There may be individuals, I suppose there must be, who can continue uphill, pushing a worthy long-shot project, undaunted by the continual climb, the lack of landmarks, fellow-travelers, encouragement, the barren landscape.   Could be part of the myth of the rugged individual, of course, the invigorating but pernicious idea that one person, alone, can create a community to play a small role in changing horror into hope.   There are the usual outliers, guys like Don Trump, who start with nothing and wind up– or who start with relatively little, a few million, say… and…. ah, fuck Trump and the Trump he rode in on.

There is, it is written, a time to reap and a time to sow.  There are other worthy projects I’ve been neglecting as I neglect the larger one, an ambitious undertaking that has already showed its potential to do what it purports to do.   Few alive today are aware of its great potential, true, but, anyway, it seems a good time to list and try to advance the other worthy projects I must also put my back into.  Progress in one thing helps in another.

Among the 901 posts I have put on this blagh since August of 2012 there are a dozen or more that can be raked into the approximate bones of the Book of Irv, the tragic and illuminating story of my difficult father.   There are posts on my mother, an equally compelling character, probably another dozen.   One of each of these story types was published, in abbreviated form, for a small but decent payday.  You can see them here and here.  Although each bears the mark of sometimes arbitrary editing, the small violence done to my prose, the random insertion of a cliche here and there– a very small price to pay for the nice cash money I received for them.

There are several posts about animals, my ongoing vigilance against doing harm, musings on friendship, etc.   Each should be raked into a little pile, organized, submitted somewhere for money.

Of course, when I write of raking into little piles and organizing, the chaos in here strikes an ironic pose, winks at me saucily.  “You want to rake some piles and do some organizing, my friend?  Really?  Heh.”   I should take these sprawling dunes of paper, drawing books, boxes, cords, rulers, cutting boards, sunscreen, dropper bottles, rubber stamps, dead electronic devices, hats, zipper bags, music books and many other odd items and tame them, one by one.  Would make everything else much easier, no question.  One small triumph inspires the next.

There is also the memory of the excellent advice an adjunct professor in law school gave us at the end of that last semester.  When you study for the bar exam, he said, treat it like you are in training for a grueling fight.  Set a daily schedule of study, keep to it, but also eat well, work out, get enough sleep every night.  You need to be in the best shape of your life, he told us, mentally and physically.  Sitting for hours studying means you’ll need to schedule daily time for exercise.  The exercise will also help you unwind from your studies and improve your sleep.  I took him at his word and rode the bike for an hour every night.  It helped a lot as I passed two bar exams in three days.

After long days at the computer, mostly distracting myself, I rode my bike, briefly, each of the last two nights.  It was good to be rolling again, if also a little sobering to be reminded– when you get back on the bike it takes a while to build up to where you want to be.  Those hills you conquered on nightly rides in the past will kick your ass until you build back up to being able to kick their asses.  I’ve been there before, needing to get back into shape, getting back into better shape.  It is a pleasure when you do, a struggle to get back there, a longer struggle the longer you neglect to begin.

Like so many other things in life, my friend.