i just read after posting the tree of heaven the name of the place in squirrel hill is 
the tree of life. the roots of this sadness go deep into earth, the branches and leaves reach deep in the sky.

4,000 citizens gathered around the tree of life synagogue in the squirrel hill neighborhood of pittsburgh otherwise known as mister rogers' neighborhood
to protest the sick fuck trump's insulting visit. for him it was probably like visiting a death porn site on reality tv. revolting. what would fred roger's say about the incredibly sick fuck trump?

i'm observing lulu as much as training her. more than. observing is training me to see what lulu sees, what alerts her, what alarms her, what fascinates her. we go up the hill between the trains and the geese, in the green parcel obomba wanted to make his multi-story parking garage. this is the kind of hill where coyote sit to survey the land and watch the sun set and rise. i stopped with lulu here before to calm her when a freight train passed above behind the trees. now we stop to simply observe quietly. she paces a little, then comes and sits on my leg and watches a girl cross from the far side pass near. she is calm. i think she feels all's well this day of the dead afternoon. she's watching over the slow man with the slow feet.
 

i go with lulu,

lulu goes with me.

my afternoon with lulu.

mister goest as a tree of heaven.

me under the tree of heaven.

me and mister under the tree of heaven.

under the tree of heaven.

i wish i could go as mister and mister could go as me.  
i was trying to get a free beetlejuice costume for him, but it was given to a whippet instead. anyway my dogs are too tired.  
i mo just go take an apple cider vinegar bath by candlelight.

can't think of halloween without thinking of evil. it would be no fun without the devil. the only costume i remember is the devil one my mom made. she did a damned fine job of it. i think the princesses and the little supermen were jealous. i understand why people wanna wear masks, especially to do evil, but to do stuff you might be scared to do too. it gives you license.  the mask makes you powerful and hides you too. i enjoyed being the devil, even though as i recall they bent my aluminum pitchfork and pulled my tail. i was the shyest devil ever to beg for treats. the devil should of got more respect, but it was a small neighborhood. they knew who was inside. still, they were jealous. but in this evil time when the most scary things are ever so ordinary, blowhard menaces in high places,
i wonder what outfits the kids are wearing. baby trump with predator drone rattle. obomba-thor with lightning bolt tower raised to hurl at the populace. ican see them meeting to trick or treat together, obomba-thor handing his predator drone rattle to baby trump in trade for his awesome lightning tower.  there would be so many real life evil men to masquerade. but maybe the kids are bored with the status quo demons, maybe they will hearken back to more imaginative days. i'd like to be a kid again out on harper ave. in my good old devil suit with the crooked smile my mom drew.

day of the dead.

menacing things do fascinate us.

 wonder why that is.

 i guess we just like spooks.

happy halloween. something wicked this way comes, gnome sane. these are some freaky spooky times. beware, kids, the tricks disguised as treats.

sometimes we idealize our dogs of memory 
sadly, to the disparagement of our dogs of today
for the dogs of today are our dogs 
and the dogs of memory are gone

a lot of things that are happening today
began in the past
some things memorialized 
out of memory 
beyond memory 

the thing is how do we remember
today

the theme's heartbreak. 
underlying 
all human activity. 
some breaking others, 
some breaking down, 
quiet, staying inside. 
some heartless; some heartbroken.
i feel fragile. 
sort of acute; sort of numb. 
my skin desert 
where water once flowed, 
moisture disappears instantly, 
into itching, cracking ground. 
my once generous skin 
struggling to regenerate.
heard about a dog 
with a woman on a roof. dog falling, 
crushed bones. 
a woman breaking borrowed homes, 
serially, with the dog 
surviving her care. what i wonder 
will become of the dog. 
seriously, 
what is to become of us all?

such a night.

the making of a murderer is heartbreaking. it was compelling, but crushing, in the end. 
i couldn't help believing there would be a release, but the system is moribund, there was none. when it was over i thought there was more, but it's just over. til it begins again, as it must. because justice must be just as inevitable as injustice. that's the way we have to live. it can't just be left the way it is now, at the end, held in thrall to a moribund system. only part 2 ended, and in a future episode there has to be some release. if freedom is possibility maybe it will always be just that, only a possibility held in hope, held in thrall. that's the fear when the story is halted.
i haven't experienced anything like the ones incarcerated, but i feel the anguish and frustration, and i feel the oppression of the same system that incarcerates them. 
now i'm depressed about that saga i was addicted to, partly because my episodic supply ran out, and now i'm just here with my affliction, which grows again, like a system overlaid on a system, the most intimate one, the body become a kind of prison of skin.

oh my lovey swamp dog.

towers mind me of skeletons and ghosts. where towers rise the life around them disappears. around the towers seething traffic, plaintive wind tunnels, staccato gunfire, keening sirens in the twilit artifice of night.

man, fuck these towers, man. fuck the rich fucking tower builders. fuck us. guy was shot dead right on that corner, man, 53rd and cornell. shit don't even make the news, man, bad for business in obombaland.

this morning on the corner between the bus stop and the coffee shop mister sniffed a french mom's crotch and i said copper! and she said, i smell good, copper? he just smiled and we all laughed mildly and crossed the street.

i found this critter in a box in the alley.

mister in his fall couture.

lulu takes note of every little thing. she was fascinated by a stink bug. she salivated on it and flipped it over gently and the bug didn't make a big stink.

we walked under the train and flushed a speckled pigeon up to the light box and lulu and i looked at the pigeon and the pigeon looked at me and lulu curiously.

wreathe what spooked lulu behind masryk's horse's behind for his bird day. i said what's so spooky lulu it's just a wreathe of flowers step up here and take a look-see. and she did but was still jittery and took the steps down stealthily but pausing to eat a white carnation on the way.
i then saw what was spooky, the flowers were strewn all around, and some bottles had been smashed against the monument, and i wondered, was this the place that guy was shot? was the wreathe for him?

i didn't want to linger too long for lulu. she let me take this picture and we made haste slowly to the midway plaisance.

lulu does a good spooked kid look behind the power station. 

 let us get us hence, post haste, i hear her say.

then i sit down and she comes and sits on my lap and looks at our reflection in the power office.

lulu squirl-watching. i was a good boy today and took a bag of training treats, and lulu was a good girl and didn't pull (a lot).