Those deep pools of blue
captured forever—this life
he simply outgrew.
.
September 30, 2008
Found Object (actual size)
I didn’t need to go searching very far for this one. There it was right in front of my stairwell as I was coming back home from my therapy+shopping afternoon (always a great combo) today. I was wearing open sandals since it was a pleasantly warm day and I remember what a strange sensation on my bare skin it was to walk though a bunch of leaves—something I’d never experienced before. My sense of time has always been very skewed and of course being on my own strange schedule for all this time has exacerbated that. I hadn’t seen the summer go by—not having participated in it all that much this year—and I was just warming up to the idea of taking advantage of the season when fall was announced. It seemed like an abstract concept for a while but now all those fallen leaves serve as visual and tangible reminders and while it sure is a pretty sight, I just wish it didn’t mean the trees will be completely bare in a short while. I think the absence of greenery is one of the hardest aspects of winter here. That and the fact that it gets inhumanely cold of course, but everybody says that, so I thought I’d point out something people rarely think about mentioning.
Ignorant Bliss
Even though I’ve said I won’t be blogging on a daily basis anymore, and even though I’ve got that cool B.W.O. (Blogging Without Obligation) badge right there on the right-hand side of my page, proclaiming my desire and my right to blog whenever the heck I choose to, it just doesn’t feel right to be blogging sporadically like this. The reason I was blogging everyday was so that I’d feel like I’ve accomplished at least one thing in these strange and unstable times. But then at some point, it became too much trouble to come up with blogging topics when there isn’t much happening in my life, save for reading (and there’s plenty of that going on; you can check my progress in the “Read in 2008” section on the bottom right) and of course my cats, which I could blog about several hours a day since they’re so damn cute and entertaining and incredibly cat-like—and did I mention that Fritz and Mimi touched noses a couple of days ago for the first time which is a huge sign of meaningful progress in their relationship?— but I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn this blog into an all-cat platform and I’m frankly too lazy to start up yet another blog which I could call “Tea with Fritz, Mimi & Me” or something cute and tacky like that but won’t because I’m listed as a writer on no less than seven blogs already which I don’t ever actually write for because it just seems like too much damn work. Then of course I could be doing more of this stream of consciousness stuff and sharing the inner workings of my mind as I continue on this path toward (what we’re hoping will be a) full recovery and a return to a normal social and work life but the fact is that for some time now, I seem to have entered a decidedly un-self aware phase which for me is quite a departure from the Smiler I’ve always known and requires that I spend as little time as possible thinking or worrying about things to do with physical, spiritual, philosophical, existential, psychological, or practical matters—which I’m finding out is actually surprisingly easy to do—and while I can see why most folks are quite happy in that state of ignorant bliss, certainly limits the possibilities as far as doing that whole “spillin’ my guts on my blog” thing. Because what’s left to spill? So what was I saying? What was it I was going to blog about? I didn’t mean to write all this crap, really. Pffft. Doesn’t matter. Let’s just stick it to the man.
September 25, 2008
Thirteen Famous Quotes About Cats [#26]
Goodness, can it really be? Four months since I’ve participated in Thursday Thirteen? As it happens, I had collected a bunch of cat quotes I wanted to post but thought I should wait before posting them, lest someone just discovering this blog think it is all about cats! But since it’s been a full week since my last post showing my smitten kitten Mimi Making Faces, I figure another dose of cat content really can’t hurt anyone. Besides, if you happen to hate cats or just don’t particularly like felines in general—for which I may stop speaking to you— if you disregard what the quotes are about you’ll find they can provide a healthy dose of culture. Without further ado:
“The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can
be learned in no other way.” ~ Mark Twain
“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings,
for one reason or another may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”
~ Ernest Hemingway
“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life:
music and cats.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
“No matter how much cats fight, there always seems to be plenty
of kittens.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
“If animals could speak the dog would be a a blundering
outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of
never saying a word too much.” ~ Mark Twain
“There are no ordinary cats.” ~ Colette
“I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could
walk on a cloud without coming through.” ~ Jules Verne
“One cat justs leads to another.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
“Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave
of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat
it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
~ Mark Twain
“Time spent with cats is never wasted.” ~ Colette
“The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn’t just one of
your holiday games. You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter.
When I tell you a cat must have three different names...”
