Sunday decompression
Morning keying of notes over coffee: Rubicon, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah.
I looked at some blogs, and, via Debra Young's fantasist, started reading My Thoughts by Marian Toews, and was immediately drawn in. This is the kind of thing I was hoping to find when I started reading blogs, indeed the kind of thing I was hoping to do: an intimate opening-up of one's experience. Again and again I felt I was reading someone's vivid, fresh experience and thoughts, not a rehash of conventional thoughts and feelings. What an unusual life--she says that she was a prostitute in Vancouver for 11 years. Now she's solitary and loving it. She's observant, insightful, and articulate. Take a look.
And me? After the flurry of activity getting Robin moved in, a day of relative decompression. Kimmie made poached eggs for breakfast and we ate it en famille for the first time in years. Robin had what she thought was a job interview at a new medical clinic opening in West Vancouver. We decided to make a family outing of it and I drove us there. It turned out that there had been confusion in the setting of the appointment, with the woman telling Robin to arrive "tomorrow", which evidently meant Monday. The place was locked in its new green-glassed building at 17th and Marine Drive.
The women made me stop at Old Navy in Park Royal so they could shop for T-shirts. I trailed after them, saying yes or no to the colors they pointed at (my eye for color is better than theirs). While they stood in the long checkout queue I stood outside on the sidewalk in the muggy shadowless air in my jean-jacket, shorts, and running-shoes, playing Scrabble on my Palm.
When we got home Kimmie decided she didn't want her T-shirts after all; the colors didn't quite appeal to her.
"I'll take them back," she said as we stood munching tortilla chips together at the kitchen counter, dipping them in the leftover salsa she'd made on Friday night.
"What--today?" I said.
"Yeah."
"If I bought T-shirts and took them back on the same day, I'd feel that my life was a miserable, wretched waste of time," I said mildly.
"You're not me," Kimmie said, "and I'm not you."
I didn't want to deny that, so we simply stood there crunching our chips, Kimmie dodging the bits of raw onion until there was almost nothing else left in the bowl, at which point she abandoned it to me.
Will your magnum opus move forward tomorrow, Paul? No. Tomorrow I'll be working on the estate spreadsheet with my mother.
I looked at some blogs, and, via Debra Young's fantasist, started reading My Thoughts by Marian Toews, and was immediately drawn in. This is the kind of thing I was hoping to find when I started reading blogs, indeed the kind of thing I was hoping to do: an intimate opening-up of one's experience. Again and again I felt I was reading someone's vivid, fresh experience and thoughts, not a rehash of conventional thoughts and feelings. What an unusual life--she says that she was a prostitute in Vancouver for 11 years. Now she's solitary and loving it. She's observant, insightful, and articulate. Take a look.
And me? After the flurry of activity getting Robin moved in, a day of relative decompression. Kimmie made poached eggs for breakfast and we ate it en famille for the first time in years. Robin had what she thought was a job interview at a new medical clinic opening in West Vancouver. We decided to make a family outing of it and I drove us there. It turned out that there had been confusion in the setting of the appointment, with the woman telling Robin to arrive "tomorrow", which evidently meant Monday. The place was locked in its new green-glassed building at 17th and Marine Drive.
The women made me stop at Old Navy in Park Royal so they could shop for T-shirts. I trailed after them, saying yes or no to the colors they pointed at (my eye for color is better than theirs). While they stood in the long checkout queue I stood outside on the sidewalk in the muggy shadowless air in my jean-jacket, shorts, and running-shoes, playing Scrabble on my Palm.
When we got home Kimmie decided she didn't want her T-shirts after all; the colors didn't quite appeal to her.
"I'll take them back," she said as we stood munching tortilla chips together at the kitchen counter, dipping them in the leftover salsa she'd made on Friday night.
"What--today?" I said.
"Yeah."
"If I bought T-shirts and took them back on the same day, I'd feel that my life was a miserable, wretched waste of time," I said mildly.
"You're not me," Kimmie said, "and I'm not you."
I didn't want to deny that, so we simply stood there crunching our chips, Kimmie dodging the bits of raw onion until there was almost nothing else left in the bowl, at which point she abandoned it to me.
Will your magnum opus move forward tomorrow, Paul? No. Tomorrow I'll be working on the estate spreadsheet with my mother.
posted by paulv at
4:41 PM
2 Comments:
Oh yes Marian's journal is fascinating. I check it regularly. Thanks for the mention. d:)
By
Debra Young, at June 27, 2005 8:32 AM
Ha, I only just found this! I had intended to look ages ago, after you mentioned you'd commented on my blog, but forgot! Anyway, thanks for the mention! Thanks Debra as well (although this is so far back maybe neither of you will ever see this (it's Aug. 8) :)
By
Marian (Jolene), at August 05, 2005 12:21 PM
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