Friday, January 25, 2008

THINGS ABOUT TODAY (a list of no great need)

1. I ate microwaved cheese grits three different times today. Twice I had the American Cheese cheese grit and another time I had 3 Cheese cheese grits. Cheese Grits, even microwavable, are an excellent thing to buy and eat at home. I am trying to eat at home more often. It's hard for me to do this because I like to be served, I think. Also I eat a lot more when I have food at home and can eat it at my leisure. I eat uncontrollably, like my inner fat child. I am trying to do a good job. I think I could be happy eating cheese grits. I will only buy cheese grits until I am tired of them.

2. My mom called to let me know that my uncle Joe who died yesterday of Parkinson's had a wake today and a funeral tomorrow. I did not go to the wake. I thought about it but then I didn't. Funerals don't do much for me in the context of understanding someone is dead. I asked my father if he wanted me to go to the wake and the funeral but he said I could just go to the funeral, but he is the kind of person who would not insist even if he really wanted me to go to both. I will be at the funeral at 10:30 am tomorrow. My uncle did not actually die directly of Parkinson's but from complications of his refusal to eat or drink water because he'd basically become a vegetable and he knew it and did not want to be that anymore. He'd begun to have delusions in the last few months from the Parkinson's. He thought his mouth was full of hair and would beg people to vacuum it out. He swore illegal aliens threw rocks at his window at night and tortured him. He thought his eyes had pins stuck in them. He feels better now.

3. I drank some coffee and that was nice.

4. I lost an ebay auction on a vintage TALKING HEADS poster I really wanted.

5. I read some more of ANNE CARSON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED, which I've been reading, and I read it while on a stationary bike and then I put it down and ran more on a treadmill while watching TV on mute.

6. The coffee made me shit twice. This is becoming one of my favorite side effects of coffee.

7. I kept my heater off most of the day so as not to run up a bill and as a result had cold feet and hands most of the day.

8. I ate exactly 6 cookies of moderate size.

9. I played poker and was bored.

10. I came home and was bored.

11. I will not get to sleep in time to be well rested for tomorrow for the funeral though I'm not sure why I'd need to be well rested for a funeral except to work better on making my face into something consoling and/or expressing of grief and to speak to my relatives who I don't see except on special occasions like an anniversary or a death.

12. This list is helping me feel less bored but maybe a little dumber or more crapped out, whatever that means.

13. I took photos of my loft to list it on craigslist so I don't have to pay a realtor even though I probably will end up doing that because I don't want to try to sell it myself because I don't like talking to people and I don't have the motivation to try to sell it because the motivation is indirect and even though I can understand the indirect motivation (of saving money on the realtor) I will probably choose to do it anyway because in the short run it is easier and I am dumb and lazy about things that I don't care that much about.

14. I walked around a looked at nothing a lot and talked to myself and used a Swiffer on the floor. Later I spilled some water on my cardigan and it still feels wet and is making me uncomfortable and now I really wish I was tired at 1 AM though I'm nowhere near it and I am going to sit up looking at the internet for a long time and time will pass as if it isn't there and I will get older without directly feeling it until much later.

15. Okay.

16. Okay.

4 comments:

Ani Smith said...

You have trouble with endings. I get that.

(Erm. I'm referring to the list. Not your uncle. Who I'm sorry about. Okay. Okay.)

Matthew said...

I just read your review of Yannick Murphy's new book in the February Believer and it's so good. I read "Here They Come" a few years ago and really am looking forward to reading this one, now more so after reading what you wrote. The part about her narrative voice like some mad grandmother after years of hallucinogens sounds really perfect. Anyway. Yeah. Beautiful job there.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

endings are boss whichwways.

thankye matthye. i am glad the review made you want to read it. it's a great book.

Bryan Coffelt said...

I tried to read Sartre on a stationary bike at the YMCA once but I kept feeling like a stupid asshole.

I almost brought Heidegger last night. What is WRONG with me?