OR THAT I AM NOT BECOMING IT

  97 of #100daychallenge

I really should not stay up late, even if I am not drinking and doing something kind of good, such as reading or productive puttering. I get up late and then the whole day is kind of ruined even if I am not hungover or dragging. Today was such a day. 

The temperature was just warm enough to discourage motion but not really hot enough to make you angry or suicidal. Those temps are likely on their way. But I certainly didn't feel like doing much as so I didn't, but part of not doing much was a near-constant self-nagging that I should be doing things. I did watch some interesting programs about 9/11 and the Afghan War. And I did work on my new needlepoint project that was designed by Vera Neumann, my favorite. It's a nice easy project.

The necessary cord for my printer arrived, and voilå, we are printing again. Glad I didn't follow my impulse to just buy a new one. 

I was out watering my rose bushes and trees. Four of out five cats were lounging around with me. Fox demanded quite a bit of petting. I am not watering much due to the drought, so I am more in survival mode in the garden, rather than flourishing. The black tulip magnolia, the Japanese maple, and the forsythia are kind of limping along. The honeysuckle in the back is blooming and smells great. 

So, the printer was attended to, I changed my sheets and washed them, I made coffee and oatmeal for my mom ... that's about the size of positivity today. I can feel the rocky and fine layers of depression in the sedimentary layers of my mood. Neither bedrock nor topsoil, I could see how I could revert to days in bed.

I am understimulated but don't have the energy or wherewithal to act decisively toward the more positive. Overwhelmed would be another layer in the strata. Self-induced boredom? Dopamine withdrawal? I recommend this podcast from Fresh Air about a new book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in an Age of Indulgence.

Perhaps my dry spell of reading is over. I am nearly finished with Sinead O'Connors memoir, Reminiscences. I quite liked her when she first hit the scene and I have always been curious about her story. This memoir doesn't clarify much, but it does make some things make more sense. And I am listening to Patrick Radden Keefe's book, Empire of Pain about the Sackler family and oxycontin. Quite fascinating. 

I wish I could speak with Anita. I find myself wondering how death is going? She was in so much pain, I hope she got the relief she wanted so much. 

from NOTES TOWARD AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

don’t expect smiles on all my faces

you won’t have to look close

to see what I am 

or what I want to become

or that I am not becoming it

if you see me from a certain angle

on a better than average day

you will notice I am the other one

not the one you expected

it will appear that I have chosen

my shadow for its good behavior

and that I am bored by those women

whose bodies are all

they have to say to me

I will seduce

neither your wife nor your son

but I must tell you

than inside every thin poet

is a fat poet trying to get out

I do my best to keep him prisoner

don’t offer me a second helping

of anything

___________/__________

when I remember where I cam from

and how much I owe my sources

it is difficult to continue

I see my life flapping over the ground

the shadow of a dark wing

with no bird to guide it

but this too is self-indulgence

like guilt

it would be better to say

I will do what I can to entertain you

and for what I lack the courage to do

please forgive me

I would prefer to be completely honest

but then you would hate me

you see of course that we all

lie for the same reasons

the hungry bat

in search of a vein is shameless

but more honest than any of us 

can afford to be

___________/__________

living in the desert

has taught me to go inside myself

for shade

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982