~ T.S. Eliot
“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little,
they become its visible soul.” ~ Jean Cocteau
Who’s counting anyway...
“If I die before my cat, I want a little of my ashes put in his food
so I can live inside him.” ~ Drew Barrymore
"No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as
does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously
importunate wife." ~ Aldous Huxley
“I want to create a cat like the real cats I see crossing the streets,
not like those you see in houses. They have nothing in common.
The cat of the streets has bristling fur. It runs like a fiend, and if
it looks at you, you think it is going to jump in your face.”
~ Pablo Picasso
“Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make
that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar
that they use.” ~ Mark Twain
“If you want to write, keep cats.” ~ Aldous Huxley
“A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal
is going somewhere.” ~ Groucho MarxIllustration: caricatures of cats elegantly dressed cats on their way to a ball from an illustrated children's book circa 1890-1900. Found at www.villageantiques.ch
September 24, 2008
The Anatomy of Story: Rhetorical Questions Which Keep Me From Writing My Own Stories.
How does a story spring to life? If you string together enough words, do you eventually end up with a story? Does everyone have a story to tell? And if so does each person hold a predetermined amount of stories or is there actually an infinite cache of stories somewhere out there in the universe? If there is, does that mean that the stories can just emerge out of the blue, fully formed and ready to be told? Why is it some people can’t stop writing stories while others can’t start? What makes some stories more interesting than others? What makes some stories more believable than others? Does a believable story make a better story? Who decides? If you tell a story made up of lies and people don’t believe your story, is it because you’ve told lies or because you haven’t lied convincingly enough? Is there such a thing as a story that every single human being on this earth absolutely adores other than The Little Prince? Is story writing a craft reserved for a very few and if so are the rest of us deluding ourselves? How would that explain unknown writers coming out with bestsellers? Is a story a better story because it’s been published? Why are there some stories we feel compelled to share, while others, equally good, make us feel like we have found secrets we must keep to ourselves? If a writer simply narrates his or her own thoughts, can that be considered a story? What if the writer writes the story about someone having their own thoughts? Does that make a better story? Does a story have to have a beginning, middle, and end in order to work? If beginning, middle and end are told out of sequence how do you figure what is what? Can the end be at the beginning? In the middle? Can a story be written with no beginning and no end? Are there rules to breaking the rules when writing a story? Can a story just be an ongoing beginning? Or start, continue and end with the end? What makes some people better at telling stories than others? How come there are fiction stories that “ring true” when they’re based on pure fabrication that actually ring truer than real events retold? When they say a writer needs to be honest in their writing, what do they mean exactly? If I don’t know the answer to the last question does that mean I’m a liar? or just a bad liar? Or not a writer at all? If the act of writing makes you a writer, that means that every literate person on the planet is a writer which means... whew, no wonder publishers never get back to anyone. What if someone invented a contest where everybody can be a novelist and get a chance to write about whatever they want and everybody had a an equal chance at winning the contest as long as they’d written down a required quota of words? Oh there is? You don’t say. Tell me more; it’s called NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) and it’s on for the whole month of November. Following last year’s small victory of writing 50,000 words which could be seen as drafts to many many stories, this year I’d like to not only meet the word count but maybe even come up with something that is readable, or at least almost readable without being an embarrassment to myself or anyone who knows me. Of course the point of NaNoWriMo is to not get hung up on that kind of consideration and dare to be the worst that you can be as a writer... but knowing that Sara Gruen, wrote the first draft of Water for Elephants while participating in NaNoWriMo does something to my brain—that competitive edge “oh if she can do it then so can I”, even if I have no experience at all to back up such a claim. I get the feeling that one of the big differences between Sara Gruen and I is that while I spend all this time philosophizing about the meaning of story and story-writing, she’s actually just... writing stories. Sounds so simple. I wish I knew how to do simple.
September 21, 2008
Artist Quote of the Day
“Our heads are round in order to let our thoughts change directions.”
~ Francis Picabia, 1922
Top: Francis Picabia, Ridens, 1929
Bottom: Francis Picabia,
Machine Turn Quickly, 1916-1918
Apple Crisp at 1:00 a.m.
It’s just past one a.m. and I have an Apple Crisp baking in the oven. Actually, it’s not an apple crisp at all—it’s White Peach and Pear Crisp, and there are two of them baking because I’ve decided to give one to my landlords downstairs to help alleviate the guilt I’m feeling about baking sweet fattening deserts for myself when I should be exercising my butt off instead.
