As I've mentioned a few times before, there's a city park directly across the street from the house. According to the locals its been here for at least forty years, but over the summer it got a renovation after falling into disrepair and now it is a Very Nice Park. There's a playground and a lighted pavilion and a drinking fountain for both humans and dogs. There are benches and tables and several massive shade trees - pecan, oak, and, yes, persimmon. It's all very well tended and watched over by the people of the neighbourhood, and every other week there seems to be a cookout or a birthday party going on. It's nice to see. What isn't so nice is the rather ridiculous amount of garbage people leave strewn about. There are some things that a playground is just bound to accumulate - otter pop wrappers, plastic spoons, the odd sock - but honestly, a half-full Big Gulp? An empty Church's box? Old cigarette packs? That's not kids being irresponsible, it's adults who can't be arsed to walk the nine desolate feet between the park bench and the municipal trash can. It shouldn't bother me, really. People have been doing this since the days when farming was just a madcap scheme in the head of some enterprising hunter-gatherer type. We built our encampments on clamshell middens and bones. Early middle eastern civilizations rose and fell atop gigantic tells made of old building materials. If people didn't leave garbage everywhere they went, archaeologists in a hundred years would be out of a job. I just worry a bit when WALL-E begins to look less like a fantasy film and more like some sort of grimdark documentary into the planet's swiftly oncoming future.

I found what I think is a persimmon tree in the park across the street. It's currently dropping small, orange-peach fruits all over the sidewalk - they look something like a plum, with six or seven flat, pumpkinish seeds inside each.

Having never learned the old adage, 'putting unidentified fruits in your mouth will get you an instant place in the Darwin Awards', I dissected and tasted a bit of one. It turned my mouth inside out like some sort of sensory Gestapo.

So yeah, I think they're persimmons. Said to be edible, but ... I think I'll wait for the local pecan crop instead.

Edit: At least the pecans are yielding well. I picked half a bag full of unripe ones off the ground, and there are still plenty more on the tree. The squirrels aren't going quite as crazy as the Leicester Chestnut Brigade, but it's early days yet.

Cormac McCarthy

Reading Cormac McCarthy novels is like eating a really big meal with lots of awesome tastes thrown in - the most extravagant, impossible to pin down flavours you could ever imagine - but every once in awhile this withered old hobo comes in and sits down next to you, reeking of piss and peppermints and caked filth. As he picks his nose and wipes it on the sole of his shoe, he gives a soliloquy about man's place in the universe, the whims of fate, and the inscrutability of meaning. Then he sodomizes the librarian sitting across the table to death and wears her labia as earmuffs for the rest of dinner.

Trickster Blues

'Trickster Blues' will be up in the October issue of Reflection's Edge, just in time for Halloween. I'm well chuffed it finally found a home.

And with that, I have one foot on the writing rung. Let's see where it leads.