I guess it depends on which way the wind is blowing and whether the Harbor is somehow backing into the gutters and backwashing our way. Baltimore has many fine qualities but in the rain it tends to smell a bit of wet dog, and in HEAVY rains can smell distinctly of dead fish. The wind blows the wrong way and we can get a fair amount of it here in Catonsville, but if the wind blows the other direction its mulch and leaves and soil. I know there was no chance they were going to be on OUR side of Charm City, but my olfactory wishes were Dashed (haha) when they moved in with Underarmor over by Fort McHenry.

There shall be no change of the winds here in Catonsville.

Btw. This is ALL I DO. Record cello! That’s a lie. I do a lot. And I Love recording my wife playing cello ( and I recently changed things up a bit and really, really Love the tone I’m getting ) but since no-one ever photographs me doing stuff, I only get photos of the stuff I do to others.

Is the wind changing anywhere else? I can’t tell. I don’t think ANYONE can tell. I tell people to vote and people may well feel that’s too middling of a sentiment nowadays – and yet I feel middling is a) what we’re missing and b) funnily enough “get out and vote” is generally a leftist message. Somehow telling someone to express themselves without telling them what to express is quite liberal. Being conservative seems to mean only agreeing to let someone have a voice if they’re going to say what you want them to.

And the rain comes down. Unprecedented fire season. Unprecedented hurricane season. Unprecedented early voting and an almost unprecedented pandemic. We Live beyond Interesting Lives in Interesting Times – we Live in Unprecedented Times. I wish I knew what Terry Pratchett would’ve written.

My brain whirls on trite expressions.

A liberal’s a conservative who’s never been mugged.

A conservative’s a liberal who’s given up.

Completely unrelated to an increase in religiosity ( I think ). Back in Ellicott City for a THIRD time in a week, I met up with Dave Eisner to do a consultation for a sound and streaming install at a church. T’was a good time had that eventually involved me breaking out my Mackie Thumps from my trunk and demonstrating how sound would travel inside this beautiful 200 year-old space.

There are no atheists in foxholes.

I don’t remember where I heard the first one but I think I made the second one up. I heard the third one just today. I was listening to an interview with an author who was giving his thoughts on the long term psychological effects COVID-19 was going to have on our society and he was talking about how we’re seeing an increase in “religiosity” which will probably drop off again as the virus is brought to heel (we are brought to heal).

Well. I’ll continue to sit back, listening to the rain and the neighbour’s dog whine. There’s a song in all of it.