fierce wind

oh there is so much good here in the land of collapse---shout out to Daniel Joseph Martinez who is heroic and damaged and hyper and california but he came to chicago for just one day. thank you Daniel for the critical matrix of materialism and artninja and semiotic landscape that is your work. Google him, people.
god, we just damage each other endlessly. our downstairs neighbor A. got her apartment trashed by thieves who took her daughter's new computer. the police said whoever did it may have made friends with the dog before they broke in. well, at least the dog has a new friend...
ha ha
someone in northern wisconsin saw what looked to him like 50,000 ducks this morning.
for those just tuning in, this blog is about birds and birding as a practice and a process of being open and available to the world. but i haven't even picked up my binocculars in like 2 weeks almost so now i am writing about other things.
a man mumbled at me today on the street, mumbled insistently and indignantly--indignant, i suppose, that i said i could not understand him. it was a perfect illustration of our broken language, i think--i don't know but i think he was asking me for money. i told him the truth, that i had nothing but the minimum i needed to get through the day--and i THINK he asked if he could give me a hug. i think thats what he asked, but i'll never know, because i chose to end it there and said NO in an authoritative voice, placing a warning hand on the man's arm. why did i do that? because i felt irritated. not frightened, not threatened, just annoyed that this man was still in my face mumbling like he thought i could understand him. do people answer him when he does that? do they answer the questions they think he might have asked, and does he accept the answers or keep on asking? he ambled away as the bus came and knelt for me.