I had a wonderful run on the rocky rockpile beside
my shack today. I am in love with the mountain. The
mountain does not need to be so beautiful. I would
be in love with it even if it was only half as beautiful.
And it is just outside my door, right here!

We had a cool, chilly, damp morning. I dressed warmly
and ran for about 90 minutes. I did beaucoups of
pushups throughout the run, in four sets. Then get
up again, catch my breath for a couple minutes and
continue on running.

Now I am gonna work on my stretches, naked as a blue
jay down on the floor.

There was a forest fire on one of the mountains
near Montréal today. Mt. Royal, which is just
outside my door is one part of a chain of small
rocky mounds. They never were really big mountains.

Mt. Ste. Hilaire had a fire today. The provincial
gov't sent water bombers to dump water on it.

I am really worried about the dryness of the forest
right here on Mt. Royal, the big huge sprawling
park with universities, cemeteries, recreation spaces
with many trails for running, walking, cycling, skiing.

Ever since the student protests last year, there has
been much less respect for shared public spaces,
and one measure of that is the number of bonfires
in the park. The student protests brought about a
general deterioration of civil togetherness. Following
a demonstration by the Carré Rouge students, at the
big monument, I counted at least 7 fires all around.

Somehow the students think that the police should stop
whatever they were doing, and come pay attention to
them, exclusively. The student protests of the Sixties
took place in very different circumstances. I do not
feel any sympathy or empathy with the Carré Rouge
movement.

I have never seen so many fires in the woods, late
last summer, and now it seems to be continuing this
spring.

Light rains are forecast to begin day after tomorrow.

I cannot imagine how I would feel about a bad fire
on Mt. Royal.

The idiot guitar god neighbour has been playing his
bass just at the borderline of being a nuisance.
He was not playing in his studio, but he was not
being disrespectful. Almost.

the idiot guitar god neighbour has begun early
today. he is playing his bass super loud right
now at the moment.

pathetic little shit. my upstairs neighbour is
apparently thinking about moving out.

i had a really good hard boppin run in the woods
for a bit over one hour. i did not do any pushups
today, because tomorrow i am gonna participate in
La Corvée du Mont Royal. it is a big project to
make improvements to the big huge wooded rock pile
park beside my shack. it is the reason i am here.

that name goes way back to medieval times when
people would stop what they were doing and go
clean up the common area of the town, or the
marketplace.

the last time that i participated in this work
project i planted trees, so this year i will take
a turn picking up trash. i think so anyway. picking
up trash for 5-6 hours is tiring, and i want to be
in good shape for it.

the idiot guitar god was playing his bass loud
a few minutes ago, but not for very long. he is
afraid of the police as i said.

but the police have had some heavy cutbacks in
their numbers and the priority of calls is going
to change. i would not want to phone the police
unless at least one other resident on this side
said they would do so themselves.

they have much more serious business to attend to.

now i think that the persistent thumping sounds were
from the idiot guitar god neighbour, next building
over. there was a different acoustic feeling to it
last night, but maybe he has refined his technique.

i think that he lays on his back and pounds his boots
against the wall. when he plays bass super loud he
can make my teacups and coffee mugs shake. he has
not played that loud for a long time, but he was
quite loud for us today. he is afraid of the police.
we have not had the need to call for quite a while.

he was so desperate to give us a concert so that we
could appreciate how important and technically superior
his playing is. he is not reheearsing anything. it is
just pyrotechnics, sort of. stupid little shit. he has
a recording studio completely soundproof. he does not
need to play concerts for us.

useless and needy. in the phone message he said, "do
you want to go to war with me?" pathetic little man.

I had a good long walk on the mountain of love
yesterday. The little yellow trout lilies are out.
I have a special psychedelic friendship with these
flowers. Whoop de doo! And the trillia are out in
blazing glory. The forsythia has been in bloom for
a week now.

Magnolia trees are blazing away with spectacular
blooms.

Just now getting dressed for food bank chores. I
am doing okay, but a bit underslept. Like I have
said before, this is a very creative area to live.
We have had cabinet makers, sculptors, musicians
and creative oddballs in this building over the
years.

Someone was making banging, thumping, hammering
sounds last night beginning around 10:30 pm and
continuing on til 12:40. I do not think it was
the idiot guitar god neighbour in the next building.
It might have been, but it sounded more like someone
in our own building. New people have moved in
recently.

I just kept my earplugs in. Not a buttplug, though.
Just the earplugs.

Lately we have had a big increase in food bank demand.
We do not have a lot of space to work in, but sometimes
we are filling up bags for more than one hundred people.