Two a.m.: I’ve now tasted the Crisp in question (after taking a bunch of photos of it). Yum. Quite a lot like apple crisp actually but with those subtle notes of peach and pear. Some might not even detect the pear—apparently the ultimate apple pie is made with pears instead. I may or may not give the recipe for the apple-ish crisp further on, depending on where this post ends up going, because the point isn’t so much about the baking, but more about the fact that my current lifestyle actually allows me to bake in the middle of the night (not to mention take photos and blog about it an hour later) and I certainly don’t take any of it for granted. Especially when I know that I’ll soon have to get back into a grownup routine.
When I saw my shrink this week we discussed the possibility of me progressively reintegrating my job in the new year. After all this time on medical leave, I suppose it’s time to think ahead and sort myself out. In recent past just the mention of work was enough to send me into a panic attack, but my shrink thoughtfully increased my anti-anxiety medication to help me cope in this time of transition and we’ve almost almost found the right combo of pills for me to be stable enough to reintegrate society again. It should all work out as long as I accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.
There’ll be the sleep schedule to get on track (i.e. no more late-night baking), I’ll have to get back into my fitness regimen, and it might take me some time to get back to an hour and a half of Ashtanga yoga and running every other day... but by God, I will be lean and trim, dressed for success and ready to go from 0 to 120 miles/hour as needed. I will be the perfect corporate asset. Oh God. Must not freak myself out with talk of The Corporation. I think I’ll have a bit more of that cobbler now. And maybe a dose of Mary Poppins for good measure?
White Peach and Pear Crisp
4 cups sliced fruit
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)
Preheat over to 375º F. Put the fruit in an oven-proof baking dish, add lemon juice and vanilla and mix to coat all the fruit. In a medium-size bowl, combine the rolled oats, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon, blend well before adding the butter. Cut the butter into small pieces (3/4") and work into the other ingredients. You may want to use your hands to do this. Coat fruit with the oats mixture. Bake for about 30 mins. Let cool slightly and enjoy hot or cold. Great with vanilla ice cream or yogourt as a topping. I also like to make a larger batch of topping mix, since it’s so yummy, using one and a half times the given quantities. Voilà!
September 19, 2008
Illustration Friday: Island
Having not participated in Illustration Friday for a while, I decided tonight to whip something up at the last minute. I have a book of drawings by Saul Steinberg (known to most for a New Yorker cover he did in March 1976) which is an endless source of inspiration. In fact, I’ve borrowed his cat and dog and even the palm tree with a few twists of my own, but I think given the context I’ve used them in, he’d probably appreciate the homage to his special brand of humour.
Illustration by Smiler
All rights reserved
September 17, 2008
Making Faces
The name search is over. I finally settled on Misha, or Mimi for intimates. She’s certainly an expressive little one, but she has a nasty cold at the moment—poor dear is all stuffed up and has just enough energy to sleep and eat—so I guess I’ll find out what her true temperament is like when she gets better. One thing is absolutely certain, she’s by far the sweetest cat in the house. Is that a jab at the other resident feline? Yes, most definitely. It’s clear now that Fritz and I have a dysfunctional relationship. He’s distant, aloof and mistrusting, which makes me in turn irritated, angry and despondent whereas Mimi loves to cuddle, sit on my lap and thinks everybody is her friend. I’m mostly disappointed with Fritz because he’s been acting exactly as I had expected him to, and I expected the worst while half hoping that he might prove me wrong. After a few days of enduring his hissing and growling, I realized that he’s actually scared of the little one, when all she wants is to get close and friendly! I’m not sure which disappoints me most: that Fritz is unfriendly to everyone (including me for the past few months) or the fact that metaphorically speaking, he has no balls, since of course, the real ones were taken from him long before they would have been of any use to him. So, I hang out with Mimi and watch Fritz get jealous. Serves him right. Very mature of me, I know.
Should you happen to be interested in other areas of my life that don’t include felines in any way, I will be posting an update in the next couple of days when I’ll be ready to share the most recent developments. Let’s just say for now that big changes are on the way. My job now is to convince myself that those changes are actually a really good thing.
