November 7, 2021

Let's see.

I am in Iron Noder.

I have a series named Iron Bitch.

I live near Irondale.

B has lived in Irondale all his life.

I called the Armor Suit the Iron Suit at first.

I think Ironman is rather a prick and glad he had a glorious ending, which I am cynical about.

There is a lot of iron on the beaches here. You can tell by the color in the rock. Licked, it tastes of iron and of sea water. I have been bringing home agates and then jadite and jade and poppy jasper and chunks of iron. Yesterday we walked a short stretch of beach in the boatyard. It was clouded over so the agates were not lighting up: we didn't find any. I picked up one mysterious nearly black chunk studded with rocks.

"Asphalt," says B.

"Really?" I say.

"Yes. They used to scrape it off and dump it. Concrete, too. Now they scrape it and recycle it."

I lick it. Tastes like seawater and oil. I give it back to the beach.

B looks at me out of the corner of his eye. "It's not recycling for global warming." he says. "It's cost. The materials are getting more expensive."

I grin. "Glad to know that."

"Let's come back when there is sun. There must be agates here."

"Ok."

I do find one chunk that is partly quartz and partly (possibly) moss agate and partly jadite. I am just starting to learn the different minerals. Mostly I'm like a crow: oooo shiny.

But I love the chunks of iron too. Maybe I will build something with them. A firepit with rocks and iron and the clear agates and translucent ones scattered among the opaque rocks, to light up and shine when the fire is lit.

Though right now it's in the 40s in the morning and soon will be in the 30s. How appealing is standing around a fire pit? Not very. And I can barely stay up until 9pm so I couldn't use it in the summer.

I suppose I could enjoy fires at 4 am during the summer, since I seem to wake up then.

It might change. It's weird to not be in clinic, now that I am feeling half way decent. Only half, but that's better than awful.

#25: Iron Noder

Fall is trailing into winter, red and orange in pockets among the frostbearing skeletons along the hills and ridges.

School is a trip. A little podunk state uni with a faculty full of hidden masters. I'm one of a handful (literally) of Natural Science majors adrift on an inland sea of resort management and art majors. The four nat sci profs have five or six PhDs among them and the pedagogy they embrace is some of the finest I've encountered.

A little over a year ago I laid out long term goals - 6 months, a year, three years, five years - and I find myself ahead on all of them.

The truck is shaping up. Major mechanicals are done. Interior and electrical all but done. Life support modifications finalized and scheduled.

Nobody is stopping me from doing the things I want to do, and I am making my own program now.

The rural life suits me. I'm an outsider here and always will be, but there are gems among the locals.

I'm working with a group of colleagues from another life to do the work that my government has, officially if behind closed doors, refused to do. We're rescuing Afghans who are owed a debt. It's slow work, and ponderous, and we are of late openly sabotaged by the offices and agencies whose duty we are fulfilling.

For the first time in years, I am free.