Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly. ---- Harry Lime
When I was a teenager, I dropped a lot of acid. A lot of acid. A lot of acid. I suppose, even 45 years after the fact, that remains the defining circumstance of my life.
I dropped acid and most mornings, I went to Lowell High School. I didn’t know what else to do. This was San Francisco, a completely alien place where I was completely invisible. I hadn’t been invisible in New York City where I’d gone to Hunter High School, then an all girls school, and been in the top one percent of my class. I’d been quite happy in New York City.
But then my mother had a psychotic episode.
After her death, I searched frantically through my mother’s papers. She was an excellent writer, and I kept hoping I'd find some explanation, any explanation, for her cryptic life that would help me understand her better. I did find something, but it wasn't an explanation. It was a rambling, ten page narrative of her relocation in 1967 from New York City to San Francisco.
The high point of this narrative was a description of sitting in a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with me waiting for the bus to refuel. We watched the sun rise together, filled with so much hope and promise that you'd have thought we were channeling the still 40-some-odd years distant presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
Only problem with this description was that I was no where near Las Vegas, Nevada at the time that sun rose. I was in Camp Waziyatah near Harrison, Maine, whence I'd been dispatched because I was causing Annie and Rik, upon whom she'd summarily dumped me when she disappeared herself, too much trouble on the mean streets of NYC.
Of course, this was just more proof of a theory I’d arrived at long before: You can tell much more about people from the lies they feed you than the truths they pretend to profess. Because, in some very essential sense, truth has nothing to do with life continuity.
###
So, yes. The blinking engine light was the coil pack. When B took it out, there was a longitudinal crack running up the middle. The cheap and EZ fix is epoxy, but it was pretty obvious to me that wasn’t gonna hold. I’m not good with maintenance and upkeep. I’d forget all about the epoxy on the coil pack. The next time the flash engine light came on, it would be three in the morning and I’d be some place like downtown Detroit where they are shortly going to disable all the streetlights ‘cause white folk don’t live there anymore. Bad scenario. Better to fix the coil pack now.
B is awfully smart. Intellectually smart, but just also ingenious and clever. I ordered the part from an EBay supplier – You wouldn’t believe the price differential between Internet auto parts and retail store auto parts, it’s like 200 %. After an hour or so of touch and go when he connected some wires wrong, voila! He had it up and running.
“You know, you really should have sold this car a year ago when you still could have gotten a couple of thousand dollars for it,” B said.
“But I like this car,” I said
“Patrizia. It’s a car. It’s a tool that gets you from one place to another. It’s really an example of anthropomorphism at its worse to become sentimentally attached to a car.”
“But I like this car,” I repeated dumbly.
There is – ahem! – a Christian auto repair fellowship in Watson Glen. You supply the parts, they supply the labor. Only thing is that you have to sit there while they repair the car and listen to them proselytize.
I’m thinkin’ this is something I should pursue in June. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find Jesus.
###
B repairs my car because we have metamorphosed into being best friends. Kind of a low rent Patti Smith/Robert Mapplethorpe situation. We had a big fight the day he first took the cracked coil pack out of the car. He was driving me into Ithaca in the Girlfriendmobile, and I did my usual thing of screaming at the top of my lungs: “Let me out of the car, now –“
“Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t you know you’re my best friend in the world?”
Well, okay then.
We were fighting about RTT. I’d just gotten a phone call from a harried woman named Margarita at his school. RTT hadn’t shown up for classes that day.
“I could fucking kill that kid,” B said from between clenched teeth. “Just keep calling him.”
“I’ve already called him twice –“
“What I do when he pulls a stunt like this is I just keep calling him and texting him nonstop till he finally replies. Fuck! I have no more minutes on my phone and $30 to last till my next paycheck –“
Reason why B was so low on the ready – he’d gone ahead and bought a graduation gift for me to give to RTT. I’d mentioned I wanted to get RTT an android pad – cheaper and actually more functional than iPads – so he went out and bought one. “You can pay me back,” he said expansively.
“That’s not the point,” I said.
“So what is the point?” he asked in an aggrieved voice. “I did you a favor!”
I took a deep breath. “Ben. You kind of robbed me of the pleasure of researching and purchasing a gift for my son.”
“Fine. Give it back. I’ll return it.”
“No. I’m not going to give it back. I will reimburse you for the purchase. It’s more – do you remember once you told me that you never had the sense of being the star of your own life? That you always had the feeling you were the sidekick, the wingman, the expendable character who gets knocked off just before the thrilling climax? Well, for years and years, I was the star of your life. Then after you dumped me, I would have assumed your girlfriend would have become the star of your life. But I guess she’s too boring –
“Oh, stop. What is this?”
“Get real, Ben. This is me, you’re talking to. Whatever the reason you’re with her, it’s not because she interests you particularly. The star of your life right now is Robin, and you’re completely obsessed with him –“
Then the phone rang. Margarita from his high school.