All pics by Smiler
September 14, 2008
The Naming Game
To all you readers who aren’t especially fond of cats, or simply not interested in reading about them all the time: no worries, I haven’t decided to transform this blog into an “all cats, all the time” format, though I’ll probably continue talking about them fairly often due to the recent adoption of my no-name cat. For those of you who are interested in the latest developments, do read on.
Ok. So here is where I’m at as far as the name search:
I find myself spontaneously calling the little one either
Charlie
William or
Misha
Just to be sure, I’ve also done one final name search tonight as didn’t want to restrict the options too much, so have added the following choices to the list (note the unisex or female names):
Coco (Chanel: she always wore black and white)
Zola (a great author)
Olive or Ollie for short
Mia (so small-boned, like the young Mia Farrow)
Mimi (in honour of my very first companion. We were inseparable.)
Slinky (that she is)
Zelda (wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I also happen to like names with Z’s that end with an “A”)
I’ll be trying out each name for an hour or so on Sunday, which should give her ample opportunity to indicate which one she prefers. The only rule is, whichever name sticks is the one I keep—though something tells me she’ll end up with quite a combo—all you can eat buffet-style.
Here’s my baby
She meows when she wants to get cuddles and she meows a lot, which is fine by me. She’s got a really low meow too and kind of raspy, not feminine at all but then she also seems to have a bit of a cold poor dear and has these giant sneezes that are bigger than her, so I guess I’ll know for sure what she sounds like when she’s all better. I’m still not decided on her name yet, I tried them all out on her for a half hour or so today to see if they sounded right on her and so far I’m down to Misha and William. Interestingly enough, she seems to respond best to William. But tonight, just to make things more complicated for myself, I’ll make a new name selection just to be absolutely certain I haven’t left any stones unturned. Hopefully we should be set by Monday.
Did you notice the turnout on the feet? She’s such a graceful little thing. The photos don’t show that and they also don’t show just how small and skinny she is now, but I’ll be making sure she gets plenty to eat which should give her the strength to stand up to Fritz!
September 13, 2008
Latest news
I'm wiped out, but happy. I’ll try to keep this one short because I have a warm & sleepy bundle of love lying on my lap right now, which makes typing a little bit awkward. I brought back my lovely kitten from the SPCA today—she had just gotten a treatment for fleas yesterday so when I asked if they could keep her overnight they said they’d take care of sterilizing her and call me when she was ready—which turned out to be earlier this evening.
I looked at over 150 cats yesterday, and while I would have taken a couple of dozen with me at least, she was the first I saw and got to play in the contact room with. She was so calm and affectionate—even with all stress and the constant yelping of the dogs next door—I was very favourably impressed. I did ask to see several others, but she’s the one who stole my heart. She’s about six months old and a tiny slinky little thing—extremely slender with a looong torso and even longer limbs—she looks like she could be a dancer with her primly turned-out paws, or maybe a fashion model. She’s got black and white markings on her body and what looks like Zorro’s mask on her face. And she hasn’t left my side all night.
I haven’t taken photos yet because it was already dark by the time I brought her home, but I will take some and post tomorrow. I don’t have a name for her yet, though I’ve narrowed down the list to the following seven possibilities:
1. Ernest (Hemingway)
2. Henry (James)
3. Sidney (Australia)
4. William (Faulkner or Shakespeare of course)
5. Charlie (Chaplin)
6. Misha (Baryshnikov)
7. Zorro (for obvious reasons)
I’ll take my time to decide which fits her best, but for now she’ll readily respond to any one of those and even a “hey you!” sets her purring and trotting behind me. And Fritz in all of this? He’s hissing and growling as I thought he would, but he was also quietly sniffing her out while she was sleeping on the couch earlier (with me watching like a hawk of course), so I think we’ll all be settling down soon enough. Let’s hope so because having to watch them every minute is just exhausting!
So for now, good night from Fritz and Ernest/Henry/Sidney/William/Charlie/Misha/Zorro and I
September 10, 2008
Does She Meow in Japanese?
Leave it to the Japanese to come up with a miniature kitten. I was so taken by this little kitty found on sparklette.net that I thought I’d share her with you. All I know about her is that her name is memebon, she’s an exotic shorthair, hails from Japan and... need I say it? is cute as a button and smaller than a teacup!
