Ear wax victory! Left ear was almost completely plugged up last evening, playing with it would clear it momentarily, used drops for 30+ minutes just before bed, still plugged. This morning I looked again with the Bebird, not much different (couldn’t see any wax in the right ear, though it still feels weird), used drops for 30+ minutes again, used syringe with water — and a clump came out! Waited a bit, took another look, still a lump of wax but with a visible hole (could hear pretty good, actually), decided to have one more go at it with the syringe — and the rest came out! Looked again, couldn’t see any wax … I’m going to declare this round done. Though I did order sodium bicarbonate drops which will be here tomorrow, I think I’ll just let those come, to have on hand for the next very likely round of this.
Started Koyaanisquatsi last night, finished it this morning. Excellent film. Feeling more strongly than ever that I should lean toward rewatching/rereading good stuff, I don’t remember things nearly as much as I thought I did, the experience is often very new (or I see different things with older eyes), and it’s often more fun than watching something new (after starting new things recently I’ve abandoned quite a few, just not enjoying them). So I’ll watch the rest of the trilogy, and finally get around to Visitors.
Haven’t gotten to the yardwork yet (just after lunch right now), but it’s actually very cool and breezy right now. It wasn’t going to be an all-day project anyway, so I’ll wait for things to warm up a bit more and then venture out.
The Meijer’s jug of distilled water turns out to have a crack in it, was leaking, put it in a large dish for now. And a bit more research revealed that just about all distilled water is steam distilled, so no need to go to Lexington for it if I want more.
(Later …) Did some weed chopping, somewhere between 30min and an hour. It will take awhile! I don’t know if I will go back out today, but definitely tomorrow, and probably daily in the early morning, it’s decent exercise and steady application should get the whole area chopped in a couple of weeks. As I do that I’ll be thinking about what to do next to the ground. Lots of stumpy stuff, need to know if tilling will deal with it.
Started Powaqqatsi. Amazing. Looked at the Wikipedia entries, surprised to see that the films weren’t all that well received, less so as they went on. I think partly because they are non-narrative, no story, you have to supply one from your own knowledge. What I see is informed heavily by my “secret history” studies. Like the opening of Powaqqatsi, endless men carrying endless bags of dirt from the bottom of a pit to the top … the pit being someone’s gold mine. Mining. Precious metals. After just having finished Imperial San Francisco … yikes! Followed by scenes of third world life, hard but not industrialized … one reviewer said what they saw was “lots of two kinds of dirt”, neither of them appealing, I assume meaning that whatever the drawbacks of modernity, at least it delivered us from the horrors of pre-industrialism. I see dirt too, but it means something different to me.