1/7/2020: Up at 5:30 AM from
a complicated dream (which I write down), after my usual risings in the night
to go to the bathroom. Prayers, catechism, and Bible. Today I’ve felt pretty
good; maybe because of no tension over the wash. Decide to wait to buy Lotto
until tomorrow. About 7:30 AM I went out to put fish pan in the recycling bin,
but they’d already come! Watched Perry Mason, then went in at 9 AM to
make Kam’s bacon and eggs. Clean up and watch some House. About 10 AM go
out to check the bins, and then pray my rosary. Lay down for a nap and then up
about 12:30 PM. DW shows.
Sent John e-mail at 3:45 PM:
What a difference a day makes! And what's the difference? Today, I don't have a
malfunctioning washing machine bedeviling my time. Nothing else. I still have
all my other troubles, but today for some reason I can bear them, and even feel
chipper.
I wonder sometimes if anyone
ever dreams of ME, and if so what sort of part I play, and if so, why nobody
ever says anything. Do they think it will bore me, or that I might think it
weird, or even insulting? Probably most people don't think their dreams significant
enough to talk about. Or maybe I'm just so dull I never make enough impression
on anyone's brain to appear. Do I angle for attention? Probably to a certain
degree; to a certain degree I am interested in data, in feedback on myself, to
analyze my position in the world. As a married man, I'm sure you get plenty of
that every day.
John to me: You appear in my
dreams from time to time, but I don't remember you doing much of anything out
of the ordinary- no fights, no big drama. I think maybe because there aren't
any particular loose ends between us, you tend to occupy, rather than haunt,
the spaces in my subconscious. Now that I say that, you'll probably be
flying behind me with a butcher knife in my dreams tonight!
Me: Perhaps that's so. When
someone has passes away, rather than being a living presence, they might become
more symbolic. The living presence might be more of a check on the imagination.
That being said I do remember you and Joey saving me by shooting at some bears
that were chasing me. Or were they wolves?
Went in at 4 PM and started
supper, fed the pets, grassed the Chis. Turkey chili, fiesta corn, corkscrew
pasta. Susan called me at about 5:30 PM; she had taken Kylo walking down in the
Cove and heard Vader howling way across the neighborhood! I checked and he was
just fine; probably lonely, was my analysis. Watched some more House.
Me [to my publisher]: I've
kind of been avoiding this question over the holidays, but I suppose I have to
face it: any more copies sold?
Kris Jerome: I’ll have to
check the print report. Digital copies have not sold anything in 90 days.
That’s normal. My stuff goes through long droughts too. I’ll start going
through the short story collection so we can get you another title up there.
Went in at 8 PM, made Kam
some supper, and cleaned up. Went back in, worked on organizing my YouTube
bookmarks, and after a while went to bed.
1/8/2020: Up about 5 AM,
prayers, catechism, Bible, and rosary. Got dressed. At 6 AM prayed the Chaplet
of St. Michael on EWTN. Ready to set out at 7 AM. Did so, got to TX Cooler and
bought Powerball ticket, and got home just as Andy came out to get the paper.
If I was a minute earlier, I would have saved him the trip. Perry Mason
at 8 AM.
Made Kameron eggs and toast
at 9 AM. Went in at 10:10 AM to help get him on his way, cleaning up plate and
pans, getting crate from school, etc. We went out at 10:20 AM and waited there
until 11 AM; my leg was throbbing, and still hurts at 5 PM. Ramen at lunch;
weather still clear, blue, sunny, and cool. Short nap from 2:30 PM, then went
in at 3:30 PM and grassed Chis, fed cats, and started supper (cabbage and
taters, sassages). Kam home about 4:10 PM. Now 5:13 PM, and Susan’s home.
Went in at 8 PM, made Kam
taquitos and TX toast, washed up, and got some more taters.
1/9/2020: Up at 6 AM.
