!Unconsuming fire --- agk's diary 20 July 2025 @ 03:07 UTC --- written in vi on GPD MicroPC in bed with sleeping daughter --- A PE teacher at Estill County School was struck by lightning, my AA sponsor whispered. First daughter woke from a nightmarish fever dream, recounted every horrifying detail. The only relief from heat and humidity for weeks has been rain. Rain, caves, or air conditioner. Air conditioner in the house, in the car, so rare in past years. Relief from rain doesn't last long. First daughter's sleep is fitful. Mama, when will you die? She asked. I don't know everything, I said. I hope I can see you be a kid some more, grow up, be proud, make cool things, think you found love, be wrong, help people, and find love for real. I try to not die too easy. Mommy and Tevis and Grandma and Memaw will take care of you if I die before you grow up. We party when people we love die, you know. We finally see how cool their whole life was. Life's precious because it isn't forever. First daughter played in the cool creek with friends on her birthday. She got a measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination booster. I tried to catch crawfish. Too perceptive, too fast. Big raindrops fell. Thunder rumbled. We stayed put in the creek. Later she sat on my left and Evy's right shoulder. We hugged and wondered at a double rainbow in the yellow sky. At its crest, the bottom rainbow's color began red, ended violet. Where it rose from the right it began violet, ended green. I work til midnight too much. I pass meds on detox. Valium, phenergan for nausea, hydroxyzine or propanolol for anxiety, muscle relaxers, clonidine when systolic blood pressure's over 140, suboxone, home meds for hypertension, HIV, schizophrenia. Trazodone to sleep. I pass meds and banter, lonely for someone who isn't a patient so I can tell what I'm thinking--- German and Kentucky history 1877-1939, logic in patterns of current events, opportunities the present offers for durable good life at scale. Dead-channel mental static and hypomania accompany my long high-speed drive home. First daughter corrects me and procrastinates. We sit in front of the fan with ice cream. Hers pink, mine brown. Both drip. Why did the leaves on the burning bush not burn up even though it's on fire? She asks. I can't know, I say. It's called a mystery. You can think about a mystery forever, but never know. Actually, you *should* think about it tonight when you try to sleep. Mysteries are good at night. Sun sets behind the trees. Marvelous burning bush intrudes in everyday life.