###
When we finally got hold of Robin, it turned out that he had taken psychedelic mushrooms and was spending the day with the-incredibly-lovely-and-intelligent-bu
Later it turned out that RTT and ___ assumed the secret sauce was marijuana. The mushrooms started coming on in Physics class so they both bolted.
This I found out the next morning. That was when I woke him up early to Talk About It. I wasn't going to talk about it while he was high because -- well. I know what it feels like to be high.
“This demonstrates seriously bad judgment,” I told him. “Thing is, Robin, you are coming up on a three-day weekend. There’s nothing in the world that’s going to prevent you from doing whatever you want to do on a three day weekend. And doing marijuana brownies before school –“
He made a face. “I do it all the time, Mom. I’m still the smartest kid in the school. I’m the fucking valedictorian, for God’s sake.”
“Robin,” I said, “you are riding for a fall. You can fake it at your high school. Maybe you could have faked it at New Paltz. It’s essentially a liberal arts school. You can fake it at a liberal arts school. You are going to a science school at Syracuse University. It’s gonna be much, much harder than anything you’ve done before. And you’ve told me repeatedly that you have career plans, that it’s your intention to maintain a 4.0 so you can actualize your career plans –“
“You dropped acid every day in high school,” he snapped.
“And look at me, Robin! Look at me! For Christ’s sake, is this really where you want to be at 60? I hope not. I’m a complete failure –“
“I don’t think you’re a failure.”
“Well, true. That was a bit melodramatic. The jury’s still out on that one, I suppose. But, Robin, don’t you understand that the reason I talk to you like this is because I so desperately want you to learn from my mistakes, from your father’s mistakes. Do you understand that?”
He looked at me with blank, uncomprehending eyes. Because, of course, he didn’t, he couldn’t. Same as it always is.
I dropped acid and most mornings, I went to Lowell High School. I didn’t know what else to do. This was San Francisco, a completely alien place where I was completely invisible. I hadn’t been invisible in New York City where I’d gone to Hunter High School, then an all girls school, and been in the top one percent of my class. I’d been quite happy in New York City.
But then my mother had a psychotic episode.
After her death, I searched frantically through my mother’s papers. She was an excellent writer, and I kept hoping I'd find some explanation, any explanation, for her cryptic life that would help me understand her better. I did find something, but it wasn't an explanation. It was a rambling, ten page narrative of her relocation in 1967 from New York City to San Francisco.
The high point of this narrative was a description of sitting in a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with me waiting for the bus to refuel. We watched the sun rise together, filled with so much hope and promise that you'd have thought we were channeling the still 40-some-odd years distant presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
Only problem with this description was that I was no where near Las Vegas, Nevada at the time that sun rose. I was in Camp Waziyatah near Harrison, Maine, whence I'd been dispatched because I was causing Annie and Rik, upon whom she'd summarily dumped me when she disappeared herself, too much trouble on the mean streets of NYC.
Of course, this was just more proof of a theory I’d arrived at long before: You can tell much more about people from the lies they feed you than the truths they pretend to profess. Because, in some very essential sense, truth has nothing to do with life continuity.
So, yes. The blinking engine light was the coil pack. When B took it out, there was a longitudinal crack running up the middle. The cheap and EZ fix is epoxy, but it was pretty obvious to me that wasn’t gonna hold. I’m not good with maintenance and upkeep. I’d forget all about the epoxy on the coil pack. The next time the flash engine light came on, it would be three in the morning and I’d be some place like downtown Detroit where they are shortly going to disable all the streetlights ‘cause white folk don’t live there anymore. Bad scenario. Better to fix the coil pack now.
B is awfully smart. Intellectually smart, but just also ingenious and clever. I ordered the part from an EBay supplier – You wouldn’t believe the price differential between Internet auto parts and retail store auto parts, it’s like 200 %. After an hour or so of touch and go when he connected some wires wrong, voila! He had it up and running.
“You know, you really should have sold this car a year ago when you still could have gotten a couple of thousand dollars for it,” B said.
“But I like this car,” I said
“Patrizia. It’s a car. It’s a tool that gets you from one place to another. It’s really an example of anthropomorphism at its worse to become sentimentally attached to a car.”
“But I like this car,” I repeated dumbly.
There is – ahem! – a Christian auto repair fellowship in Watson Glen. You supply the parts, they supply the labor. Only thing is that you have to sit there while they repair the car and listen to them proselytize.
I’m thinkin’ this is something I should pursue in June. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find Jesus.
B repairs my car because we have metamorphosed into being best friends. Kind of a low rent Patti Smith/Robert Mapplethorpe situation. We had a big fight the day he first took the cracked coil pack out of the car. He was driving me into Ithaca in the Girlfriendmobile, and I did my usual thing of screaming at the top of my lungs: “Let me out of the car, now –“
“Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t you know you’re my best friend in the world?”
Well, okay then.
We were fighting about RTT. I’d just gotten a phone call from a harried woman named Margarita at his school. RTT hadn’t shown up for classes that day.