September 9, 2008
Saving a Kitten on 9/11
Kitten Season is now officially open! After all my worrying and hand wringing, my landlords gave me the okay for getting a second cat. When I found out I could barely contain myself and my inner child was jumping up and down and all over the furniture and everything. How did that small miracle happen? Landlord hubby said:“What the heck, a second one doesn’t make much difference”. My feelings exactly... sort of. I almost ran straight to the SPCA right there and then, but used every shred of discipline I could muster to stay put. I’m doing a little project for my landlady which needs to be sent out on 9/11 and the odds of me managing a deadline driven project AND a brand new little rescue kitten—and never mind’s Fritz’s probable tantrums and sulking—all at the same time is probably nil. Poor Fritz, he has no idea what’s about to hit him. I keep trying to prepare him, telling him that he’ll be getting a little sister soon, but he just ignores me as usual. I have in mind to get a very young female which should hopefully turn Fritz into a kitten lover / big brother. So. I’ve already decided the location (SPCA) the day (Thursday) the sex (female) and the name—not really, just that I know I want it to be a boy name—like George or Ernest Hemingway or something. All that’s missing is the actual kitten, an extra litter box and kitten food which I can get tomorrow.
So where do you think I’ll be on 9/11 around noontime? That’s right, I’ll be at our local shelter as soon as they open the doors to choose the new member of our growing little family. There’s poetry in there somewhere.
p.s. If you love animals and can provide them with a loving home, I urge you to go and adopt a pet from a shelter. Cats, dogs, and even bunnies and hamsters (and more!) need to find a nurturing environment. Adopting from an animal shelter on 9/11 or any other day literally means saving a life—a beautiful life-affirming gesture on any day of the year.
Quotes of the Day
“If everything is uncertain, why fear anything?”
“The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be- and when they're not, we cry.”
“No man is happy. He is, at best, fortunate.”
“Nothing brings good fortune to the home like a rescue cat or a kitten.”*
~ Solon, Athenian statesman and poet, 630-560bc* ok that one probably wasn’t by Solon...
(spoke to my landlady about adopting today...
keeping fingers crossed)
September 3, 2008
Kittens and Software: Discuss
My landlady aka J just sent me an email this evening asking if I’m on board for a project she talked about on Friday. She’s a yoga instructor / life coach and has a web site that has a strong emphasis on meditation (check it out at http://peacefullife.ca) which is right up my alley so of course I’m happy to contribute. The project involves doing a layout based on a poem she wrote. The only thing holding me back is I don’t currently have the necessary software (Adobe CS3 Creative Suite) on my home computer, and it costs a small fortune to purchase, as is anything Mac-related. An Art Director I know offered me his old CS2 version which would be great, except that I haven’t given him any news since last year, and I can’t just say hey, you still got that software for me? without being the least bit sociable, especially since there’s also his wife—a photographer I hired frequently—who’ll surely have all kinds of questions for me. As it happens, being sociable is still really difficult for me, especially since I’m not prepared to answer any questions yet and it’s normal for people to be curious about what’s going on in my life. I suppose I could manage to do the project on the Photoshop 7.0 that I have, but apart from being a dinosaur, it’s just not the right software for this project.
J’s email reminded me that with the right kind of motivation, I can move mountains—or force myself to be sociable and get software I need maybe? So I thought I could work out a trade with her: I do the project in exchange for... permission to have a new kitten! He he. It’s brilliant, I know. I’m a regular Machiavelli. Of course she might say no and I’ll still feel morally obliged to do the project but... meh... it’s worth a shot, no?
Photo: Buster, Female, 2 months old, SPCA foster home program (check to see if still available for adoption)
Note to Self:
There are very few monsters that deserve the
fear we have of them / Il est bien peu de monstres
qui méritent la peur que nous en avons.
~ André Gide
Illustration: Monster #1 by autumn_bliss on Flickr
September 1, 2008
And Here’s Another Thing
So I did all this research last week looking at cats and kittens and was determined to go out and get one this very weekend. Friday evening actually. Someone from the SPCA returned my call on Friday morning and told me they had over 160 cats up for adoption. A staggering figure. And I figured out of that crowd of kitties, there was bound to be at least one to catch my eye. But then I chickened out. Why? Because my landlady helped with some errands on Friday afternoon. They had agreed to pay for the new safer towel bars so we went to a hardware mega-store to pick them out and then she helped me bring this antique Indian table I have to a glass-cuter so they could cut the glass tabletop to measure. They called back after a couple of hours and said it was ready, even though they had originally said it would be ready next week, because apparently they got nervous about keeping an antique around. Which means that my landlady helped me again as did her husband when he got home, carried the table and glass top here.