The work is hard, but it is a good feeling afterwards.

today was nice and sunny & warm. maybe we got up
to 21 or 22C. the forsythia is flowering, and i
saw a magnolia tree with open blossoms for the first
time today.

i finished my chores at the street mission where
i volunteer and immediately got ready to go play
my drum over in the park beside my shack. it was
a very big crowd over there. maybe one thousand
people as audience, or as dancers, or as drummers.
we also had a great trombone player who could play
very loud and strong.

i am always very pleased when i see the drummers
make special effort to make the native canadians
feel at home. one older cree man, who was a bit
tipsy, but not extremely drunk started to stagger
and lose his balance, he was caught by two big
african men, who helped him over to the bench to
sit down. and others cleared out a space for him.

this is not a small thing. the natives were here
drumming long before us. this is their land. they
have been here the longest. and they had no concept
of ownership of the land. it seemed like a ridiculous
idea. preposterous!

these people have survived serious abuse by the christian
church. the way that the children were pulled out of
their families and held as prisoners in the residential
schools is just so unbelievably sad and harsh. i cannot
think of a worse fate for a child. many of them were
sexually abused by the priests, even from the age of
six years old.

it is a very important gesture for the other drummers
to make the native drummers and dancers feel welcome
and worthy.

we cannot undo the damage that was done to them and
their families by the priests and nuns, but we can
let them feel some acceptance amongst us when we
make the ground shake with multi-layered beats of
our drums, that come from all over the world.

right now my idiot neighbour in the next building is
saying, "yes, but me, too! i need everybody to listen
to me." pathetic needy little shit of a man. useless
and needy.

about 2 hours i knew that i wanted to open the browser
and come into NN for a blog or forum post about the
sudden death of Richie Havens, who is one of my alltime
favourite musicians.

but now i find that i am also posting about my idiot
neighbour in the next building, the so called guitar
hero who is such a goddamm nuisance. how can somebody
be that uselss and needy, but still think that we need
to listen to him? i can still hear his words - do you
want to go to war with me? pathetic little shit.

one of my favourite playlists is made of equal parts
of Leonard Cohen, Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, and
Richie Havens. there is no fatigue factor with his
music, whatsoever. i first heard him in the summer
of 1967, and i knew immediately that i recognized
the strength and kindness in his heart.

"I got a telephone in my bosom, and I can call him
up from my heart" Thank you my friend for all the
great music. So sad to say goodbye.

I had good focus and desire for a hard
run today. I got caught in a blast of
rain and hard sleet blowing me sideways
on the mountain of love, but I was ready
for it, dressed just warmly enough.

I have some sad news to report - the
foxpoop tree has been cut down in the
cemetery. I call it the foxpoop tree
because it always has had a family of
foxes using it for pooping, all around
the north side. A long time ago it had
its crown blasted off by lightning. It
had only a couple of living branches left.
Such a big massive trunk laying down
on the ground now. Some oak trees have a
huge spiritual presence for me.

Now that I am running again, I have moved
my pushup routine back within the run.
After running for 12-15 minutes I did 50
pushups. Then walk for a couple minutes
and start running again.

After running some sprints and walking
again I did 60 pushups up on Shelter
Hill. Walk for 2 minutes and then started
running again. I stopped at the big chalet
for a drink of water.

Up behind the chalet in the picnic area I
got down in the mud and rain and sleet and
did the exhaustion set of 70 pushups.

I have been waiting all winter for this.
When i was coming back down the hill I
had tears of joy coming down my cheeks
and I could not help but laugh out loud.
Glad nobody saw me, I must have looked
pretty crazy. I did not want to get a
chill in the wind, because I was drenched
with sweat. So I did a slow jog all the
way back to my shack.

I stripped off all my sweaty clothes
and did 220 crunches, twists and reverse
situps naked as a blue jay down on a towel
on the floor. I said to my cat, "Buster, you
should have come with me! It was a great run."

I had an excellent run today in the slushy woods.
The temperature was adequate so that I could
alternate between running and walking and not worry
about getting a chill in the breeze.

I had my first fall. The mountain was having some
fun with me. The mountain said hello. I was scrambling
down a slope and misjudged the slickness of the mud.
Both heels went out from under me, and I had the good
sense to tuck my chin into my chest and curl up.

I landed equally on my butt cheeks but not my tailbone.
And I just missed a rough rock by two inches. I also
landed partly on my left elbow on a side slope. I have
just a slight stiffness in my trapezius and scalenes
on the left side. Turning my head to left side is a
bit stiff, but I am quite okay. The mountain said
a big hello.

First time running on that trail since I had to give
it over to the cross-country skiers.

Anyway, I decided to skip the pushups routine today.
It is better to just wait and see what the shoulder-
neck situation is for a couple days.

I did my abdominals and balance exercises and then
settled into a long stretching session with some good
music on computer.

Wouldn't you know it, but the idiot guitar god in the
next building over decided that we needed a little
concert. He was definitely not playing in his sound-
proof studio. Pathetic little, unhappy monster.

So needy and so certain that we need to hear him. So
useless and pathetic. Needy little shit!