Bugged

A crane fly was trapped in my room. I discovered it when it tried to fly into my monitor, attracted by the bright light. After I turned the monitor off, it flew around the room for a while and then landed on a window. I was able, with some difficulty, to wrangle it toward the screen which I had opened, and it finally flew out into the moonlit night where it rode away on the cool breeze. I like crane flies, but they are not very smart. I've found that a common housefly will usually find an opening to the outdoors quicker than a crane fly will. Well, maybe the crane flies just don't see as well. I wonder how many of them I have to shoo out since I've lived here? Probably hundreds. In the warm part of the year, I have to do it a few times a week. I have no idea how they get into the house to begin with, but there have been times when I've seen three or four here at a time. It's always sad when I go into the bathroom and find that one has drowned in the toilet. I've always kept the lid down, because the cats will drink out of it, so the crane flies must make their way through that small gap below the seat.

Another thing I don't know is why I have written an entire paragraph about crane flies. (And here I am starting off a second paragraph by writing still more about them!) There is so much more stuff in my head that I could be writing about, but none of it is clear enough to focus my attention. The bugs with translucent wings and spindly legs have more presence in my mind than countless things that are undoubtedly of greater importance. I wish I could open a screen in my head and let those ideas fly out, but it looks as though they are even dumber than the crane flies, or my brain less well designed than a window.

My favorite month has arrived, and here I am with no idea what to do with it. Not that I'm at liberty to do all that much, in any case, but I always feel that I ought to do something this time of year. I need a project of some sort that is within my means, and can be fitted into those odd moments I can claim as my own. Each May brings this desire, and this year the desire is all the stronger for the fact that the hand basket containing the world appears to be plummeting Hellward with astonishing rapidity. Watching the thickening leaves dapple the spiky lawn with afternoon shadows and seeing the waxing moon flood each increasingly balmy night with brighter light is all very nice, but I feel the need to participate somehow in all this burgeoning growth. I will, of course, write something, if my thinking process clears up sufficiently for me to focus my attention. But I find that each year I grow more dissatisfied with my lack of some larger goal. In short, I want that screen to be opened. If it happens, I just hope that I have the wit to find my way out.

Oh, yeah: Happy May Day -- and may the best long shot win.

Briefly

At this moment, I am watching the most marvelous sunset of the year. Rumpled bands of orange, pink and lavender clouds silhouetting the pines and, in a deepening blue patch just above them, the bright pinpoint of Venus, the only star yet visible. It's quite splendid.

It must be cool up there among those clouds. The forest has been hot today, and the leaves unstirred by any breath of breeze all evening. I watched the spiky lawn next door get mowed, and now I'm listening to the chattering lawn sprinkler with which the ravaged grass is being dampened. The air remains so still that no scent of it reaches me. I have the fan on, trying to bring a bit of coolness into the room, but it isn't working very well. Sluggo will soon protest by showing me his blue screen. I guess I'll be spending the early night outdoors with the crickets.