All this to say that I spent a substantial amount of one-on-one with her on Friday and that combined with all the help, I felt guilty about planning to do this adoption behind her back. The first thing she said when she came up to my place was that my entrance smells of cat pee. Fritz had peed there a few years ago, but I’d used all kinds of product on it and thought the problem was solved. In any case, I took that as a cue to start introducing the idea of another cat, so I said “I know you were resistant to me having a cat at first but after five years now, does Fritz cause any problems for you?” I know he doesn’t so I wanted to bring up the second cat idea as also being no trouble. But she said they’d noticed their back yard reeks of cat pee lately and weren’t sure to what extent Fritz was responsible for that, and I, a bit stung, said of course it couldn’t just be Fritz! There are dozens of cats walking around our street and alleyway here. She agreed with me, but that took all the wind out of my sails. Because I figured they’d object to a second cat on the grounds that it would be another source of cat pee. And as much as I’d like to make a guarantee that my second cat wouldn’t go outdoors, or if it does, that it won’t ever pee in their yard specifically, I can’t make that promise. After they’d driven off to their weekend getaway I still thought I should go to the SPCA anyway but at that point I was so tired and emotionally drained that I decided it wasn’t a good state for me to go to an animal shelter considering I always end up bawling my eyes out whenever I go there and also that it was a guarantee that if I went, I’d leave with a cat.
I figured it’s like this: either I just go get the cat or kitten, and then deal with it when they see it in which case I’d probably say “a friend” had to find homes for a whole litter and “begged” me to take that kitten or she would have ended up at the SPCA. That would work except for the fact that living with the guilt of this lie would be unbearable. Which then brings me back to the option of discussing it with my landlords beforehand in hopes of them giving me their blessing, though they can all too easily say no, which would then kill all my chances of having another cat because there is no way I would then go behind their backs once they’d voiced their objections. In other words, I’m fairly certain they won’t allow it if I ask, so the question is basically whether I lie to them before or after the fact.
Reading Matters
Having just finished reading a highly entertaining crime mystery called Death at La Fenice, the first in the Commissario Brunetti series by Donna Leone (which I do recommend) I decided my next pick should be something with more gravitas, preferably by a Nobel Prize laureate, because God forbid I should read two “light” books in a row, just for the sake of entertainment. There are several options for me to pick from, whatever the genre since my private library is becoming quite well stocked. I picked J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. I knew I wasn’t going for light reading with that choice, and right there from the first words was introduced to a protagonist who at fifty two years old is a has-been professor who mostly gets sex from prostitutes and hits on his own students. Why I decided I need to read this book and ended up buying it in the first place is something of a mystery to me. Sometimes I like to give myself a challenge like that. When I’m not feeling great, using the excuse that “I need to read the novels that have been most influential” I tend to go for really heavy-duty reads—The Bell Jar comes to mind as a fitting example—and I do it as a way to measure how intellectually and emotionally solid I am. i.e. if I don’t fall into an even deeper despair than the one I’m in, then I must be doing well and otherwise, well... too bad I guess. Needless this tactic all too often backfires. So I’ve decided to let the wisdom I’ve acquired through extensive trial and error guide me this time. So even though I picked it up, and even though it’s featured prominently on my reading list, and even though I’ve read a whole chapter of it... I think I’m just going to set it aside for now and pick something else. I’ll keep Disgrace for some other time. Maybe for when I’m feeling “too” happy or hopeful and need to pull myself back to reality. All I do know is I must at all cost keep my mind busy because the second there is an intermission it starts throwing really hurtful stuff at me and lately, that’s taken the form of imagined conversations between various people I know wondering how it could possibly be that it’s taking me that bloody long to get it together and get back to work already. And while I’m tempted to try to respond to all the gossip, I have to keep reminding myself that none of it is real, and there’s nothing to respond to. You’d think that would be simple enough but it’s amazing how hard the most simple things are to do—or not do—in some cases. Well, best get another book to read then. There: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. That should do.
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