The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names. (E. O. Wilson, as cited by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal, Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson)

Friday, August 5, 2011

Wonder about Toothed, Untoothed, Leaves

August 5, 2010.  Thursday.
Situation:  I have to work both tonight and this afternoon, or, as Moi would put it, as soon as I can get my ass moving.  I’m going to take Mway for a walk now.  It’s 10:21.  I already spent an hour or more online searching black chokeberries, and I’ve gathered quite a bit of information, helpful or not I don’t know: “leaves are alternate, simple, oblanceolate with crenate margins and pinnate venation; leaves have terminal glands on leaf teeth and glabrous underside.”
State of the Path:  Quick jaunt down to the creek and back.  Note two boneset plants right at the pig pen.  At the start of bug land, look again at the “black chokeberry bush,” looming over 8 feet tall.  Putting aside the question of the flowers, which I don’t remember anything about now, this plant would fit the bill for “black chokeberry,” except its leaves don’t look toothed.  Just how toothed are these leaves suppose to be?  Then when I get to the swale from bug land, where there are a lot of these bushes, I run into a bush that does have toothed leaves.  I look around me, and I see a couple of these bushes with toothed leaves, but none of them have berries, and they are surrounded by bushes with berries, but with leaves that don’t look toothed.  What am I suppose to make of this?
State of the Creek:  Though there was a brief storm last night, it didn’t put any more water into the creek.  Vinyl siding still between 2 and 3 feet away from the edge of the water.
The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, two small plants with big white flowers.  “Damn it,” I think, “Another plant to find the name for.”  Just one fetch – and that’s good.  Got to get my ass moving.

3 comments:

sisyphus gregor said...

My first encounter with Camus was in 1972 in a high school English class on the modern novel, taught by a teacher who many years later, if I remember correctly from my talks with another teacher, was fired or quit because of his Don Juan-like activities. This teacher, a favorite of mine, lectured on the absurd, and on what you can do about it, very well. I recall that he used the word “lucidity” a lot. I got a lot of ribbing from classmates whenever “The Myth of Sisyphus” was mentioned, as I did whenever we had to read “The Metamorphosis,” but the notion of the absurd resonated with those of us who had begun reading such writers as Kafka, Herman Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey. For this blog, I pulled the famous last sentence from Camus’ essay for use as an epigraph solely in a metaphorical way and without any serious regard whether or not the journal was in anyway aligned with Camus’ ideas. But after having looked again at Camus’ essay, I think I can say that during the year I was writing about our walks I was probably the absurd absurd man, committed, with indifference to the future, to the consumption of large quantities of experience regardless of the quality. But before and after it seems that perhaps I’m making some sort of appeal, that I hold out the hope for something. Eternal pity perhaps? Eternal evasion?

sisyphus gregor said...

It occurs to me, after I’ve said so much about being influenced by Beckett, that my situation might actually be just the opposite of his -- the predicament of having something to express, the means to express, the desire to express, but no obligation to express, or even -- the obligation not to express.

sisyphus gregor said...

M., “unemployment insurance” is what I mean when I refer to Jazz receiving unemployment. I have an economics textbook on my shelf, but it only discusses unemployment insurance in passing as part of a discussion of income inequality, so if you’ve looked at this book at any point I could see you might not have fully learned what unemployment insurance is. If you want to know more, I suggest you go online to wikipedia. I fear for Jazz because she was fired from her job and might not qualify for benefits (she’s told Moi that since she was fired a friend of her boss was hired in her place). FYI, neither you or I would qualify for unemployment insurance benefits if we lost our jobs because we are both part-time and self-employed (I’m double part-time, but that makes no difference). Dennis Dennehy, whom you know very well, has been on unemployment for years since he lost his job, although I think it’s now run out for him. Somewhere around 60 years old, he’s about given up all hope of finding a job. Ezra Glock’s wife, Midge, also lost her job, is also at the age she’s having trouble finding another one, and her unemployment has just run out also. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie suddenly comes to my mind. I think I have a copy on the shelf which you might want to look at sometime if you haven’t already.