Reset Forty, Day Twenty-Three
May. 1st, 2022 03:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphWell May has begun and I totally forgot to check my data usage for April. I have no idea if there's any way to do that once the month has ended. It's easy to check the figure on the phone, if I remember to do so, up until the last day of the month, but Saturday I failed to remember. Not that it's any excuse. but I was distracted all evening by ennui. And videos. Okay, mostly videos, but they distracted me from the ennui, and the ennui distracted me from checking my data usage. Reality is always getting away from me like that, and it gets worse all the time.
The day began well enough, by which I mean that waking up was no worse than usual. After that it was quite nice to have orange juice again, and then later a donut, and finally fresh bread for a sandwich at dinner. There was one problem with the donuts, though. Ants got into them. I brushed them off, and had to dig a couple out who were burrowing into the donuts like they were intending to nest in them, which was disturbing, but I'm pretty sure I got all of them out, and then I transferred the donuts to airtight plastic containers the ants won't be able to get into. I hope.
The other annoyance Saturday was that my allergies were kicking up again. It was quite warm out, and something has been stimulated to release gobs of pollen, and plants aren't supposed to have sex with humans, but they insist on penetrating my nose, again and again, every damn spring. I mean I know the plants will provide me with dinner, but still, I feel dirty and used. Actually it's mostly the tissues I blow my nose on that are used, but you know what I mean. Isn't there something in the Bible about unnatural acts with vegetation? There must be. And I'll probably get blamed for it, even though it's the plants that are at fault (::shakes fist at God for creating horny, promiscuous plants::)
Today is supposed to be even hotter than Saturday, but it's quite pleasantly cool outside right now. I'm going to go out and sit in the dark for a while. I think the mockingbird is still singing. Maybe the music will prime me for sleep.
Sunday Verse
by Mark Strand
What of the neighborhood homes awash
In a silver light, of children hunched in the bushes,
Watching the grown-ups for signs of surrender,
Signs that the irregular pleasures of moving
From day to day, of being adrift on the swell of duty,
Have run their course? O parents, confess
To your little ones the night is a long way off
And your taste for the mundane grows; tell them
Your worship of household chores has barely begun;
Describe the beauty of shovels and rakes, brooms and mops;
Say there will always be cooking and cleaning to do,
That one thing leads to another, which leads to another;
Explain that you live between two great darks, the first
With an ending, the second without one, that the luckiest
Thing is having been born, that you live in a blur
Of hours and days, months and years, and believe
It has meaning, despite the occasional fear
You are slipping away with nothing completed, nothing
To prove you existed. Tell the children to come inside,
That your search goes on for something you lost—a name,
A family album that fell from its own small matter
Into another, a piece of the dark that might have been yours,
You don’t really know. Say that each of you tries
To keep busy, learning to lean down close and hear
The careless breathing of earth and feel its available
Languor come over you, wave after wave, sending
Small tremors of love through your brief,
Undeniable selves, into your days, and beyond.
The day began well enough, by which I mean that waking up was no worse than usual. After that it was quite nice to have orange juice again, and then later a donut, and finally fresh bread for a sandwich at dinner. There was one problem with the donuts, though. Ants got into them. I brushed them off, and had to dig a couple out who were burrowing into the donuts like they were intending to nest in them, which was disturbing, but I'm pretty sure I got all of them out, and then I transferred the donuts to airtight plastic containers the ants won't be able to get into. I hope.
The other annoyance Saturday was that my allergies were kicking up again. It was quite warm out, and something has been stimulated to release gobs of pollen, and plants aren't supposed to have sex with humans, but they insist on penetrating my nose, again and again, every damn spring. I mean I know the plants will provide me with dinner, but still, I feel dirty and used. Actually it's mostly the tissues I blow my nose on that are used, but you know what I mean. Isn't there something in the Bible about unnatural acts with vegetation? There must be. And I'll probably get blamed for it, even though it's the plants that are at fault (::shakes fist at God for creating horny, promiscuous plants::)
Today is supposed to be even hotter than Saturday, but it's quite pleasantly cool outside right now. I'm going to go out and sit in the dark for a while. I think the mockingbird is still singing. Maybe the music will prime me for sleep.
Sunday Verse
The Continuous Life
by Mark Strand
What of the neighborhood homes awash
In a silver light, of children hunched in the bushes,
Watching the grown-ups for signs of surrender,
Signs that the irregular pleasures of moving
From day to day, of being adrift on the swell of duty,
Have run their course? O parents, confess
To your little ones the night is a long way off
And your taste for the mundane grows; tell them
Your worship of household chores has barely begun;
Describe the beauty of shovels and rakes, brooms and mops;
Say there will always be cooking and cleaning to do,
That one thing leads to another, which leads to another;
Explain that you live between two great darks, the first
With an ending, the second without one, that the luckiest
Thing is having been born, that you live in a blur
Of hours and days, months and years, and believe
It has meaning, despite the occasional fear
You are slipping away with nothing completed, nothing
To prove you existed. Tell the children to come inside,
That your search goes on for something you lost—a name,
A family album that fell from its own small matter
Into another, a piece of the dark that might have been yours,
You don’t really know. Say that each of you tries
To keep busy, learning to lean down close and hear
The careless breathing of earth and feel its available
Languor come over you, wave after wave, sending
Small tremors of love through your brief,
Undeniable selves, into your days, and beyond.
