A nap, in the event of a nap, is what I should have been doing anyway.
One symptom of my pms/pmdd (project: find better language for it) is inability to focus. I experienced this a lot and blamed myself for it (laziness, lack of discipline) before noticing that it corresponds to my monthly cycle. I become extra-distractable. I skip between activities on my devices, between reading a book and writing a blog and reading social media and writing a note and doing research and shopping online and writing a thought and looking for a recipe, etc. My attention spins out-of-control, which is frustrating and disorienting and compounds other symptoms like despair and self-loathing. But if I munch on a snack, then I can possibly focus on light reading. I like sweet but not sugary snacks with carbs, like healthfood cookies or fried bananas. Even if the snack doesn’t help me concentrate, it can help me take a nap.
One year anniversary ♥️
I feel very strongly like I sympathize with those Byzantine monks. I feel for the devotion and humility it would take to spend their lives transcribing what, to them, are sacred texts. Copying and copying, writing and writing, I love them for it. It makes me wonder if all those monks are sitting up in a special circle of Paradiso right now, transcribing parchments in perpetuity. I love to think of them like that, all of them at once and forever. Then I’m going down (up?) the rabbit hole of Dante’s Paradiso on a Sunday night when I should be taking melatonin, the structure of it, it’s a whole other kind of planetary science. I could get lost in this stuff, and I do, of course the monks' time wouldn’t be like that 24/7. They could go for walks in a garden, sip green tea, and use k-beauty facemasks, in threesomes or pairs. Sometimes little birds sit on their shoulders and sing sweet melodies in their ears, and their whole life is a singing, I can see them smiling in the sphere of Saturn with other contemplative types.
Hello my name is Elizabeth and I am an etymology addict. Because reply goes back to re + plait, as in, to re-braid. I don’t know if that’s exactly what I want to say, but it’s so romantic, I really want to go with it. It reminds me of braiding my husband’s hair. Folding back and folding back again. To reply.
Grey is the coziest color. Dark grey camisole, dark grey sweatpants, light grey flannel, fuzzy grey ankle socks, my favorite outfit for a rainy afternoon, and when I go outside, grey glitter flip-flops, even a grey hair claw holding back my bangs. Carrying the bones and drinking peppermint tea on a grey day. Green and grey and toasty and warm. Didn’t even have to try, my oh, my oh, my. Oh, that giant mosquitoe biting me through my sweatpants. Oh, Ismail gone kamikaze on my smoothie bowl. Oh, smoothie bowl melting over and I’m a mess. But nothing can break this cozy, Alhamdulillah. Haha, just writing that down is asking to learn a hard lesson. Al-hamdulillah. Oh, I got that mosquito. And I have a peanut butter chocolate ball from Sayuri to eat, those things are the best.
Where girls played in the sand (b&w).
Why can’t one piece of dental floss last forever?
Can somebody ask a LLM and get back to me please?
Translation, from mid. 14th century: the carrying of the bones of a saint from one reliquary to another. And the more familiar definition: the carrying of the meaning of a text from one language to another. From Latin translatio, which can mean both. I pause on that, the thought of carrying bones.
How awful when you’re eating dessert and in the middle of sweetness, the flavor of garlic. Keeping clothes in the shopping cart for months and you can’t convince yourself it’s worth buying anything, watching them go out of stock. Secrets you can’t share though they’re the only things worth saying.
Early morning boys (2/3).
Stumbled across some old voicemail messages from a time of upheaval in my life, digital land mines or ephemeral treasures, the voice of E from when we first met, of my grandmother who has since passed away, a few best left unlistened to and forgotten. It’s ok to decline this weird memory machine.
But when in love, all bets are off.
“I’m actually a rationalist. Everything I do is rational,” she said and shrugged.
It was her horizon, her definition, her wilderness.
Early morning boys (1/3).
He brings me salak, rambutan, and langsep before he leaves. I braid his hair. He opens green coconuts, whispers a prayer over each one and pours the sweet water into glass jars. I pack his toothbrush and find him some socks. I remind him to sleep and will tell him again, night after night, to sleep.
Heavy earth light.
When in doubt (which should be much of the time), mind your own business. The trick is figuring out which business is (truly) your own. So, self-study. So, politics (in a failing, always, because they always fail, democracy). So, the divine. Which is infinite business, but try to make it your own.
Odysseus escapes Scylla by becoming Scylla. He beats monsters by becoming the monster. Odysseus and Achilles show two different and monstrous sides of the poet’s work. The special thing is that Odysseus is a hero for it, Achilles is a hero for it. Tragic poets cleanse (catharsis) while Homer harmonizes. Homer shows us these two human monsters, shows us the world-bending (and world-breaking) beauty of human monstrosity, challenging us, we non-heroes, we normies, to see ourselves reflected, if we can, unpunished, unpurged. Of course, the poet herself becomes both monsters at once. That is daemonic work, that is the work of the Muse.
I try not to write “meta” entries i.e. blog about blogging especially the vicissitudes of it (platforms, history, future, “reach”, etc.) because if I start then I cannot stop. My desire is not to think about it at all. I will not (by choice) engage the Scylla. At least, not before coffee.
Stranger sunrise.