Sometime in July…

Hoagy Carmichael croons from my apartment like he hasn’t since the ’30s and ’40s. What prompted that? This McSweeney’s video mixing writing process with roasting beans.

Our farmer’s market is hot – no, torrid – for a Saturday morning. I still don’t understand the appeal of hosting it on a parking lot, but I deal with it. No fruit, sadly, but veggies are becoming plentiful. I pick up a half dozen ears of sweet corn, along with a couple of squash and cucumbers. A loaf of cinnamon-chip bread rounds out the bounty. I eat a filo-bread breakfast without eyeglasses. Oops.

There was a double-feature at the Apollo Theater in downtown Peoria. The Blob & The Girl Can’t Help It. I like both.

I sit down at the bar, but not for a drink: I’ll take a hamburger with Swiss, please. The bartender is cute with a dash of punky, and I’m out of practice in flirting. Or I never got into practice in the first place. The place is relatively dead, but I sit there silently after a quick high-five from another bartender that I’ve known for years. The recognition feels great, but I’d be lying if I said that I felt happy.

Back to my apartment with my hamburger. I fire up a Garrison Keillor podcast and devour every bit of it.

I’ve been on the porch long enough to notice the moon sneaking sideways across the leaves. There’s a man who keeps walking back and forth on the street, checking his phone and occasionally dropping loose change.

My citronella candle continues to flicker, mixing with both the moonlight and sodium vapor streetlamps, and I’m a content old man.