Nov 21 2008
hey did you know you’re mortal?
so i haven't blogged all week, huh? oh well. let's see this week... lots of death in my head i guess. for my life writing class tuesday night we read joan didion's the year of magical thinking which i should find a link to or something but i'm not that industrious right now. if you haven't read it or her, you should. she's amazing, though i've never read any of her fiction, i'm guessing it's not entirely different in style from her non. she's so matter of fact about everything, she has this unbelievable way of fully observing every detail (particularly the oddly funny ones) as both an outsider to a situation and someone who's right there in the room. but with TYOMT she's almost observing herself from the outside. it chronicles the year after her husband died of a sudden heart attack, while their adult daughter was in the ICU in an induced coma. two (or maybe three) times during the course of the year, her daughter is released, supposedly better and then something else happens that land her back in the hospital. eventually, i think just before this book was published, her daughter dies. but anyway, the book is for the most part about her husband, their marriage, and her attempts to deal with it, to 'make sense of it.' so beautiful, in that rip-you-heart-out-intense sort of way. and during class we listened to her on NPR's fresh air with that awful woman, and hearing her voice was even more sad, especially since her daughter had been gone for a couple of months at that point.
so i leave class after talking about that for two and half hours and make my usual tuesday night trek to wilhagan's to catch the end of the trivia game and hang out for a lil bit. after the game was over i asked dan how his trip was. he went back to his hometown for a few days and saw metallica in st. louis while he was near. he said, "well the trip was great." that sort of statement is never a good one. then he says he came home to a very still cat in the bathroom. the vet couldn't save her. sad. the next night we mourned lil' girl over margartias and diablo sauce. and i started reading my next book for tuesday's class, which is actually fiction. but it's a really old (dying) man writing letters to his 7 year old son since they won't really know each other. oh, and a good friend's dad died suddenly in his sleep last sunday.
i'm not depressed or anything, just sayin.' it's been like death week on the discovery channel over here or something (which i would totally watch if it existed). let's see. other things. still haven't heard from the nutty dept. head (surprise!) regarding next semester. and since registration is closed, let's hope i remember to do that in january. yeeeeeaah...
also, somehow my dear husband began his christmas shopping a couple weeks ago or something. what the crap? who is this person and what is wrong with him? good lord. now i'm feeling a little losery for not even having a concept of december in my head yet. or thanksgiving really. yeesh. all i have in my head are infinite and ever-growing to do lists. now i need to add gift-shopping to it?!?! ACK! on that note, i really should be reading...