“I could fucking kill that kid,” B said from between clenched teeth. “Just keep calling him.”
“I’ve already called him twice –“
“What I do when he pulls a stunt like this is I just keep calling him and texting him nonstop till he finally replies. Fuck! I have no more minutes on my phone and $30 to last till my next paycheck –“
Reason why B was so low on the ready – he’d gone ahead and bought a graduation gift for me to give to RTT. I’d mentioned I wanted to get RTT an android pad – cheaper and actually more functional than iPads – so he went out and bought one. “You can pay me back,” he said expansively.
“That’s not the point,” I said.
“So what is the point?” he asked in an aggrieved voice. “I did you a favor!”
I took a deep breath. “Ben. You kind of robbed me of the pleasure of researching and purchasing a gift for my son.”
“Fine. Give it back. I’ll return it.”
“No. I’m not going to give it back. I will reimburse you for the purchase. It’s more – do you remember once you told me that you never had the sense of being the star of your own life? That you always had the feeling you were the sidekick, the wingman, the expendable character who gets knocked off just before the thrilling climax? Well, for years and years, I was the star of your life. Then after you dumped me, I would have assumed your girlfriend would have become the star of your life. But I guess she’s too boring –
“Oh, stop. What is this?”
“Get real, Ben. This is me, you’re talking to. Whatever the reason you’re with her, it’s not because she interests you particularly. The star of your life right now is Robin, and you’re completely obsessed with him –“
Then the phone rang. Margarita from his high school.
When we finally got hold of Robin, it turned out that he had taken psychedelic mushrooms and was spending the day with the-incredibly-lovely-and-intelligent-buLater it turned out that RTT and ___ assumed the secret sauce was marijuana. The mushrooms started coming on in Physics class so they both bolted.
This I found out the next morning. That was when I woke him up early to Talk About It. I wasn't going to talk about it while he was high because -- well. I know what it feels like to be high.
“This demonstrates seriously bad judgment,” I told him. “Thing is, Robin, you are coming up on a three-day weekend. There’s nothing in the world that’s going to prevent you from doing whatever you want to do on a three day weekend. And doing marijuana brownies before school –“
He made a face. “I do it all the time, Mom. I’m still the smartest kid in the school. I’m the fucking valedictorian, for God’s sake.”
“Robin,” I said, “you are riding for a fall. You can fake it at your high school. Maybe you could have faked it at New Paltz. It’s essentially a liberal arts school. You can fake it at a liberal arts school. You are going to a science school at Syracuse University. It’s gonna be much, much harder than anything you’ve done before. And you’ve told me repeatedly that you have career plans, that it’s your intention to maintain a 4.0 so you can actualize your career plans –“
“You dropped acid every day in high school,” he snapped.
“And look at me, Robin! Look at me! For Christ’s sake, is this really where you want to be at 60? I hope not. I’m a complete failure –“
“I don’t think you’re a failure.”
“Well, true. That was a bit melodramatic. The jury’s still out on that one, I suppose. But, Robin, don’t you understand that the reason I talk to you like this is because I so desperately want you to learn from my mistakes, from your father’s mistakes. Do you understand that?”
He looked at me with blank, uncomprehending eyes. Because, of course, he didn’t, he couldn’t. Same as it always is.
Except now more things are going wrong with the car.
On Friday, it lurched and slowed on the way back to the cement bungalow. I was just grateful that the malfunction happened on an isolated country road and not in town. Clogged oil filter, I thought. Or maybe the new fuel pump was too healthy – like transplanting Jeremy Lim’s heart into the ancient, sagging carcass of Rupert Murdoch: the pressure differential was simply too much for the old girl. Old automobiles achieve a kind of functional homeostasis, you know. If you do too much maintenance, it fucks the balance up.
But no. Yesterday when I took it for a test drive, the “check engine” light started blinking. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Also fuck.
My research pointed in the direction of something called a coilpack, part of the ignition system. Will attempt to get the poor old girl to NAPA auto supply in Dryden tomorrow to get the codes scanned and proceed from there.
Automotive dysfunction comes at exactly the wrong time what with anxiety attacks over the pending move, and all the things that have to get done, and all the $$$ that has to get made.
To cheer myself up, I think happy thoughts like:
Hey! You’re not taking a shower at Auschwitz!
Hey! Your clitoris wasn’t surgically removed at birth!
Hey! You have more fashion choices than, “Beige burka or khaki burka?”
Hey! You weren’t recently diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, nor was your husband just in a horrible bike accident that destroyed half his brain. Several of my acquaintances actually are in these situations.
Who are these people for whom life is easy? I mean, I see them on the street all the time. But I don’t know any of them. I’m forced to conclude that they’re robots deployed to provide background clamor.
###
Then there was the Facebook IPO. Personally, I think the Facebook IPO was a huge success, given that the company doesn’t actually have a product it’s selling. I mean – what? How many billions of dollars did the company raise from snake oil alone? Lots and lots of billions. That is success.
