The Flatland Chronicles

Loss, Grief, & Cet.

With one parent(-in-law) still ailing in hospital and the other freshly released following a cracked rib, I have been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster.  I've also been up to my ears in my work, which when on, is really, really on and really labor-intensive.  ]

But I didn't feel like posting anyway.  I read, and also much admire, a number of blogs whose writers confide their deepest emotions to the internet, but I can't do that.  For one thing, my emotions really just aren't that deep.  They used to be as deep as anyone's, but after one awful thing and another happened to me a few years ago, I made the decision that I couldn't afford anymore to have feelings about everything.  To quote a character from one of my favorite Salinger stories, I don't see what they're good for, emotions.  All they do is make it harder to cope.

I will share that I've recently experienced a rupture in a long-standing friendship---not my fault or the friend's, just the effect of time and distance---and that I have been 'grieving' about that in a subdued, dry-eyed fashion.  At one point in my life I'd have cried and cried.  But one thing middle-age does do for you is make you realize the pointlessness of tears except as a sort of pressure-release device.  Sometimes I cry when I'm very, very angry or very, very anxious or very, very frustrated.  I rarely cry at all when I'm sad.  I sit and stare at the floor.

There it is.  You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and hang on to what you can. 

"Good-by, Old Year, You Oaf"--Nine Resolutions I resolve NOT to Make

Ogden Nash, whose poems were cherished by me as an adolescent (when they were already comparatively aged) wrote:

Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?

• "Good-by, Old Year, You Oaf or Why Don't They Pay the Bonus?" in The Primrose Path (1935)My parents had a complete set of books by Nash---already quite old by my time--- and I used to read them and laugh and laugh.  I wish I could find it reprinted somewhere on the internet, but I cannot.  (Screw the law of copyright----if people could read Nash's poems and see how funny and weird they were, the poems would have a whole new lease on life. As it is, people are likely to forget all about them.)   

Of course, he was writing in a period when the times were really bad, not to be compared to now, no matter how we may argue that we live in the worst of all possible worlds.  Still, this quote expresses what I essentially feel and the reason why I need champagne to see me through the New Year if I am to attain---as I did---a semblance of celebratory joy. 

But I am done making resolutions.  And here is a list of all the resolutions I am not going to make.

"Yellow Ledbetter" by Pearl Jam: Another One of Those Songs

I love Pearl Jam.  But it is a weird love that involves a complete inability to listen to most of their music without weeping, so I don't listen to them unless I'm prepared and fortified or else am free to cry.  I love Pearl Jam.  But it is a weird love that involves a complete inability to listen to most of their music without weeping, so I don't listen to them unless I'm prepared and fortified or else am free to cry.  And if you knew me, this would surprise you.  I'm not the sentimental type except secretly, in the same way as everyone else who takes a detached, ironic view of life. 

It's partly because Eddie Vedder has that sort of voice and the songs are those sorts of songs.  The lyrics to the songs Eddie Vedder writes are deep or at least give that impression (like poetry by Dylan Thomas, say). There's also that aspect of Vedder's singing that involves sometimes seriously mangling the lyrics, no doubt intentionally---which would matter more if I understood the lyrics.  There again, maybe I don't want to understand them.  Their meaning for me is---and remains---private.

Gearing Up for the New Year: A Resolution to Learn How to Do Joy? (Also: Blogcombing "Open Grove" Again, Some More)

In one of my favorite novels  (synopsis) by my favorite novelist, Ursula K. LeGuin, one of the characters----a generous and therefore a wealthy man---has a run of the sort of undeserved bad luck that makes nonsense of the notion that the universe is in any way rational.  The other characters, like Job's comforters, then turn on him because the very sight of him makes him uncomfortable.  They also conclude that perhaps he brought his bad luck on himself by being immoderately generous and kind.  How then, does one live well? he asks them.  "If I knew that I'd know everything,' one of them replies.

You Can't Go Home Again or Step in the Same River Twice.

I'm back from visiting my mother in South Carolina.   It wasn't the trip I expected by any means.  We were expecting two weeks of family visiting and mild diversion, but when I arrived there (three weeks ago now), she had come down with a case of strep throat.  Strep throat doesn't sound so bad until you have it, my friends.  I remember this myself.

Random Link of the Day. "A Stifled, Drowsy Unimpassioned Grief": The Paintings of Edward Hopper.

Today's link is something really good: a slideshow from Slate Magazine of the paintings of Edward Hopper called "The Secret World of Edward Hopper."  I fell in love with Hopper in college.  I even wrote a poem about the poem called "Morning Sun"  Sadly, the picture isn't included in the slideshow, but at least you'll see when you look at Sun in an Empty Room that few could paint sunlight like Hopper.  Later on, when I started making photographs, I used to try for similar effects. 

RANDOM LINK OF THE DAY. God's Hamster. An Argument to Show Why You Can't Completely Rule Out Intelligent Design.

<Get "Madame Sosostris" by Damozel | I am the creator of a little hamster world, inhabited by a single dwarf hamster called Ezzeray (a name bestowed on her by the beloved stepdaughter, Emma).  Hamsters, unlike other rodents, do not care for the company of others, including other hamsters.  But they are capable of having a very limited sort of personal relationship with their human lovers.   

I love my little hammette, but could she ever love me? Answer (of course):  No. 

A Gentleman's Obsession with Collecting Books.

  Nick, my husband, collects books.  Not special books either, just books.  Unless he is busy working on his own novel----as who is not?---he almost always has his nose stuck in someone else's.  Our not very large apartment is brimming over with books because I've accumulated quite a few of my own. 

Random Link O' the Day. The Barnum Effect, the Mystery behind the Commonplace, and one Blogger's Tarot (recommended).

First, go to this link.  Then take this personality test.  Marvel at its amazing accuracy (using almost no data whatsoever). 

Father/Daughter Dynamics: In Defense of My Hero, Alec Baldwin.

Can I just say, I adore Alec Baldwin?  Partly because I admire the way he thinks and speaks.  I didn't know this till quite recently, when I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher.  I was bowled over.  (How Hot--I mean, "presidential"--- is Alec Baldwin?  Sorry; I mean:  Real Time with Bill Maher:  Episode 88. )

And then there's 30 Rock.  It's quickly become tied with The Office as my favorite show.  Baldwin is amazing as Jack Donaghy.  He is the reason why the show works.