This is Bill Wyman, the late-blooming lilac behind the back porch. The varietal is actually named “Donald Wyman,” but we changed this guy’s name to Bill early on.

Let’s focus on the positive. I was stymied trying to fully surround my spring plot with rabbit-deterrent chicken wire. But I got a good start. And just look at that lettuce.

I had a few hours of Me Time this afternoon (because I have to WORK tomorrow).

I engaged in some retail therapy!

Currently reading Levon Helm’s autobiography. May switch to a Band kick soon.

Isn’t he a prize?

We got the rototiller running, unreliably. But I got to use it a little before it got too dark to see. I love having that machine. It takes clumpy composted muck and makes it soil, it feels magic.

First time was July 1986, with my boyfriend David. Bought me tickets for my 17th birthday. True Confessions tour with Tom Petty. I got a polinoidal cyst days before, but I made it anyway.

I went at least one other time with David. I remember people rushed the stage. I ran up too and saw Bob’s face. Frankly he looked a bit scared.

I went one time in college. I was between boyfriends and had no one to go with. Margaret suggested her friend Phil. He was Ken’s brother. I hadn’t met Ken yet. Ken was living in Pennsylvania. I went with Phil. It wasn’t a date. We thought he played good guitar.

I went once with Margaret. Bob sucked that night and Margaret didn’t like it.

I went at least once with Ken when we were dating. I remember the first time. It was in New Jersey. We played a game trying to be the first one trying to identify the song.

Then famously once I saw Bob in Burlington, Vermont, by myself. It was my first trip to Vermont. I was with Aunt Alice. Bob just happened to be playing Burlington that night. She didn’t want to go. I bought one ticket at Pure Pop and saw him at Memorial Auditorium. He was fantastic.

I went once at the Champlain Valley Expo on a triple bill with Willie Nelson and Mellencamp. Xopher came and didn’t enjoy it.

Finally I last saw him in 2017. I met up with Ken in Montreal to see him. Xopher came for the trip; Ken & I saw Bob and X went and did something else.

There may have been more times with David and more times with Ken that I don’t remember explicitly.

I think this ticket must have been the time with Margaret. $22.50, jeez.

We were out & about today. I spent money gratuitously. I bought yarn because I got a hankering (get it hank) to make a yellow-ish scarf because I totally am in danger of freezing to death due to a sore lack of scarves. I bought a book of baking for two because YES I have tons of baking books and YES I have tons of books on cooking for two BUT DID I HAVE A BOOK ON BAKING FOR TWO? NO! I also bought wine.

“That very opposition, sacred versus secular, however, is in itself typically Western. It is a sign of a significant rupture that never existed in the same degree in other cultures, and should never have existed in our own. It is the result of the progressive sequestration of the sacred, whatever is by definition of the highest possible value, from the centre, to its present ghetto on the margins, of Western mental life.” Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things. A humongous tome I am 58% through, but it’s on Kindle, so I have no idea how much of it is footnotes/bibliography, though I suspect quite a bit.