Casual Friday on Long Mountain

An Eye on Real

Happy Friday, folks!

Got an essay for you about remembering what’s real, and some news about the new book!

Book Updates

Oh MAN, Cities on a Hill is 19 days on the market, and it’s rockin’ along. Dig this front window display at Book No Further in Roanoke, VA! It’s such an honor (and a bit surreal) to get to share the stories of my late elderly friends who were locked away during the pandemic.

And big thanks to Karen M. (a blog reader, too!) for her kind review online:

“This beautifully written eye-opening account of the devastating effects of Covid lockdowns will change your perspective on the world forever. Josh Urban masterfully wraps loneliness, hope, compassion and wisdom together through specific accounts of the day-to-day cadence of lockdowns on the elderly population. This book is truly a treasure.”

Do you have a copy yet? Paid subscribers get one shipped for free, local rockers are pointed towards Book No Further, but if you must go to the Evil Empires, they’re here.

Casual Friday

The sky is gray. Not an ominous winter lead, or an eternal November plane, but a morning track suit jacket, something to run a few errands or laps in, Mother Nature winding down from a long week.

The family of squirrels in the back yard eye me, one of them biting into a seed atop his perch on a rock with a crunch. A breeze wanders over from the stables, and shakes the chimes. Ready for the weekend, Norm?

It’s a Casual Friday here on Long Mountain.

I eye the squirrels back. I can’t write this. It’s too normal. There’s vanity to address, stars to observe, questions to ask, trees to catalog and bees to manage and Plato to understand and apply and say “ah HA” to..to…something…

The breeze blows again, stirring a thousand ribbons of thought, unarticulated.

The squirrel continues to chew, unmoved.

You sound like a nutcase, buddy.

Oh, very punny, Mr. Squirrely.

And now you’re talking to animals. Eaaasy, Dr. Doolittle.

With that, he runs away.

(He must be one of those New Jersey Grays.)

Empty Calories and Real People

I love Sheetz sub sandwiches. Yeah, yeah, the all-night neon hip gas station with clever misspellings as a “Brandz.”

Three cheese, toasted, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, olives, mild pepper rings, onions…but sometimes I skip the salt. (Gotta be healthy, ya know.)

There’s a new location in Roanoke. The gray sky watched me stumble in yesterday for some people food.

I tapped out my request on one screen, paid on another, then a third one stared down.

“Order 599…preparing.”

I looked at a forth screen that I always keep close. My phone.

Kids pretend the floor is lava, and jump to avoid it.

Do adults feel the present moment actually is, and scroll escape it?

Oh look, so and so got a new dog.

“Order 599…preparing.”

Brands and logos and trucks and cars and Taylor Swift shrieking rhinestone vengeance tinnily in the background and potato chips lurking unseen in half-full bags on the shelves to not satisfy your cravings (but maybe this time), and greens too green and blues too blue and strangely imperfect models doing electronic cartwheels to be relatable to your saccharine midnight laughter and ugly friends–“no need to kill your ideal if there is none”–and handwritten fonts the same in every branch, be it in in gritty suburbia or halogen island adrift in the endless darkness of a country night, all almost convincing you that it’s real.

“Order 599…preparing.”

(The long sentence goes out to Doug.)

Fortunately, the people working there are real. They laugh, sling sandwiches, smoke outside on their breaks, and hand me a warm paper bag.

“Order 599…three cheese sub?”

“Yessir. Thank you very much. ‘Preciate your dedication.”

“You got it. Doin’ my best.”

They’re worried about AI and the robots taking over. I am, too. I’m keeping an eye on what’s real.

You should see this silver maple in the backyard. It’s leafed out in the eternal May fashion, just like the one with the clothesline when I was a boy, with deep-cleft dark green leaves that sport a silvery underside, rough gray bark that bleeds where the woodpeckers have nagged at it, dancing in the wind.

It’s delightfully ordinary.

Cheers to that.

Treasures from Earth

Friday posts always have a musical piece, a gem to appreciate. While I usually feature a dazzling classical firework, today’s post calls for something blue collar, and equally magical.

Enjoy.