Is it mere birthday malaise? I have scads to do: I barely made a dent in my ambitious gardening plans for Friday. And today, pre-birthday, I haven't done much besides watch all the episodes of Scott and Bailey that Hulu had to offer and lose myself in the needle(work).
I am experimenting with trying to sleep without any meds as my doc says that there could be an interaction between some of the meds I have been taking. And, thinking on, I don't believe I have tried any over the counter remedies. I do fall asleep, I just wake up frequently and then just doze, so I am tired. And to that end, I am going to take a nap before Peter, Marilyn, Janet, and I go for Caesar salads and martinis at the Dal Rae to (desultorily) celebrate my birthday. The desultory aspect is coming from me as I think the rest of them are genuine.
Yadda.
Yadda.
Yadda.
In other pre-nap news, Vera Paris has finally settled in and is spending more time sleeping in my room. While she is not up to Cooder's stellar cuddling, we may just get there. She also likes my bedroom as there is the express open window to the outside for bird watching and dirt bathing. She doesn't have that connected, familiar quality that some cats have, Cooder had it, Emmylou has it, but she's a warm feline body with an adequate purr and good intentions.
Also, had this odd but not entirely unpleasant occurrence this morning. I woke up at dawn, rather dozing and trying to get my deep sleep on. I kept hearing, very softly in the distance, some jazz. Now, as far as I know, jazz, classic mid-50s jazz, is not to the taste of most of my immediate neighbors. The fellow who lives behind us, Joe, who I have only recently met while I was gardening and he was trimming his citrus trees which hang over our back fence. I thought he might be up early, listening to some good grooves. Finally, I got up to investigate only to find it coming from my open laptop. A cat must have walked across the keyboard to activate Bill Evans and Jim Hall's Undercurrent. They'll do anything when they want to be fed. (Didn't work. I turned it off and finally went back to sleep.)
THE INFIRMAMENT
An end is always punishment for a beginning.
If you're Catholic, sadness is punishment
for happiness, you become the bug you squash
if you're Hindu, a flinty space opens
in in your head after a long night of laughter
and wine. For waking there are dreams,
for French poetry, English poetry,
for light, fire although sometimes
fire must be punished by light
which is why psychotherapy had to be invented.
A father may say nothing to a son for years.
A wife may keep something small folded deep
in her underwear drawer. Clouds come in
resembling the terrible things we believe
about ourselves, a rock comes loose
from a ledge, the baby cries
and cries. Doll in a chair,
windshield wipers, staring off
into the city lights. For years
you may be unable to hear the word monkey
without a stab in the heart because
she called you that the summer she thought
she loved you and you thought you loved
someone else and everyone loved
your salad dressing. And the daffodils
come up in the spring and the snow covers
the road in winter and the water covers
the deep trenches in the sea where all the time
the inner stuff of this earth surges up
which is how the continents are made
and broken.
— Dean Young, First Course in Turbulence, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999
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