“This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen.” ~ Margaret Atwood, from Cat’s Eye

“Øde” (1904, illustration)
by Theodor Kittelsen

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“And you wait, you wait for that one thing
that will infinitely enlarge your life;
the gigantic, the stupendous,
the awakening of stones,
depths turned round toward you.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Memory,” trans. by Edward Snow

Thursday night. Partly cloudy, 73 degrees.

Another lovely day. The temperatures continue to drop, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

“Dragen” (1904, illustration)
by Theodor Kittelsen

So I finally called the repair place that had my phone because Corey hadn’t heard from them. When he took it in for repair, they had said two days for the part to come in and seven days before it would be ready, so I figured yesterday at the latest. I called, and they said that it had been ready for a week and that they had tried to call the number given (Corey’s), but it didn’t work.

Such complete ca ca (one word or two?) . . .

Before I left to get the phone, I looked for the SIM card, which I was pretty sure Corey had said that he put on my dresser. Trouble is that when I dusted the furniture last week, I didn’t think about the SIM card, so it’s probably been dusted into some strange place in my bedroom. I decided to pay the $10 to get a new one and save my back the pain of looking under things for something thinner than a dime.

Anyway, phone is back, but it wasn’t charged when they gave it to me (would that really have been that hard to do?), and I discovered that the USB port I keep in my car is broken. Always something. So glad to have my phone back, though, mostly because I hate being tied to a house phone in one room of the house, in this case, the dining room where I spend very little time. We have other phone connections throughout the house, but it would have meant moving furniture to get to them, and frankly, I just didn’t have that in me.

“On the beach the sadness of gramophones
deepens the ocean’s folding and falling.
It is yesterday. It is still yesterday.” ~ Mark Strand, from “Nostalgia”It is yesterday. It is still yesterday.” ~ Mark Strand, from “Nostalgia”

Last night I had some crazy dreams, or maybe all one dream:

I dreamed that there had been an earthquake in downtown, and the only way to get about was through a chute. I got to the opening of the chute, but I realized immediately that I would never be able to put myself in it without having a complete claustrophobia-induced panic attack, so I walked on the top of it. I got to the center of the city, and it was a mess. There were piles of things everywhere, and there were people looking for their belongings.

“Nøkken som hvit hest aka The Nix as a White Horse” (1909, illustration)
by Theodor Kittelsen

At first, I kind of randomly looked for my things, first my books, which I was somehow able to summon from the wreckeage by simply saying something like “Shakespeare,” and all of my Shakespeare would stack up in front of me. Of course, it meant that I got everyone else’s Shakespeare as well, which didn’t make me very popular, so I stopped summoning.

Then I began to look for other things, mostly antiques. As order began to be restored, people began to set up impromptu shopping stalls. One of my long-deceased English professors told me that he was only communicating by Twitter these days, but he wanted to give me some old statues of famous writers, like Poe. I found a pair of garnet earrings that were 50 percent off, and Brett found a cool carved pipe.

I happened to run into an old beau of mine, and when I went to introduce him to Corey, Corey refused to shake his hand, claiming that he had just smoked a cigarette. It was very awkward.

I ran into my ex and his sister, and there was a fight about an old turntable and some china.

The dream finished with me trying to find a tire store to replace my tires because I had bought the wrong size, and we needed to drive to Ohio. The whole thing was utterly bizarre. I awoke with a headache . . . as usual.

“It is the finely wrought
detail that captivates us; not
the thing you’ve said, but how you’ve said it.” ~ Amy Glynn Greacen, from “Sword Lily”

Other than the phone fiasco and the mind-blowing dreams, not a lot else going on. I’ve been perusing the web looking for affordable kitchen cabinets and other things. Since we’re preparing the house to sell, I don’t want to install the knotted pine cabinets I had in mind. It would just be a waste.

“Nøkken aka The Water Spirit” (1887–92, illustration)
by Theodor Kittelsen

I’ve been reading books by Dominick Dunne in recent days. Not sure how I got on that tangent, but I finished The Two Mrs. Grenvilles last night, based on the 1955 Woodward shooting, and before that I read A Season in Purgatory, An Inconvenient Woman, and Another City, Not My Own.

The thing I like about Dunne’s books is that they are thinly-veiled retellings of famous true events, but he is able to get away with more because he disguises them as fiction. I find Dunne’s handling of these romans à clef (novels in which real characters/situations are disguised) quite skillful, but at times his name-dropping gets a bit tedious, especially with Another City, Not My Own, which has his narrator Gus Bailey covering the O. J. Simpson murder.

Still, it’s enjoyable and fast reading.

Not much else to say. Life goes on . . .

More later. Peace.

All images are by Norwegian artist and illustrator, Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914).

Music by One Two, “Without You”

                   

Canary

for Michael S. Harper

Billie Holiday’s burned voice
had as many shadows as lights,
a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,
the gardenia her signature under that ruined face.
(Now you’re cooking, drummer to bass,
magic spoon, magic needle.
Take all day if you have to
with your mirror and your bracelet of song.)
Fact is, the invention of women under siege
has been to sharpen love in the service of myth.
If you can’t be free, be a mystery.

~ Rita Dove

 

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