Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
cone of uncertainty
Erin was easy. If I can just remember not to drive the car into any really deep puddles, I'll be fine. And now there's Dean [remember Dean? ah, boyfriends . . .], who was predicted to wreak havoc all over the Gulf region of the U.S., but more recent evaluations of what will happen next week is that it will head right into the Yucatan, and by that time it will be more of a depression than a hurricane.
The language of weather parallels the language of the psyche: depressions, storms, and floods. Scorchers. Weakening systems. The cone of uncertainty: I picture all treacherous doubts funneling into the top of my head and swirling around in my brain before being pumped to my heart, where they flutter and jump until a more predictable pattern emerges.
Fruit flies. Mosquitoes. Fire ants.
Today I purchased wood filler. The intent is to make the window in the shower look less like a rotting frame and more like -- like a window. Will this work? The window is beyond opening and closing, although we gave it a shot when we first moved in. "It will be nice," I thought, "to have an open window to air out the shower and keep down the mildew. Much nicer than the shower in the old apartment, with that broken gas heater installed in the tiles opposite the shower head." But opening the window requires a serious effort, and every time one of us did, more and more of the frame crumbled off, and more and more of the frame cracked. So this wood filler isn't going to fix anything. It'll just make it look better by filling the wood in where there isn't any. I'll need to use sandpaper.
This is a description of the coffee mug in front of me: a smiling, cross-eyed, grey elephant skips rope against a sea-foam green background, with these words written next to him: TTPbIT-CKOK, TTPbIT-CKOC TDE-TO PYXHYA TTOTOAOK
Yesterday I made pasta sauce using fresh sage from the sage plant Cake left us. Sagacious Cake's sage plant. It was delicious.
The language of weather parallels the language of the psyche: depressions, storms, and floods. Scorchers. Weakening systems. The cone of uncertainty: I picture all treacherous doubts funneling into the top of my head and swirling around in my brain before being pumped to my heart, where they flutter and jump until a more predictable pattern emerges.
Fruit flies. Mosquitoes. Fire ants.
Today I purchased wood filler. The intent is to make the window in the shower look less like a rotting frame and more like -- like a window. Will this work? The window is beyond opening and closing, although we gave it a shot when we first moved in. "It will be nice," I thought, "to have an open window to air out the shower and keep down the mildew. Much nicer than the shower in the old apartment, with that broken gas heater installed in the tiles opposite the shower head." But opening the window requires a serious effort, and every time one of us did, more and more of the frame crumbled off, and more and more of the frame cracked. So this wood filler isn't going to fix anything. It'll just make it look better by filling the wood in where there isn't any. I'll need to use sandpaper.
This is a description of the coffee mug in front of me: a smiling, cross-eyed, grey elephant skips rope against a sea-foam green background, with these words written next to him: TTPbIT-CKOK, TTPbIT-CKOC TDE-TO PYXHYA TTOTOAOK
Yesterday I made pasta sauce using fresh sage from the sage plant Cake left us. Sagacious Cake's sage plant. It was delicious.
Monday, August 13, 2007
feels like
With the "feels like" temperature spiking at 115 degrees in the heart of the city, you've got to really steel yourself for the day's events. What happens when it is this hot? If film noir has taught us anything (which it has), it can only be trouble. Time to hole up, watch The Asphalt Jungle (dir. John Huston, 1950) and Strangers on a Train (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1951), and try to make it through the next week.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
august already? (dream)
Where, I ask you, has the summer gone?
I had a dream last night that, with great excitement, I realized that I had bought a fishtank, a large, glowing cube of exotic-looking, fantastically-colored fish that I was keeping on top of my dresser in the bedroom. It was a spectacular sight, especially at night. When I went to feed the fish, I realized how tiny they were, and also realized that the towel I had forgotten that I was carrying was supposed to be placed inside the tank in order to increase the amount of nutrients in their food. Against all rules of logic, the towel, rather than soaking up all of the tank water as I feared, simply disintegrated and fed the fish, who were suddenly large and beautiful, swimming in terrifically complex geometric patterns.