I’m not sure how one goes about monetizing Facebook frankly. The killer apps in this context, obviously, are apps that would let you spy on old lovers and celebrities. But there’s absolutely no legitimate way to do that, of course.
One of the smartest things FB ever did was to become a gaming platform. In another decade, the digital revolution is going to shake out into just two electronic devices: game consoles and smartphones. I suspect the smartphones will be closer in size to today’s digital tablets and the clothing pockets will change to accommodate them.
###
Two scenes I will always think of years from now if my mind happens to wander back to my time in this place. The fairy dell that for two weeks every spring is alive with spring flowers – are they phlox or Dame’s Rocket, I wonder? And the swamp with the drowned forest. I think the beavers drowned the forest, but I’m not sure.
</p>
On Friday, it lurched and slowed on the way back to the cement bungalow. I was just grateful that the malfunction happened on an isolated country road and not in town. Clogged oil filter, I thought. Or maybe the new fuel pump was too healthy – like transplanting Jeremy Lim’s heart into the ancient, sagging carcass of Rupert Murdoch: the pressure differential was simply too much for the old girl. Old automobiles achieve a kind of functional homeostasis, you know. If you do too much maintenance, it fucks the balance up.
But no. Yesterday when I took it for a test drive, the “check engine” light started blinking. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Also fuck.
My research pointed in the direction of something called a coilpack, part of the ignition system. Will attempt to get the poor old girl to NAPA auto supply in Dryden tomorrow to get the codes scanned and proceed from there.
Automotive dysfunction comes at exactly the wrong time what with anxiety attacks over the pending move, and all the things that have to get done, and all the $$$ that has to get made.
To cheer myself up, I think happy thoughts like:
Hey! You’re not taking a shower at Auschwitz!
Hey! Your clitoris wasn’t surgically removed at birth!
Hey! You have more fashion choices than, “Beige burka or khaki burka?”
Hey! You weren’t recently diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, nor was your husband just in a horrible bike accident that destroyed half his brain. Several of my acquaintances actually are in these situations.
Who are these people for whom life is easy? I mean, I see them on the street all the time. But I don’t know any of them. I’m forced to conclude that they’re robots deployed to provide background clamor.
Then there was the Facebook IPO. Personally, I think the Facebook IPO was a huge success, given that the company doesn’t actually have a product it’s selling. I mean – what? How many billions of dollars did the company raise from snake oil alone? Lots and lots of billions. That is success.
I’m not sure how one goes about monetizing Facebook frankly. The killer apps in this context, obviously, are apps that would let you spy on old lovers and celebrities. But there’s absolutely no legitimate way to do that, of course.
One of the smartest things FB ever did was to become a gaming platform. In another decade, the digital revolution is going to shake out into just two electronic devices: game consoles and smartphones. I suspect the smartphones will be closer in size to today’s digital tablets and the clothing pockets will change to accommodate them.
Two scenes I will always think of years from now if my mind happens to wander back to my time in this place. The fairy dell that for two weeks every spring is alive with spring flowers – are they phlox or Dame’s Rocket, I wonder? And the swamp with the drowned forest. I think the beavers drowned the forest, but I’m not sure.
</p>
I’m here. I’m alive.
I just became… for lack of a better word… untethered.
Odd to think that an old beat-up car was my umbilicus to reality, but I suspect it was, I suspect it is. I remember when I bought that car, half on a whim, brand new, maybe two weeks after the model came back on the market, my shiny red Volkswagen Beetle. I remember the ad in the magazine, “Hello-o-o-o, Old Hippie!”
Oh, my. Yes, that ad spoke to me.
It was the fuel pump. Easy fix but I had to save up for it.
In the meantime I took buses. In theory, of course, I’m all in favor of public transportation but the public transportation here is mostly patronized by the lost and the damned on their way to fucking Groton. Guilt by association. While I took public transportation, I became one of them.
Every afternoon before I got on the bus, I would go to the library and take out a book.
Ithaca has a truly amazing public library. I will miss it.
One day it was The Medium Next Door, the true life adventures of a suburban Boston ghost whisperer.
The next it was Erica Jong’s sex anthology, Sugar in My Bowl.
Then it was Growing Up Amish.
Finally it was Ron Chernow’s Washington, A Life.
I am nothing if not eclectic in my reading tastes. And I read fast.
But nothing could really protect me from the unraveling penumbra of those sad lives on the bus. I mean, these people were lost. I may be lost too, but common sense and the small, still voice within both tell me it’s a temporary state for me. It’s kinda like I’m been taking a tour of rural poverty and social isolation, but pretty soon I’m gonna step on that plane and go home.
These people live there.
I don’t even know how to describe what it was like to spy on them covertly over the pages of whatever book I was holding in my lap.
