Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
One of my favorite books of all time is Stackars Pettson by Sven Nordquist. My mom's old friend, Karin, gave it to me as a present when I was a kid, and along with it her own translation handwritten on little slips of paper in plastic jackets. Last fall my mom came to Storytellers in Fe and read it to all of us, both in Swedish (with a Norwegian accent (`8 ) and in English. Then all the children's books which I had brought down to Fe for Storytellers -- pretty much all the books of my childhood, except my very favorite, The Golden Key, 'cause I had lent that one to Sara -- were stolen or misplaced or thrown away over Christmas break. I doubt if I'll ever see them again. The one I'll miss most, I think, is Stackars Pettson. Today I found the website for Pettson and Findus, and that made me pretty happy. I didn't even know there were other books in the series. Some time between now and when I have kids, I'll find them and get them and read them.
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09:08:42 PM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
Sushi is miraculous. I could eat it until I had an apotheosis. I'm back in the cool, quiet library. I don't really wanna go back to Towson... floom. Cassie very graciously offered me the use of her couch, but I don't know if I'm within my rights to take her up on it... I mean. {bashful foot-shuffling} Oy. I hate being a mooch. But it's so beautiful here, and there's no real reason why I should go back to Towson, except for the bed with my name on it. Maybe I'll just hide out in the BBC all night, if I can get a febbie to sneak me in. Mmmm... King William Room, I have missed thee (and thy bottomless leather armchairs).
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08:52:29 PM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
Well then, well then. I am going to seek out sushi in my solitary fashion. Then I shall again infiltrate the Greenfield library and veg my head for a little while in jolly Annapolis style, which is, as I have found, eminently superior to Towson dormroom head-vegging. Then I shall find a 14 bus and wend my way back up north, barring interesting, titillating, or threatening interferences. I met Mr. Quick on College Avenue. He is the only Johnny-I-Have-Known to be met so far. I hate it when they're Out of Season.
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07:04:50 PM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
This is something that should be read over and over. Since it's Moss's birthday, it seems right that it should be read again today, because he wrote it. It's important.
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06:23:02 PM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
Well, I'm here! And it only took me {looks at watch} six hours! (I got in a bit of a loop around the Cromwell/Patapsco Light Rail stops and the MTA bus yard...) The coffee shop's closed, alas, and so, I fear, is the British goodies store, but I'm here! I'm on this hallowed ground, and it's beautiful. Man. Arrrgh! {pangs of nostalgia and regret} Get down, you. None of that. I am happy.
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06:03:02 PM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
I'm scared of vacuum cleaners.
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11:31:04 AM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
From a recipe on the back of the packet of noodles I ate last night:
"Add hot water to pan and stir, scraping brown bits from bottom of pan. Serve sauce over chicken."
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11:30:45 AM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
I'm awake! I'm awake! I swear I'm awake! Snrrrrxxxx...
It's kind of funny that I've started climbing down from my bunkbed when the alarm goes off, hitting the snooze, climbing back up, falling back asleep, doing that twice or thrice more, and then somehow forgetting to climb back up and just falling asleep on the carpet under the alarm clock.
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(1)
11:28:52 AM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday, dear Moss Virgil Collum you complete and utter stud,
Happy Birthday to You!!
and 10^23 Mooooore!
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04:37:34 AM,Wednesday 3 July 2002
Canadians ain't got nuthin' on you, babe.
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11:53:00 PM,Monday 1 July 2002
I sometimes think the ultimate test of happiness would be insanity. There are many unhappy madmen, and it's no accident. But there are many unhappy sane men, too, and plenty in the middle -- neither sane nor insane nor happy nor miserable. I think that the truest happiness, though it wouldn't necessarily (it might) have any power against insanity, would be able to exist within it. If mercury or syphillis or random chemical upsets caused me to see and hear things, it wouldn't be the madness that made the illusions terrifying -- it'd be my own fear and disorder, magnified and distorted. If I was in order, I would be Joan of Arc; if not, Caligula. It's a severe test, and that's why it's not often passed -- truly holy fools are very rare, especially if you can mark the difference between real happiness-in-madness (ecstacy) and false transports (smiling catatonia or manic cheerfulness) of it. It's not ever something you'd wish for, but I think it demonstrates a truth of what happiness is: it doesn't depend on wholeness of mind or body, though it has to exist alongside them. It can take many states of awareness or delusion, and be certain of something constant within and apart from each one. Sanity is a great gift, which gives us so many more ways of finding truth and reality than the false mirrors of insanity (and I think I'd include depression and other emotional instabilities dependent on the body's chemistry, not just psychoses), but a soul which can weather the most severe disharmonies of perception and function and still show genuine joy undiminished inside of itself -- that's a worthy one.
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06:11:08 PM,Monday 1 July 2002
India Ink.
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01:46:12 PM,Monday 1 July 2002
The bloody Australians keep talking -- and one talks in ALL CAPS. Arrgh!
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02:43:26 AM,Monday 1 July 2002
Oh, teachers, are my lessons done? I can not do another one. They laughed and laughed and said, "Well, child, are your lessons done? Are your lessons done? Are your lessons done?"
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02:07:56 AM,Monday 1 July 2002
I miss my violin. I'm listening to Pinchas Zuckerman play Bach, and I realize... goddamn... I can play that. I mean, not like him, heh, but I can play those notes and make those sounds and get lifted up the same way he's lifting me up, but it's *me* that does it. It smells good, like resin and polish. I like tilting it to the light so I can read the label inside the f-holes. It was my grandfather's, who I never met. He bought it in Italy and took it back with him to Norway. It really belongs to my brother, 'cause that's who my grandmother (who I also never met) left it to when she died, but he never learned how to play it, so he lets me keep it. I've got a little metal mute that goes over the bridge (which is in two pieces right now... it snapped when I was playing with the freshmen on the grassy knoll. I don't know how. I was just tuning it. It must have been tilted and I didn't notice. Goddamnit.), so you can play it in dorm rooms without anyone hearing. Which is good, 'cause the time I usually get the urge to practice is around one in the morning. This music is so beautiful. I want to bury myself in it and stop breathing.
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01:30:09 AM,Monday 1 July 2002
It's like heroin, without the euphoria, the expense, the emaciation, or the track lines.
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(1)
01:14:13 AM,Monday 1 July 2002
Next I get part in Great Russian Drag King Magazine... it was beautiful... everybody die... but they die in drag! This makes it sexy.
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07:52:47 PM,Sunday 30 June 2002
I've seen the first acts of three Mozart Operas today. I am content.
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01:42:31 AM,Sunday 30 June 2002
What's a polar bear doing in Egypt?!
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10:43:23 PM,Saturday 29 June 2002