I went to the Shelton Farmers' Market today. I saw two people walking along the road as I drove towards Route 8, and raised a hand in salute as I crawled by in the left lane. They just stared at me -- they must be from the suburbs. I was raised in the country -- sometimes very wealthy country, but not always -- and like any other country person I'm galled by the way these outsiders behave. They aren't friendly, they like everything to be painted, cleaned, mowed, are judgemental and intolerant of people in the country -- the people who belong and were raised there. Country people don't go to the Burbs and criticise. [City people are like a different species entirely. I remember going to 69th Street in Philadelphia as a child ("Direct Your Shopping Feet to 69th Street" was their jingle) and one particular time being startled and scared by the people walking around on the street, who all looked strange and crippled to me.]

Anyway, these people stared, and didn't wave back. That's really why I was going to the Shelton Farmers' Market in the first place. The Olympia Farmers' Market is very busy, bustling, and all that, but it's just too twee for me. I've always disliked twee-ness. Twee-ness is a suburban failing.

So Marilee had told me where it was, and I had a strong mental picture in my head. It was smaller than I'd expected, but that's about all. I parked, went to one booth (out of about 8), and got green beans, yellow crookneck, cucumbers, zucchini, onion, green peppers. The kind woman put them in Sha for me, and I left. I'd regretted not taking my camera as I was driving over by way of McCleary (the view from which is too shockingly clear-cut -- made me feel sick), but honestly, I left before 12:30 and was home by 1:30, even with a pitstop at Twin Totems.

Thursday night I tossed all night and yesterday woke up feeling awful. I slept better last night, but don't feel very well today. The heat kills me, then it turns cold and something else kills me. At the Rest Stop at Twin Totems I started fantasizing about what would happen if I'd left my keys in Sha, and heard him start up and drive away. I decided I would stagger over to the store, tell someone my car had been stolen, buy string, and hang myself. Then I thought maybe I should carry string around with me in case. Then I started thinking how maybe they should pair up the people who want to die for some disease reason, with people who want to be murderers. But I thought I wouldn't want them to do it in any spooky or icky way. Then I realised the potential murderers wouldn't want to do it if they couldn't be spooky and disgusting. Then I started thinking about the differences between someone like J.Dahmer and a hit-man. I can't think of any similarities, actually. So it can't be just the killing the murderers like. They must want to be icky. I guess that's no surprise.

I've spent a long time (years and years) thinking about the nature of things, and if some things are intrinsically not nice, or if we are just conditioned by society to feel that certain things are not nice. Is it just wrong for say, a mother to sleep with her child, or is that a rule society applies to a situation neither wrong nor right? And I wonder why some things that seem not nice to me are regarded as fine. Once I was riding as a passenger in Connie's truck, and we were stopped at Sam's school (where the lamp shop was on Pacific). I was sitting there idly waiting for Connie and thinking about this stuff. There was an egg carton (a paper one) on the ground next to a sapling, between the sidewalk and the parking lot. I thought how some people might say, "Look at that -- someone just threw that garbage out. That's a bad thing -- jeez, it makes things look a mess." Then they'd continue driving along and stop in at K-Mart, or buy something from some ugly store that was built to be ugly and a blight on the landscape because making it that way was cheaper. And the egg carton probably just got wet and mulched around the sapling and anyway, was probably gone in 3 months -- but the ugly building built on purpose continues for many years to blight the landscape, but was considered to be fine. I think building an ugly building is much worse than littering. Why should these things hinge on money? This area is all right if you are only looking at mountains and salt water, but there is almost nothing man has built here that improves on what was here before he began. And there's a great deal that is painfully ugly and blights our existence 24 hours a day like the sea washing away the rocks. Can't anybody see how ugly it all is? Ug. Why is that all right??????

It would be by far more interesting and less of a blight, and much less long-lasting if they would put up beautiful tents to sell things in. That would be a good new law: No new buildings at all, and if you use one the taxes are high, but if you have a tent the taxes are low, and get lower the more beautiful the tent is. I'd better email Arnold and tell him -- maybe California could do it. That reminds me, as I was leaving the farmers' market I said, "I'll be back," then corrected myself instantly and said "Ull B Bug," and the farmer said, "Ull B Bug" along with me.