The thing itself

In the end, I was able to muster the energy and will to get some things done yesterday, some foliage abatement on the dam and also getting crap off of the roof. When I was rubbing the gutters with a bleach solution and cleaning the skylights with Windex, I was brought back to the distinction -- the focus of philosophers since the dawn of time -- between appearance and reality. Almost nobody could see this dirt and pollen build up. Mary doesn't care, she's much more concerned about how run off from cleaning solutions might impact her plants, never mind that the quantities I'm using are so small that they won't make a dent on anything.

But the dirt and pollen are there and over time they will corrode things -- gutter, roof, window seals and frames -- so really it's better to address them. So I do. I never get all of it, but I get a chunk of it, slowing the process of decay. In time I tire, my water gets too dirty, it's time for lunch. I move on. But things get cleaner and better.

Overnight there was a storm, rain, wind, whatnot. In the morning I looked up at the skylight in the living room and it was covered with crap from the trees. Life goes on.