Instead of being satisfied with these results, though, I recklessly went in search of another towel to add, hoping for even better results. I came back to the fish tank, which was still on the same dresser but now so high up I had to climb on the knobs on the dresser to help me reach the top. The whole structure was profoundly unsteady, but I was determined to add another towel. Once I got to the top and peered into the fishtank, I knew my plan might cause problems, but I figured it was too late now, and so I began to put the second towel into the tank. About half-way in, the problems started. The towel was getting very wet and heavy. I noticed that the fish in the tank were frighteningly big, shark-sized, with open mouths and sharp teeth. Much to my horror, I saw that one of the fish was battered and diseased, and that its eyes had been eaten out by the other fish. All of the fish bumped up against the side of the tank with astonishing force. I lost my grip on the dresser, and the whole thing tipped. I clutched the lip of the tank for support and grabbed at the heavy, water-logged towel, thinking it might anchor me.
We fell. Water and fish went everywhere. I scrambled to pick them up to put them back inside the tank, but I couldn't tell which onces were alive and which ones were dead. Some had become so small I couldn't tell if I was holding a fish or not. The room was also very dark, and I worried about stepping on the fish as well as getting bit by them. Their population, since the falling of the tank, had grown significantly. The floor of the bedroom was covered in several inches of water.
Then it dawned on me that I needed help. If the situation was going to improve, I would need to call someone. The realization stopped me in my tracks. Who? Who could I call for help?
(Thanks to Julie Doucet's My Most Secret Desire [Drawn and Quarterly, 2006] for the inspiration, I am sure.)
I had a dream last night that, with great excitement, I realized that I had bought a fishtank, a large, glowing cube of exotic-looking, fantastically-colored fish that I was keeping on top of my dresser in the bedroom. It was a spectacular sight, especially at night. When I went to feed the fish, I realized how tiny they were, and also realized that the towel I had forgotten that I was carrying was supposed to be placed inside the tank in order to increase the amount of nutrients in their food. Against all rules of logic, the towel, rather than soaking up all of the tank water as I feared, simply disintegrated and fed the fish, who were suddenly large and beautiful, swimming in terrifically complex geometric patterns.
Instead of being satisfied with these results, though, I recklessly went in search of another towel to add, hoping for even better results. I came back to the fish tank, which was still on the same dresser but now so high up I had to climb on the knobs on the dresser to help me reach the top. The whole structure was profoundly unsteady, but I was determined to add another towel. Once I got to the top and peered into the fishtank, I knew my plan might cause problems, but I figured it was too late now, and so I began to put the second towel into the tank. About half-way in, the problems started. The towel was getting very wet and heavy. I noticed that the fish in the tank were frighteningly big, shark-sized, with open mouths and sharp teeth. Much to my horror, I saw that one of the fish was battered and diseased, and that its eyes had been eaten out by the other fish. All of the fish bumped up against the side of the tank with astonishing force. I lost my grip on the dresser, and the whole thing tipped. I clutched the lip of the tank for support and grabbed at the heavy, water-logged towel, thinking it might anchor me.
We fell. Water and fish went everywhere. I scrambled to pick them up to put them back inside the tank, but I couldn't tell which onces were alive and which ones were dead. Some had become so small I couldn't tell if I was holding a fish or not. The room was also very dark, and I worried about stepping on the fish as well as getting bit by them. Their population, since the falling of the tank, had grown significantly. The floor of the bedroom was covered in several inches of water.
Then it dawned on me that I needed help. If the situation was going to improve, I would need to call someone. The realization stopped me in my tracks. Who? Who could I call for help?
(Thanks to Julie Doucet's My Most Secret Desire [Drawn and Quarterly, 2006] for the inspiration, I am sure.)
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