Day 1

"I reel in confusion; I don't understand what I see. With the naked eye I can see two million light-years to the Andromeda galaxy. Often I slop some creek water in a jar and when I get home I dump it in a white china bowl. After the silt settles I return and see tracings of minute snails on the bottom, a planarian or two winding round the rim of water, roundworms shimmying frantically, and finally, when my eyes have adjusted to these dimensions, amoebae."

"Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard

I spent part of my first day catching up on reading, Pilgrim being one of the two books I intend to finish this week. That's optimistic considering how think is the writing of Dillard but what makes it great is her absolute attention to detail. What turns the attention into art is her ability to take the detail and find the right words. In an earlier chapter she referred to a turtle being "smooth as a bean." Who notices how smooth is a bean? Who saves that memory as a description?

To do it with people is one thing. But in writing about things, actual entities is another because it requires not just attention but knowledge of the thing itself. How do you know the difference between a water bug and a beetle? You'd better for the kind of writing Dillard does.

I fear I'm too lazy for that.

***

I wouldn't consider my first furlough -- or in NewSpeak, "firstlough" -- day to have been a success. Not enough reading. Not enough writing. I did travel to suburban Chicago to record a clip for my wine blog, http://theredneckoenophile.blogspot.com/. Half a day shot for a one-minute clip. But in order to keep up with the pace of multimedia needed today, it was worth it. I went to Sam's in Downers Grove, the great chain wine store in Chicago, where I met Bruce who's collected wines for 30 years. After talking about great French wines for less than $20 in a clip that will last seconds, I told him he could view the clip in a couple of days. But he's off to France in days, Bordeaux I think, to find what he can find.

***

A quick lunch in Bolingbrook on my way back found me drinking six beers at the chain restaurant Gordon Biersch. Not the full pints you'd expect but six tasting snits that together add up to about one pint. The surprise was a Hefewiezen, a unfiltered beer that still has yeast in it. I scoffed at the tasting notes, which said I'd detect banana and cloves. And then I detected banana and cloves.

***

I received "The Brothers Karamazov" in the mail today, the next book on my reading list. Although my initial hope was to finish reading that book this week, when I see the size of it, I doubt I will succeed.

I think it's about a circus act.

***

As much as I enjoyed a few minutes at Sam's and my snit of banana and cloves, I look back at the day and wonder how much time I wasted on the road. Driving is never really driving, either, as you listen to the radio, talk on the cell phone or with passengers but in none of these are you truly engaged in any one thing. Full concentration is just you and a thing, even if that thing is meditation, which is not supposed to be a thing but of course it is because it's an activity you're trying to partake in.

Sunday will be a day of concentration, whether it is the Sunday New York Times, my intended hike at the Indiana Dunes State Park or, hopefully, the last six holes of The Masters -- a strange addiction I picked up despite not being a sports fan. If I don't watch the last six or so holes of The Masters, I feel like I missed mass.