It was this hideous feeling of impermanence. They’re born, they die, they get knocked up at 15 so someone else can be born and die, and for what? They get tattoos, they engage in loud, raucous verbal battles on the bus, they sip Colt 45 covertly out of brown paper bags so the bus driver won’t see them and kick them off. And for what? They have consciousness, I have to assume their consciousness is structured kind of like mine. And for what?
It’s like watching socks in the drier, really. They just go round and round and round.
And watching them, it was sort of as though impermanence had become a physical dimension. Nothing endures, nothing abides. As though I was trapped inside a Schrödingerian paradox. I couldn’t even look at something before it started to transform into something else, and yet the more it transformed into something else, the more it stayed the same.
A very, very, very odd sensation.
I’ve certainly taken public transportation in a lot of places, and I’ve never had that sense before. I remember when I was doing census work in Groton, the strange, unsettling dreams that place gave me. I think there must be something very weird and Stephen King-ish about Groton.
Anyway, I am happy to have my car back.
###
Yesterday I lined up an apartment for the month of June. It’s a beautiful apartment too, like something out of a French movie. If I’d been living in an apartment like that the entire time I was in Ithaca, I’d have been happy here.
And the work I’m doing now – go figure – is remunerative and entertaining, if exhausting. Although I can only write about it in a locked entry. The only real limit to how much I can make is my own endurance. So, again, if that had been around the entire time I was in Ithaca…
Will have to reschedule the oral surgery, which I had to postpone while the car was out of commission. Hopefully, there is still time to do that before I leave.
Must say RTT has been a joy to be around. We’ve been holing up at night and working our way through the early Spike Lee oeuvre. Do the Right Thing is still a great movie. Jungle Fever is almost a great movie. Summer of Sam, which I remember liking very much when it first came out, doesn’t stand up quite as well.
And now I must work…
I just became… for lack of a better word… untethered.
Odd to think that an old beat-up car was my umbilicus to reality, but I suspect it was, I suspect it is. I remember when I bought that car, half on a whim, brand new, maybe two weeks after the model came back on the market, my shiny red Volkswagen Beetle. I remember the ad in the magazine, “Hello-o-o-o, Old Hippie!”
Oh, my. Yes, that ad spoke to me.
It was the fuel pump. Easy fix but I had to save up for it.
In the meantime I took buses. In theory, of course, I’m all in favor of public transportation but the public transportation here is mostly patronized by the lost and the damned on their way to fucking Groton. Guilt by association. While I took public transportation, I became one of them.
Every afternoon before I got on the bus, I would go to the library and take out a book.
Ithaca has a truly amazing public library. I will miss it.
One day it was The Medium Next Door, the true life adventures of a suburban Boston ghost whisperer.
The next it was Erica Jong’s sex anthology, Sugar in My Bowl.
Then it was Growing Up Amish.
Finally it was Ron Chernow’s Washington, A Life.
I am nothing if not eclectic in my reading tastes. And I read fast.
But nothing could really protect me from the unraveling penumbra of those sad lives on the bus. I mean, these people were lost. I may be lost too, but common sense and the small, still voice within both tell me it’s a temporary state for me. It’s kinda like I’m been taking a tour of rural poverty and social isolation, but pretty soon I’m gonna step on that plane and go home.
These people live there.
I don’t even know how to describe what it was like to spy on them covertly over the pages of whatever book I was holding in my lap.
It was this hideous feeling of impermanence. They’re born, they die, they get knocked up at 15 so someone else can be born and die, and for what? They get tattoos, they engage in loud, raucous verbal battles on the bus, they sip Colt 45 covertly out of brown paper bags so the bus driver won’t see them and kick them off. And for what? They have consciousness, I have to assume their consciousness is structured kind of like mine. And for what?
It’s like watching socks in the drier, really. They just go round and round and round.
And watching them, it was sort of as though impermanence had become a physical dimension. Nothing endures, nothing abides. As though I was trapped inside a Schrödingerian paradox. I couldn’t even look at something before it started to transform into something else, and yet the more it transformed into something else, the more it stayed the same.
A very, very, very odd sensation.
I’ve certainly taken public transportation in a lot of places, and I’ve never had that sense before. I remember when I was doing census work in Groton, the strange, unsettling dreams that place gave me. I think there must be something very weird and Stephen King-ish about Groton.
Anyway, I am happy to have my car back.
Yesterday I lined up an apartment for the month of June. It’s a beautiful apartment too, like something out of a French movie. If I’d been living in an apartment like that the entire time I was in Ithaca, I’d have been happy here.
And the work I’m doing now – go figure – is remunerative and entertaining, if exhausting. Although I can only write about it in a locked entry. The only real limit to how much I can make is my own endurance. So, again, if that had been around the entire time I was in Ithaca…
Will have to reschedule the oral surgery, which I had to postpone while the car was out of commission. Hopefully, there is still time to do that before I leave.
Must say RTT has been a joy to be around. We’ve been holing up at night and working our way through the early Spike Lee oeuvre. Do the Right Thing is still a great movie. Jungle Fever is almost a great movie. Summer of Sam, which I remember liking very much when it first came out, doesn’t stand up quite as well.
