Weather
Smells like snow.

Item
I helped my friend Kurt clean ancient rubble and junk out of his spacious workshop on Saturday. The biggest challenge was a 100-gallon water tank, which we moved on a hand trunk, then drag-battled up a large backdoor step, then realized we could roll across the grass and into the open-ended dumpster. It was heavy and rusty and scary, and I stepped in the worst-ever cat poop along the way. Here is the dread Water Tank of Doom:

But the really scary part was the Giant Rusty Old Piece of Dismantled Fire Escape. This was a 15-foot-long ladderlike thingamajig that Kurt and I picked up all casual like, when suddenly a sharp metal rung flipped sideways and cut a perfect, terrifying flap, like the door of an Advent calendar, in the crotch of my jeans. It missed my underwear/vital interests/femoral artery by millimeters. Shaken but safe, I spent the rest of the morning thinking my fly was open, which wasn’t far off. Apologies for the gratuitous photo:

Colonial-American Word of the Day
Ape Leader: (n) an old maid: their punishment after death, for neglecting to increase and multiply, will be leading apes in hell

Go Forth!
The Red Pen of Doom. I would recommend a specific post or two, but it’s all good.

Music
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “We Drift Like Worried Fire”

Weather
Duh.

Item
I just saw Dreadlock Walking Stick Guy tiptoeing out in the wind, sans stick but playing a small wooden flute. Not making this up.

I also saw a red porta potty gracefully blown, fully upright, halfway across a street.

Colonial-American Word of the Day
Galligaskins: (n) breeches

Go Forth!
Making a horseshoe (I love this video, and he’s a farrier, damn it, not a blacksmith)

Music
Losing Season, metal version of “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”

Weather
Rain, like the torrents of old. Well not that heavy, but enough to get the dog pretty wet.

Item
I’m going to build the living daylights out of this custom-order magazine rack.

I’m going to iron the pants off this pile of wrinkly shirts.

I’m going get my hair cut within an inch of its life.

I’m going to key these handwritten chapters back to the stone age.

I’m going to schedule this bank appointment like a bat out of hell.

I’m going to drink this coffee into an early grave.

Colonial-American Word of the Day
Rosy gills: (n) one with a sanguine or fresh-colored countenance

Go Forth!
Colonial Williamsburg has an app with daily updates and I am in Olde Dorktown heaven.

Music
They Might Be Giants, “Older”

Weather
Good raking weather, except our Norway maple likes to shed its leaves around Thanksgiving instead of Halloween

Item
Today my brain is like Q-Bert swearing. But productively.

Man, I totally forgot there was a Q-Bert cartoon. I rather wish it had stayed forgotten.

Colonial-American Word of the Day
Kissing crust: (n) the part where the loaves have touched in the oven

Go Forth!
Squirrel obstacle course

Music
Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr.’s acoustic cover of Ratt’s “Round and Round”

Weather
Just cold enough to coat the windshield with that timorous early-fall frost, which looks all impressive until you just glower at it with a scraper in your hand and it loses its nerve and pitifully melts away

Item
My to-do list this week is a ridiculous scattery combination of handwritten notes and iPhone reminders, ranging from ironing shirts and finishing two badly scrawled novel chapters to building a magazine rack and getting a heartworm medicine biscuit for Bones. But almost half of the list primed for satisfying checkmarks, if only I get my act together today.

Colonial-American Word of the Day
Znees: (n or adj) Frost or frozen. Zneesy weather: frosty weather.

Go Forth!
A sign of the (grammar) apocalypse

Music
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Le Devin du village, opera: Scene 1. J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur”