Sunday in Sonoma, my last for a short while. I will leave either later today or early tomorrow morning for SF, then NYC. I am trying to economize on the amount of luggage I will bring but it is difficult. I always wish to bring more camera gear with me than I actually need or ever use. I will not have nearly as much free time in the city as I might have hoped for. It will be a working vacation, but there will be the evenings and the weekend. It may get cold at night, and I a wanderer. There is always that to consider this time of the year, remoteness that is the result of drifting.
Highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s. I suppose I'll need a jacket. Packing. It is not much to think about, but I resist it anyway. I will likely end up bringing a few long sleeve shirts and a hat, no jacket. I will suffer, though not much. It will allow me to bring the one backpack that I wish to bring and nothing more. Why is my mundane inner-monologue making its way into this post?
Highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s. I suppose I'll need a jacket. Packing. It is not much to think about, but I resist it anyway. I will likely end up bringing a few long sleeve shirts and a hat, no jacket. I will suffer, though not much. It will allow me to bring the one backpack that I wish to bring and nothing more. Why is my mundane inner-monologue making its way into this post?
My energy has been going into other things - writing emails, reading them.
Today I will take the boy to the fire station. Once a year the firemen host a pancake breakfast. It is fun for the boy, to see all of the fire trucks and wish to one day be a fireman himself. He told me that he wants to be a "Hunter" for Halloween. I have no idea where he got the idea, though I tried not to discourage him too much. He told me that he wanted me to take him hunting. I explained that I'm not a hunter, that I very much like to go camping but that I do not fish or hunt, I just enjoy being out in nature, sleeping near a river.
I question whether he yet makes the full connection between animals and their capacity to serve as food. He loves both steaks and cows. I do not wish to soon usher in the collision of those ideas, but arrive it will, perhaps it already has though he has not developed the moral hindrances that would deprive him of pleasure.
I have a lot on my mind lately, too much perhaps. One needs less thought to write well, not more. I am reading a book about the relationship between writers and drinking. It is an alarming eye-opener, filled with terrible facts that I have heard before, though there are also interesting biographical passages that make me wish to read some of the writers that I have not read yet. John Cheever, and more of John Berryman.
I have the complete collection of Cheever's short stories, 800+ pages worth, though I have only ever flipped through it. Apparently, he was much better than I had assumed. Lately, more and more journalists publicly agree on this. I must have missed the boat on Cheever, and never quite had enough time for Berryman, though I'll see what I can do to correct all of that while I still have a couple decades or so left.
Cato sent me the song below this morning. I hadn't heard it in a while, but like it much. It somehow seems to fill the silences well enough.
I have the complete collection of Cheever's short stories, 800+ pages worth, though I have only ever flipped through it. Apparently, he was much better than I had assumed. Lately, more and more journalists publicly agree on this. I must have missed the boat on Cheever, and never quite had enough time for Berryman, though I'll see what I can do to correct all of that while I still have a couple decades or so left.
Cato sent me the song below this morning. I hadn't heard it in a while, but like it much. It somehow seems to fill the silences well enough.
Walk across the courtyard towards the library
I can hear the insects buzz and the leaves 'neath my feet
Ramble up the stairwell into the hall of books
Since we got the interweb these hardly get used
Duck into the men's room, combing through my hair
When God gave us mirrors he had no idea
Looking for a lesson in the periodicals
There I spy you listening to the AM radio
Karen of the Carpenters, singing in the rain
Another lovely victim of the mirror's evil way
It's not like you're not trying, with a pencil in your hair
To defy the beauty the good Lord put in there
Simple little bookworm, buried underneath
Is the sexiest librarian
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me
So I watch you through the bookcase, imagining a scene
You and I had dinner, spending time, then you sleep
And what then would I say to you, lying there in bed
These words with a kiss I would plant in your head
What is it inside our heads that makes us do the opposite
Makes us do the opposite of what's right for us
'Cause everything'd be great and everything'd be good
If everybody gave like everybody could
Sweetest little bookworm, hidden underneath
Is the sexiest librarian
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me
Simple little beauty, heaven in your breath
Simplest of pleasures, the world at its best
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