And now I must work…
Honestly can’t tell whether I’m being the worst kind of slacker or way, way too hard on myself. All I really want to do is lay in a semi-stupor, smoke unfiltered Turkish cigarettes and think about the lost empire of Byzantium:
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Of course, to allow myself to do that would be to be self-destructive in the worst possible way because there is just so much fucking stuff to do.
I keep reminding myself that as of July 1, it all gets so much better. Casssandra and I will make really good housemates, there’s so much I like about her, she’s smart, common sensical and no bullshit. I have a really strong presentiment that we will be sisters of choice. I have never wanted to be a solo householder; I have always preferred living communally with groups of people, although as a married woman and a mother, I sort of had to do the solo householder thing.
I have the best possible feelings about what happens after July 1. I’ll be close to my NYC peeps, life will be good.
But life until July 1 seems pitted with these big yawning abysses. So, so easy to lose my footing and fall through. So help me I’m terrified and paralyzed. The proverbial cat crossing the intersection at 72nd and Broadway.
Does turn out that there are literally 30 postings a day on Craig’s List for summer sublets. Most of them are students, so I’m not sure how they’d respond to a senior citizen who only wanted the damn room for a month. But it means I should be able to find something.
Hopefully what’s wrong with the car will turn out to be the fuel pump and I can get that fixed this week. Life this far out in the country is very difficult without a car.
I’m one of those people for whom life is very hard. I think – I have to think – that it’s something I do that makes it hard. There are a lot of people – I won’t say “most,” but certainly a lot – for whom life is not hard, who actually seem to enjoy being alive. That’s never been me.
The things I enjoy about being alive have always been very cerebral things. I like the stories, the great narrative sweep of history, the little eddies pitching and swirling beneath it. I would love to stick around as a fly on the wall to see how things turn out in 50 years. The great American empire crumples, as every empire – even Byzantium itself – has crumpled. The Chinese empire succeeds it, but, of course, the intervals of empiric succession are getting briefer and briefer. The U.S. had 120 good years; I’d give the Chinese maybe fifty. But what happens after that? Haven’t a clue.
But really, I have to figure out what I’m doing to make my life this hard and tone it down several notches. I’m sick of staring from the edge into the precipice. Time for another view.
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Of course, to allow myself to do that would be to be self-destructive in the worst possible way because there is just so much fucking stuff to do.
I keep reminding myself that as of July 1, it all gets so much better. Casssandra and I will make really good housemates, there’s so much I like about her, she’s smart, common sensical and no bullshit. I have a really strong presentiment that we will be sisters of choice. I have never wanted to be a solo householder; I have always preferred living communally with groups of people, although as a married woman and a mother, I sort of had to do the solo householder thing.
I have the best possible feelings about what happens after July 1. I’ll be close to my NYC peeps, life will be good.
But life until July 1 seems pitted with these big yawning abysses. So, so easy to lose my footing and fall through. So help me I’m terrified and paralyzed. The proverbial cat crossing the intersection at 72nd and Broadway.
Does turn out that there are literally 30 postings a day on Craig’s List for summer sublets. Most of them are students, so I’m not sure how they’d respond to a senior citizen who only wanted the damn room for a month. But it means I should be able to find something.
Hopefully what’s wrong with the car will turn out to be the fuel pump and I can get that fixed this week. Life this far out in the country is very difficult without a car.
I’m one of those people for whom life is very hard. I think – I have to think – that it’s something I do that makes it hard. There are a lot of people – I won’t say “most,” but certainly a lot – for whom life is not hard, who actually seem to enjoy being alive. That’s never been me.
The things I enjoy about being alive have always been very cerebral things. I like the stories, the great narrative sweep of history, the little eddies pitching and swirling beneath it. I would love to stick around as a fly on the wall to see how things turn out in 50 years. The great American empire crumples, as every empire – even Byzantium itself – has crumpled. The Chinese empire succeeds it, but, of course, the intervals of empiric succession are getting briefer and briefer. The U.S. had 120 good years; I’d give the Chinese maybe fifty. But what happens after that? Haven’t a clue.
But really, I have to figure out what I’m doing to make my life this hard and tone it down several notches. I’m sick of staring from the edge into the precipice. Time for another view.
Had a blast with C & A, instant feeling of kinship, four hour talk fest. We drank wine and gabbed in their Econo-lodgings for a couple of hours, thence to Doug’s Fish Fry in Courtland where we all three ordered the same meal and gabbed some more. Drove back down to Triphammer Road -- the GPS in C’s car pronounced it “Triff-hammer” -- hugged goodbye, I got in my car. Turned the ignition key, engine turned over and the fucking thing would not start.
Oh, dear.
Sigh…
A thought it might be the fuel pump and after spending the night reading up on the care and feeding of sick Vdubs, I think it probably is. Not a hard fix, if that indeed is what it is, though it comes at an extremely inconvenient time. But is there ever a good time for a car to break down?
