Really? It's been a week?

My neighbors have turned out to be interesting, observable people. Our windows are very close, about 30 feet. In the evenings it has been warm, so I keep my windows and blinds open. There is little or no activity next door for much of the day, but around 10pm, there is feverish cleaning in the kitchen each night, and I can catch people talking, and the noise of dishes in the sink. I can't count how many different people live there, because there's so much activity. The lights in the house stay on all night, but all curtains are drawn for the day.

For the past couple days, I've been driving and walking around, finding what's here. I'm pleased to report that a lot of things downtown are very close to my apartment. The laundromat with espresso/ice cream bar (oh, and an arcade corner) inside is two blocks down the street. An independent record store is another block west, with a bookstore a little ways more. After the farmer's market this morning, I wandered that way. Around noon, there was an awful scraping noise in the street. It was a pitbull, who'd been tied to flimsy sidewalk bench. He was dragging the entire bench down the busy, four lane street, teeth bared. Both the dog and bench seemed in agony. Someone a ways up was able to catch the traveling chaos.

I found out about the well known, now-dismantled Missoula landmark, the Missoula Peace Sign. Built around 1978 by part of the community, in correlation with the Nuclear Disarmament Movement, a 30' x 30' billboard of sorts was constructed on one of the hillsides overlooking the city. Built without the appropriate permission of the utility company who apparently owned the site, it was removed in 2001. There's now another movement to rebuild the Peace Sign, and organize a sustainable structure at the former site. The Peace Sign movement has garnered a series of eye-catching logos, that I've seen on numerous bumpers around the city, and I finally found the source of them. Yay for grassroots, peace-related community involvement.

Also, found a great new record, by the Magnolia Electric Co. Apparently they played in town here just last week, but I hadn't heard anything about them until this morning. A song of theirs was playing in a clothing store I was in, and I heard people discussing them. Fantastic, Wilco-esque sound ( but I think I compare a lot to Wilco, just like I tend to compare bands in relation to Franz Ferdinand. I must not have a good ear.) In fact, I can't believe I missed their gig by such a small margin. They played the night I arrived to Missoula. One of the band members blogs about being on tour, road-trip related car troubles, and [allow me a little self-serving plug] briefly about Missoula here.

Also picked up some new poetry, Christopher Cessac and Dana Levin, because I'd not heard of them. Cessac's collection was published by the now dismantled Zoo Press (lamentable), so I snatched it up. On the initial thumb-through, Levin had some captivating titles to her poetry.

After a week of spending, I'm in self-imposed financial lockdown. At least until the next book comes along. Only by staying in my apartment can I avoid spending, it seems. But it gets tedious and lonely here in my glorified-one-room home. I could barely stop myself from talking to an ant on the wall of the bathroom today. I laid ant traps, because the ants have been climbing wholesale from the shower faucet (why they willingly climb toward the source of water, I have no idea), and this particular ant had not yet found the poison. Yelling didn't help. I guess I'm now in the ant killing business. Reclusive insanity is not my friend. I'm going for a walk. Or maybe taking a nap. And then cooking, because I found some good recipes, and I need to diversify my menu.

Alas, no interesting photos to report. However, I was looking through a warranty pamphlet for one of my many electronics I bought (clock? phone? I don't remember). Explicitly stated as on of the reasons the warranty would be void was "Acts of God, wind, hail, rain, snow ... damage..."
"Acts of God"? Are you kidding me. Separation of church and warranty literature, please. It struck me as SO out of place there in the technical, trivial jargon, as though a $20 phone was worth me requesting warranty service, and somehow god had to be involved in the procedure. How could an "act of God" be documented, or lawfully refuted? How about "acts of weather", those can be witnessed, documented, and void a warranty. Precipitation, gales, waves, tumbleweed infestations, sand storms and the like are all weather-related phenomenon. Argh. I'm bitter. I better go chat up another ant soon.