Prayers, catechism, Bible, and rosary. Showered and dressed. Made and ate
ramen. Seinfeld, then Perry Mason. Went in at 9 AM and made
Kameron toast and scrambled eggs. Morning cloudy and damp. Bus got him a few
minutes before 11 AM. Spent some time in the afternoon straightening the back
yard and picking up rubber ball fragments. Drier and patches of blue; some
wind. At 4 PM made supper of pork chops and sauerkraut. A little after 8 PM
went in and cleared up. Feeling down and without energy all day. Read a lot of
Turgenev. Watched some Kung Fu Panda.
1/10/2020: Up at 5 AM.
Prayers, catechism, and Bible. Bus got Kam at 10:30 AM (on schedule at last).
Weather damp in the morning, a little drippy, some flying sun in the afternoon,
then a storm with lightning about 8 PM. Moody all day. Read Turgenev. Made
‘Taco Soup’ at 4 PM. Rosary about 7 PM. Unplugged computer.
1/11/2020: Up at 4 AM;
weather calm so plugged in computer and recorded dream, caught up diary. Not
much done all day. Read Turgenev.
1/12/2020: Up about 5 AM.
Took a shower and dressed. Prayed, catechism, and Bible. Called S&A about 9
AM, and Andy took me to the Coliseum for the missionary fair. It was a good
meeting, but I didn’t hang around much afterwards or eat. Started to walk home,
found a penny, and a nice old couple gave me a ride home: Paul and Fran. When I
told them my name Paul seemed to remember Pop; he called him a paperhanger.
When I looked it up, I saw it was slang for a forger or con man. I wonder
sometimes if these people are remembering Bobby, not Buddy. Called S&A and
they said I could eat the rest of the tortilla soup.
Made Kam scrambled eggs and
toast at 5 PM. S&A went for a walk at 6 PM; gave me a package of Christmas
Tree Little Debbies and 2 Star-Kist salmon packs. Watched a lot of “Son of
Godzilla” on and off. About 8 PM Andy brought out a chicken garippe for me
to finish off. Rosary. Started reading “The Torrents of Spring”. Bed about 10
PM.
1/13/2020: Up at about 5 AM,
after a lot of dreams, mild dreams, that I don’t remember the details of. Just
that I had them. Prayers, catechism, Bible. Got dressed. Now almost 6 AM.
Wrote a couple of pages on
Philo. Andy came in and asked me to check the pool at 10:10 AM, to make sure it
is running. My schedule foreseen from 8 AM: go in and bring back the stuff to
make Kam bacon and eggs at 9 AM; boil eggs and make chicken salad, make my
breakfast ramen, check the pool, get Kam off to school. And do the wash.
And now it’s 12 noon, and I
got all that done (including the complete wash). The only thing I need to do
now before supper is make broccoli salad.
And I finished that at 1 PM.
The usual schedule for the rest of the day, with Flintstones, Turgenev,
and a look at The Owl House. It didn’t please me like some other Disney
shows, as it had the girl out-and-out lying to her mother about where she was
and what she was doing. It also had, in a degree exceeding that of but not
unlike other shows, of outright witches and demons being associated with the
artistic and interesting and down-trodden and empathetic. Made supper (fish
rings, couscous, and the broccoli salad. Cleaned up at 8 PM, rosary, read a
little, then off to bed.
1/14/2020: Woke up a little
after 2 AM from a dream and got up to write it down.
The day went by, pretty much
by rote. Weather in the morning was damp and slippery and clouded; warm and
partly sunny later. I smelled the flowering Chinese jasmine and thought of
Omi’s house. I smelled the falling oak leaves and thought of McQueeney
Elementary and Seguin High. Managed to write 4 or 5 pages. And that’s all
that’s worth recording. That’s Januree for you.
Notes
Garippe is
an old family term for picking the last bits of meat from the skeleton of a
bird or using it for soup stock; I do not know its origin. But I see that grippe
is an old term for influenza; maybe it related to soup you feed someone with
the flu. It was six months since my book came out, and sales (never very big)
had slowed to a standstill. I grew to like The Owl House better and
better for a while, but never watched it to the end. Januree and sassages
are a couple of ‘folk pronunciations’ that amuse me.
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