What bothered me was my reaction to it. I came home and I couldn’t sleep. And I needed to sleep, and no earthly good could come of my not sleeping. Anxiety is such an odd, maladaptive behavioral mechanism.
Some time around 2 in the morning, I started reading Ryan O’Neal’s memoir of l’affaire grande de coeur with the fabulous Farrah. Farrah was the first celebrity I ever had a real crush on. I look now at those pix of her from the 1980s and she seems hard-edged, like a business-minded hooker, all big hair and big teeth and prognathian jawline. At the time, though, she struck me as the most luminous creature in the world, petite, blonde, and that bright, eager, hopeful smile.
Ryan and Farrah beat each other up routinely, but that does not mean they had a dysfunctional relationship! Got that? Good!
Also they took a lot of drugs.
They do sound like Craig and Janis, kind of, I thought before finally drifting off to sleep.
Oh, dear.
Sigh…
A thought it might be the fuel pump and after spending the night reading up on the care and feeding of sick Vdubs, I think it probably is. Not a hard fix, if that indeed is what it is, though it comes at an extremely inconvenient time. But is there ever a good time for a car to break down?
What bothered me was my reaction to it. I came home and I couldn’t sleep. And I needed to sleep, and no earthly good could come of my not sleeping. Anxiety is such an odd, maladaptive behavioral mechanism.
Some time around 2 in the morning, I started reading Ryan O’Neal’s memoir of l’affaire grande de coeur with the fabulous Farrah. Farrah was the first celebrity I ever had a real crush on. I look now at those pix of her from the 1980s and she seems hard-edged, like a business-minded hooker, all big hair and big teeth and prognathian jawline. At the time, though, she struck me as the most luminous creature in the world, petite, blonde, and that bright, eager, hopeful smile.
Ryan and Farrah beat each other up routinely, but that does not mean they had a dysfunctional relationship! Got that? Good!
Also they took a lot of drugs.
They do sound like Craig and Janis, kind of, I thought before finally drifting off to sleep.
Oh, yeah and I got rejected by the Stegner people again. Wasn't even waitlisted. To be honest, this year's literary output wasn't up to snuff. I was pouring far more time and passion into the (hopefully) commercial novel.
Ah, well. There's always next year.
Ah, well. There's always next year.
Cassandra and Allan coming up this weekend. I’m so-o-o excited to see them!
And RTT got into the Syracuse Environmental Science program.
Originally, he’d been waitlisted but the Dean of the Syracuse Public Policy School, to whom he’d presented his senior project on smokeable incense, apparently pulled some strings on his behalf. The Dean of Admissions called RTT personally, adding, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you hear from the Policy School in the near future.”
Sort of amazing how smart he’s become.
I mean, I’ve always known he was brilliant, but he was such a slacker for so long that I figured his intelligence was kind of like a radio he kept in the back of the closet -- sometimes, he’d turn it on; mostly, it stayed off.
What’s really interesting is how focused he is. The creative writing stuff (Purchase) is fun but it’s like a video game. RTT wants to go to law school, an Ivy League law school, and he wants to get rich. In this, the invisible specter of big brother Max is very apparent: Max hasn’t been much of an actual presence in RTT’s life this past three years but I guess he still casts a long shadow. Max went to Stanford. RTT has been reviewing his college options using that yardstick.
In other news, I’d be really surprised if my obnoxious next door neighbor makes it another week. Stage 4 liver cancer is a death sentence from the start, but he didn’t know that, and the doctors did what the doctors always do: “We’ll take out the diseased part of your liver -- we’ll give you a special kind of chemo --” None of it would have worked. Craig figured he’d do what he had done his entire life -- make ‘em wait until he was ready. He went to Florida. He stayed in Florida past the date they’d scheduled the liver surgery for, and by the time he came back, the .02 percent chance of survival, or whatever it was, had slipped to zero. No operation. No chemo. Bang, bang. You’re dead.
When he heard that, he crumpled.
He’d had this long wrangle with doctors over pain medication. He wasn’t really in pain, he just liked getting high. Why the hell not? But one of his docs wrote a letter that went into his chart: “… drug seeking behavior…” And then no doctor would give him pills. And then one doctor finally agreed to give him pills. And bam! just like that he started needing them for the pain.
I don’t like Janis particularly but you can’t help feeling sorry for her. This was love and redemption late in life. I’ve mentioned before that Craig wasn’t -- isn’t -- stupid, at his best had a kind of vitality and charisma. Poor Janis, drab as dishwater her entire life, figured she’d got herself a catch. Never mind that she had to support him. And now she figures it’s Love Story with herself in the Ryan O’Neal role.
And RTT got into the Syracuse Environmental Science program.
Originally, he’d been waitlisted but the Dean of the Syracuse Public Policy School, to whom he’d presented his senior project on smokeable incense, apparently pulled some strings on his behalf. The Dean of Admissions called RTT personally, adding, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you hear from the Policy School in the near future.”
