Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 182
July 14, 2018
Cherry Saturday, July 14, 2018
Today is Pandemonium Day. The word “pandemonium” is from Milton’s Paradise Lost and means “all the demons,” or possibly “the place all the demons hang out,” and he seemed to think it was bad. Well, you know what a buzzkill Milton was (the poet, not the dog). I like to think of it as Hell’s Elk’s Club.
From there the word degenerated into a synonym for chaos, which isn’t nearly as interesting or probably as accurate since there isn’t a lot of evidence that demons aren’t as organized as human beings, who in turn aren’t as organized as ducks. Organization is greatly overestimated in living things, is what I’m saying. 
So today, you get to be as disorganized as you want, in celebration of . . . I really have no idea. Nobody really organized this holiday.
It’s also National Ice Cream Month. Might want to go with that.
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July 12, 2018
This Is A Good Book Thursday, July 12, 2018
I’ve been reading old mysteries–Allingham, Christie, Francis, etc.–and taking many naps. I did try one new book and really didn’t like it (name withheld to protect living author) because I wanted to slap the protagonist, always a bad sign. New mantra: Please let me never write a slappable protagonist. Of course, some people will find damn near anybody slappable. Sigh.
So what did you read this week? Any unslappable protagonists?
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July 11, 2018
Working Wednesday, July 11, 2018
I’m still sorting through Act One, making changes based on all your comments. And starting to clear out the bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room. Also bought yellow paint for the bathroom trim. Bright, screaming yellow paint. Screaming yellow zonker paint. SO happy making. And then there are the tomatoes; all that warm, smooth red makes me happy. And there were blueberries at the farm stand! Life is good.
What are you making that makes you happy this week?
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July 10, 2018
Okay, Back to Work
I’m home, I’m stable (well, in context, I’m stable), and it’s now time to get back to work. I’d meant to start back yesterday (it’s Monday! Go To Work!) and I did e-mail with Krissie so we could start sharing progress stories daily, and then I went to sleep. But TODAY . . .
Okay, today I’m going out to a farm stand and buy tomatoes because I suddenly have a craving for frittata.
And today, I’m going to clear out the last of the guest room and the bathroom so two rooms in this house are clean and bright.
And today I’m going through all the notes on Nita’s first act that you all gave me and doing a rewrite, especially that at-what-point-is-she-too-dumb-to-live for not accepting the supernatural.
That’s a full day for me, invalid that I am. Actually, I’m not an invalid, I feel better than I have in months. But I’m still pacing myself.
Then tonight I’ll e-mail Krissie and probably say, “My accomplishments today? I bought tomatoes.” Sigh.
OTOH the dogs are chewing on rawhide bones and having a great time, so I think the whole tender-teeth thing is probably in the past. Nothing but good times ahead.
Anybody else have plans for the week?
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July 8, 2018
Inner Happiness
Inner peace always reminds me of that Groucho Marx line: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend, inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
Yes, I know that’s not deep. I’ve been sick as a dog for a month. Be happy you’re getting a Happiness Post.
How were you happy this week, outside of the dog?Also outside of the dog: shaved dachshund and poodle fur, everybody back home from ten days at the vet, cool and happy:
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July 7, 2018
Cherry Saturday, July 7, 2018
Today is Macaroni Day. (It’s also Chocolate Day, but then every day is . . .).
Macaroni is one of the Ultimate Comfort Foods, probably because so many of our mothers shoved it in front of us as kids. One of the first meals I had out of the hospital was macaroni and cheese because I needed a food hug. I have since concentrated on Caesar salads and broiled chicken, but mac and cheese is always waiting in the background, a blast from the past and comfort for the future. And that’s before we get to Johnny Marzetti from the school cafeteria and any number of slumgullions made with whatever’s in the house at the time. And now that they have high fiber pasta, well, why wouldn’t you get a spoon and start to scoop?
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July 5, 2018
This Is a Good Book Thursday, July 5, 2018
This month it’s comfort reads for me all the way. What are you reading?
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July 4, 2018
Working Wednesday, July 4, 2018
It’s July 4th in America, which means everybody here will be making noise because a couple of centuries ago we dumped tea in a harbor. American history is odd.
What did you make this week?
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July 2, 2018
This is a Good Poem, July 2, 2018
It’s summer. This is my second favorite poem about swimming. Except it’s not about swimming. It had a huge impact on me in 1975 and it seems equally relevant today in this regressive age. Also Adrienne Rich is an amazing poet.
Diving into the Wreck
First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it’s a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always lived here
swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body We circle silently
about the wreck
We dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which our names do not appear.
Adrienne Rich, 1973
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July 1, 2018
I Feel Happy, I Think I’ll Go For a Walk
This week, I’m happy to be out of the hospital and not dead yet.
I feel happy. What made you happy this week?
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