Idea Bombardment

Man o man what a morning. Thanks to NPR my little brain is all awhir. First of all I started my day by meeting a real estate agent in my little town of Everson to view a building that has housed several restaurants over the last few years. It was huge inside and very strangely laid out. Empty restaurants are sad places but I am happy to report it was clean and pretty bright. He walked me around and even gave me a few useful handouts about the building and about the restaurant business generally. I felt overwhelmed. What am I thinking. He also tipped me off that another restaurant adjacent to this failed one is for sale. Interesting...

When I got back to the office and settled down to work I heard (again on NPR) a great piece by Julia Sweeney on Earth Day. Happy Earth Day by the way. She is apparently switching her focus from comedy to Science. Now this really struck me. I like Julia Sweeney, she seems smart. She has been a performer for some time and perhaps like me got a bit bored with what she was doing and what does she do? She turns to Science not the hospitality industry. Fodder for deep thought.

I too was once more interested in Science. For years when I was young if you asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, the answer was be a Pharmacist. What I am trying to figure out is was this answer due in large part to my dad owning a building that housed the local drugstore and because he was a doctor we had intimate knowledge of the mezzanine level where the Pharmacy was and it was also the place I bought all my candy.

Now I am listening to a guy who has written a novel about our culture returning to an agrarian economy without oil or electricity. You know what? It excites me. No computers, only handcranked presses, and treddle sewing machines, all the work we would have to do is to grow our own food and figure out how to preserve it through the winter.

World Made by Hand: A Novel by James Howard Kunstler