Sort of amazing how smart he’s become.
I mean, I’ve always known he was brilliant, but he was such a slacker for so long that I figured his intelligence was kind of like a radio he kept in the back of the closet -- sometimes, he’d turn it on; mostly, it stayed off.
What’s really interesting is how focused he is. The creative writing stuff (Purchase) is fun but it’s like a video game. RTT wants to go to law school, an Ivy League law school, and he wants to get rich. In this, the invisible specter of big brother Max is very apparent: Max hasn’t been much of an actual presence in RTT’s life this past three years but I guess he still casts a long shadow. Max went to Stanford. RTT has been reviewing his college options using that yardstick.
In other news, I’d be really surprised if my obnoxious next door neighbor makes it another week. Stage 4 liver cancer is a death sentence from the start, but he didn’t know that, and the doctors did what the doctors always do: “We’ll take out the diseased part of your liver -- we’ll give you a special kind of chemo --” None of it would have worked. Craig figured he’d do what he had done his entire life -- make ‘em wait until he was ready. He went to Florida. He stayed in Florida past the date they’d scheduled the liver surgery for, and by the time he came back, the .02 percent chance of survival, or whatever it was, had slipped to zero. No operation. No chemo. Bang, bang. You’re dead.
When he heard that, he crumpled.
He’d had this long wrangle with doctors over pain medication. He wasn’t really in pain, he just liked getting high. Why the hell not? But one of his docs wrote a letter that went into his chart: “… drug seeking behavior…” And then no doctor would give him pills. And then one doctor finally agreed to give him pills. And bam! just like that he started needing them for the pain.
I don’t like Janis particularly but you can’t help feeling sorry for her. This was love and redemption late in life. I’ve mentioned before that Craig wasn’t -- isn’t -- stupid, at his best had a kind of vitality and charisma. Poor Janis, drab as dishwater her entire life, figured she’d got herself a catch. Never mind that she had to support him. And now she figures it’s Love Story with herself in the Ryan O’Neal role.
RTT woke up with a sore throat, stuffy nose and a cold yesterday. He didn’t have a fever, so I suppose he was well enough to go to school. But I thought: This is probably the last opportunity I’m ever going to have to take care of him, to spoil him, so I agreed to let him stay home. Put him in my bed, made him soup, peeled him endless oranges, set him up to watch Netflix. We spent a companionable day together.
I made a list of everything I have to do to leave this place and it is enormous, and I need to start and I’m feeling overwhelmed.
Once when I was living on Benvenue Street, I dropped acid and spent the entire trip cleaning the bathroom. Despite what you might think, it was a good trip. I’d gone into the bathroom at the start and been utterly repulsed by how filthy it was, and had the brilliant epiphany: You can clean the bathroom! So I did. I think most of my life, one way or another, has been spent cleaning that bathroom.
I made a list of everything I have to do to leave this place and it is enormous, and I need to start and I’m feeling overwhelmed.
Once when I was living on Benvenue Street, I dropped acid and spent the entire trip cleaning the bathroom. Despite what you might think, it was a good trip. I’d gone into the bathroom at the start and been utterly repulsed by how filthy it was, and had the brilliant epiphany: You can clean the bathroom! So I did. I think most of my life, one way or another, has been spent cleaning that bathroom.
Apocalyptic weather patterns continue. Got woken up yesterday morning at 5:30am by the Dryden School District -- where Robin doesn’t go -- informing me that schools would be closed due to inclement weather conditions. Poked my head outside and found five inches of snow.
Two days before it had been in the high 70s, a veritable Garden of Eden with the last of the daffodils and the back acreage a carpet of tiny, exquisite violets.
Accuweather says winter was on a switch delay this year, high pressure front bottlenecking frigid Arctic coldfronts for months. I guess the switch turned back on.
Bad weather brought with it a return of panic attacks and a low level of chronic anxiety. I guess I really do have SAD -- possibly connected to a Vitamin D deficiency. After making progress on the To Do list,once again I'm stalled. I think what
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katestine said about being trapped in the algorythmn is very true.RTT and I went to see Jeff Who Lives At Home Sunday. I give it an “Eh - “ -- one or two funny scenes but ascension of the eponymous slacker to Buddahood plus Susan Sarandon’s effortless conversion to Lesbianism were exactly the kind of feel-good notes that make me want to pummel a screen with rotten tomatoes.
But RTT shocked me on the ride home by giving me an amazingly cogent analysis of the film and an equally amazing analysis of what will happen to France and the EU if -- as seems likely -- Sarkozy doesn’t get reelected. Robin's smarter than I am, I thought. If you have brilliant children, eventually it always comes to that, the Childhood's End moment. It’s a source of pride, of course, but also a source of some resentment -- like my DNA used me as a stepping stone to get ahead and now is tossing me aside without a second glance or chance.
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