"come on, do it, do it for england!"
The Spanish National Geographic Society {it's on my walk home from school.}
It's 2:38 a.m.; I should hardly be up.
No, not at all, as last night, that is, Wednesday morning, I slept but from 5 to 9 [a.m.], and then from 5 to 5:30 [p.m.]. And the day before, only two hours. And I must be up by 5. Hardly excellent.
And yet since about 1:30, I've been ready for bed, yet not retired. First it was correspondence, but then it was a feeling in the pit of my stomach. It would not go away.
Stress? Heartache? Loneliness? Ennui?
Hardly. It took me an hour, but I finally figured out that the slight discomfort was the need to -pardon the colloquialism- pee.
And now I feel much better.
No, really, I'm dead serious. I didn't know what was up. Then I did. And I remedied the situation. And now I'm very much in the mood for sleep, in contrast to feeling...anxious.
But while I waited for that momentous revelation [unaccompanied by Luther-esque lightning, which is completely unrelated to St. Augustine], I did some reading, and, as is the norm, I just really enjoy this man:
My favorite time to write is in late afternoon,
weekdays, particularly Wednesdays.
This is how I go about it:
I take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.
Then I remove my clothes and leave them in a pile
as if I had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only
a white shirt, a pair of pants and a pot of cold tea.
Then I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.
I slide off my bones like a silken garment.
I do this so that what I write will be pure,
completely rinsed of the carnal,
uncontaminated by the preoccupations of the body.
Finally I remove each of my organs and arrange them
on a small table near the window.
I do not want to hear their ancient rhythms
when I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.
Now I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.
I am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewriter.
I should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.
I find it difficult to ignore temptation.
Then I am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.
In this condition I write extraordinary love poems,
most of them exploiting the connection between sex
and death.
I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe
where there is nothing but sex, death, and typewriting.
After a spell of this I remove my penis too.
Then I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.
Just the absolute essential, no flounces.
Now I write only about death, most classical of themes
in language light as the air between my ribs.
Afterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.
I replace my organs and slip back into my flesh
and clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage
and speed through woods on winding country roads,
passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,
all perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.
- Billy Collins, Purity
It's funny, too, it's the second time today that I read the word penis. Last-early-morning, I stumbled onto a fall letter, and there was definitely a significant expanse devoted to how one's specific penis, or other people's penises, or perhaps penises in general {I forget the exact wording and I'm not going to dig around for the text} are tremendously curious, in a fond-friendly, "Well, what's this all about?" sort of way.
(I think.)
C'est vrai, celui la.
Today has been mighty fine.
Annie Proulx is a ridiculously nice woman. We had a little chat. I bypassed the translator. She's the third Pulitzer Prize winner with whom I've exchanged random banter. Or fourth? Did Arthur Kopit win the Pulitzer?
Well I know he won something.
And I did something terribly nice.
And then someone did something terribly nice for me, so it seems to have been a generally good-karma day.
And I'm making couscous soon, and that's almost as exciting as falafel.
I'll post pictures soon. They're on my computer, but uploading them and then arranging them would take forever, and I must at 5 be up be up and use ridiculously cunning industrial espionage to master V.I. Lenin's The Revolution and the State. I can't wait for class to be over tomorrow. I'm starting to grow jealous of people who sleep regularly. Tomorrow, I am reclaiming that right! I feel as if this is all beginning to border on becoming a phyrric victory. Then again, I could bomb tomorrow. Then it would just be total crap.
Think positively. Sleep is coming.
Lots of it. Whole afternoons napping in between stray rays of sunlight.
Late mornings. Padding about the flat in a bathrobe which can be alternately used as a blanket if the sofa is inviting.
Sleep Sleep Sleep. Nap Nap Nap.
Until I start panicking over the next exam, for which I am utterly unprepared, on the 30th.
And the fact that I have to design four webpage things by Tuesday.
Smashing smashing.
I'd love to post video as well [ha! you thought I had totally abandoned the topic of today and picture posting, didn't you, and that the new topic was exams and upcoming obligations, but you were fooled, it was all a red herring, which you've swallowed!], but I'm not sure how one goes about this, even though I now know for a fact that it can be done. If anyone knows, I'd be multo obligato.
Which is hardly Domo Arigato.
(Mr. Roboto.)