Little Ronnie Howard

            On Monday morning, after the ploughs had pushed most of our first little snowstorm off of Queen Street, there was one big round boulder of snow in between the two sets of streetcar tracks. It had been nudged off the road by the next pass of the plough by the time I’d finished yoga. The streets look so beautiful just after a snowstorm but disgustingly dirty and brown after they’ve been “cleaned” by the city, with the long banks on each side looking like a tainted mottled mess of filthy, dead and cold cancer tumors and the streets themselves suddenly darker with puddles in their gutters that are a hell of grey slush and I pity the inmates that walk through them.

            I’m feeling fat these days. I probably eat less and exercise more than ever but I guess my metabolism is slowing down, so I’ll have to make some adjustments in my diet again.

            I had the most relaxed day that I’ve had in months. I’m caught up with my journal for the first time since June, so I was able to work on a poem; I read some of Michael Ondaatje’s “The Complete Works of Billy the Kid”; I started to organize my library and to make a document that lists my books in order; I changed a couple of guitar strings and now my guitar sounds brilliant (I wonder if it will ever sink in that I should do that more often) and I worked on the cover that will never be done for my book that’s been done for years.

            I watched an episode of Johnny Ringo that guest starred little Ronnie Howard at the age of five. That was his first year on television and he’s been in the business every since. He must have really had good parents because he doesn’t seem like it fucked him up very much.