thursday next
It’s Saturday. I like Saturday. And my brother, G, came to stay over last night. He had a bike race today in Lancaster, so my place was a good stop on the way. Saved a 3-4 hr drive this morning. So I was up this morning and I went to the bank and the post office and the walmart, since I seem to have an ant problem. We’ll see if the baits work. I wasn’t real thrilled with the prospect of running all around town this morning when I was doing it, and I was even less thrilled when the radio told me 2 or 3 times that it was going to be 90 degrees today and 95 degrees tomorrow. Fucking brilliant. Thanks, guys.
I cleaned the house for the second time in 48 hrs b/c the cats kicked and tracked litter all through it again, and I can’t deal with it when my hardwood floors feel like gravel on the road. And then I tried to take a nap but I couldn’t because it was 8000 degrees outside. So I got up and read. The eyre affair. Jasper fforde. I read 2/3 of another book of his on a plane awhile ago, and I really enjoy him. I remembered that G brought me the gin he’d given me for my birthday that I left in the fridge at home. I’m in the livingroom, windows open and fan on, in the coolest clothes I’ve got, with a gin and tonic, a good book and a livejournal interlude, and life has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY better. It’s not that the gin makes it any cooler, and it’s not that I don’t notice that i’m spending the weekend on the surface of the sun. it’s that the gin makes the surface sun balmy. Or tropical. But not oppressive, singeing or feverish. The conditions are the same, but the adjectives have changed. that’s what I like so much about gin.
I read One L, by scott turow, last week. I remember getting a mailing from the law school about this time last year, with a list of backgroundy books we could read if we were so moved. My mother tried to tell me to read them. I told her where she could shove them. But one L was one of those books. I didn’t want to get unnecessarily nervy about school before it started, so I avoided everything on the list. Except for To Kill A Mockingbird, which, obviously, I’ve read about 4x anyway. So, not real useful. But I read One L last week, when I had time, and he couldn’t stress me out about something I’ve already done. And I enjoyed it. He writes well, and I wanted to know what he had to say. And a lot of it is exactly, EXACTLY how the first year felt. If anyone wants to know what it’s like. But, those of you who I know are going to law school, sooner and later, do. Not. Read. It. Just don’t. while a lot of it is accurate, a lot of it also is not, and he went to Harvard in 1973. Things have changed and you’re not going to Harvard. And there’s no rule that says you have to deal with stress badly.
Also, I’ve been meaning to write something about the mulberry trees. J found one and I found two. And they have mulberries. And we pick them and eat them. My tree of choice (the other one isn’t ready yet) is in an alley on my walk to school. In someone’s backyard. They haven’t caught me yet. Picking berries and eating them is comforting. Not everything has changed in the past 100 yrs. Everytime I stop there, I think about the several friends I have who wouldn’t do that. Who wouldn’t know a tree with food on it if one came up and kicked them in the head and who would never eat anything they didn’t buy in the grocery store. And the thought makes me sad, the same way the knowledge that no one knows the names of flowers or how they smell or that the wild strawberries on the ground are, in fact, food, makes me sad. When people I care about don’t notice anything outside their fields of vision. No one pays attention or notices anything. More berries for me, I suppose.
I cleaned the house for the second time in 48 hrs b/c the cats kicked and tracked litter all through it again, and I can’t deal with it when my hardwood floors feel like gravel on the road. And then I tried to take a nap but I couldn’t because it was 8000 degrees outside. So I got up and read. The eyre affair. Jasper fforde. I read 2/3 of another book of his on a plane awhile ago, and I really enjoy him. I remembered that G brought me the gin he’d given me for my birthday that I left in the fridge at home. I’m in the livingroom, windows open and fan on, in the coolest clothes I’ve got, with a gin and tonic, a good book and a livejournal interlude, and life has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY better. It’s not that the gin makes it any cooler, and it’s not that I don’t notice that i’m spending the weekend on the surface of the sun. it’s that the gin makes the surface sun balmy. Or tropical. But not oppressive, singeing or feverish. The conditions are the same, but the adjectives have changed. that’s what I like so much about gin.
I read One L, by scott turow, last week. I remember getting a mailing from the law school about this time last year, with a list of backgroundy books we could read if we were so moved. My mother tried to tell me to read them. I told her where she could shove them. But one L was one of those books. I didn’t want to get unnecessarily nervy about school before it started, so I avoided everything on the list. Except for To Kill A Mockingbird, which, obviously, I’ve read about 4x anyway. So, not real useful. But I read One L last week, when I had time, and he couldn’t stress me out about something I’ve already done. And I enjoyed it. He writes well, and I wanted to know what he had to say. And a lot of it is exactly, EXACTLY how the first year felt. If anyone wants to know what it’s like. But, those of you who I know are going to law school, sooner and later, do. Not. Read. It. Just don’t. while a lot of it is accurate, a lot of it also is not, and he went to Harvard in 1973. Things have changed and you’re not going to Harvard. And there’s no rule that says you have to deal with stress badly.
Also, I’ve been meaning to write something about the mulberry trees. J found one and I found two. And they have mulberries. And we pick them and eat them. My tree of choice (the other one isn’t ready yet) is in an alley on my walk to school. In someone’s backyard. They haven’t caught me yet. Picking berries and eating them is comforting. Not everything has changed in the past 100 yrs. Everytime I stop there, I think about the several friends I have who wouldn’t do that. Who wouldn’t know a tree with food on it if one came up and kicked them in the head and who would never eat anything they didn’t buy in the grocery store. And the thought makes me sad, the same way the knowledge that no one knows the names of flowers or how they smell or that the wild strawberries on the ground are, in fact, food, makes me sad. When people I care about don’t notice anything outside their fields of vision. No one pays attention or notices anything. More berries for me, I suppose.