If This Is Wednesday, It's Trash Night

I'm almost halfway through Hilary Mantel's Bringing Up the Bodies, the second of a trilogy that started with Wolf Hall. Long-timers analog and digital can vouch I've yodeled for Mantel since whenever. (UPDATE! I got sick of the gif, decided to put up a header.) No one I've read has given me better insights into the human nature of power, its, um, ruthless amorality of pragmatism: you know, the people fucking you over honestly believe they're fucking you over in the greater interest of everyone. Meanwhile, things have suddenly gone off-key: Henry's jousting accident, Cromwell's assertion of authority in the emergency, and Anne's subsequent miscarriage of the heir have if not monkey-wrenched then cracked a fault-line in the commoner Cromwell's power England's peers consider usurped and illegitimate. It's a testament to Mantel's powerful imagination and skill with the language that I devour a historical fiction about Henry VIII when I detest historical fiction and despise shit about the English royalty. All of Mantel's fiction (which is, other than the current trilogy in progress and her very first novel, not historical fiction) is superb. Other than Richard, no one I've urged Mantel on and who's read a novel hasn't thanked me, and he likes Led Zeppelin.

• Dyspeptic whale. Yes, the google synthesizer is cool.
• Motherfucking Obama.
• Jillette v Obama.
• Motherfucking Democrats. The SCOTUS scenario is probably the most effective emotional blackmail they have. Roberts, bus, please.
• A plea to suck it up and vote Obama.
• This isn't a pure throwaway post - I'm sincere about urging you to read Wolf Hall if you haven't and then Bringing Up the Bodies or Bringing Up the Bodies if you've already read Wolf Hall, and I may or not talk more about them, I may or not talk about Mantel and the making and breaking of my reading slumps - and I could tell you why it's not a pure throwaway post, but that would be bleggalgazing, and fuck that, it's already bleggalgazing.
• Blind drunk blogging! Don't believe me, believe the author.
• Shady Grove arena?
• CCT!
• Salihi!
• Boskovic! Bring him back.
• There's not going to be a game in Germantown next Tuesday.
• Local blogger not useless. No, it's not about me.
• The language of the body.
• I gotta be me.
• Yes, I'm having a VDGG relapse. It's a good thing.

LIVING

C.D. Wright

If this is Wednesday, write Lazartigues, return library books, pick up passport form, cancel the paper.

If this is Wednesday, mail B her flyers and K her shirts. Last thing I asked as I walked K to her car, “You sure you have everything?” “Oh yes,” she smiled, as she squalled off. Whole wardrobe in front closet.

Go to Morrison’s for paint samples, that’s where housepainter has account (near Pier One), swing by Gano St. for another bunch of hydroponic lettuce. Stop at cleaners if there’s parking.

Pap smear at 4. After last month with B’s ear infections, can’t bear sitting in damn doctor’s office. Never a magazine or picture on the wall worth looking at. Pack a book.

Ever since B born, nothing comes clear. My mind like a mirror that’s been in a fire. Does this happen to the others.

If this is Wednesday, meet Moss at the house at noon. Pick B up first, call sitter about Friday evening. If she prefers, can bring B to her (hope she keeps the apartment warmer this year).

Need coat hooks and picture hangers for office. Should take car in for air filter, oil change. F said one of back tires low. Don’t forget car payment, late last two months in a row.

If this is Wednesday, there’s a demo on the green at 11. Took B to his first down at Quonset Point in August. Blue skies. Boston collective provided good grub for all. Long column of denims and flannel shirts. Smell of patchouli made me so wistful, wanted to buy a woodstove, prop my feet up, share a J and a pot of Constant Comment with a friend. Maybe some zucchini bread.

Meet with honors students from 1 to 4. At the community college I tried to incite them to poetry. Convince them this line of work, beat the bejesus out of a gig as gizzard splitter at the processing plant or cleaning up after a leak at the germ warfare center. Be all you can be, wrap rubber band around your trigger finger until it drops off.

Swim at 10:00 before picking up B, before demo on the green, and before meeting moss, if it isn’t too crowded. Only three old women talking about their daughters-in-law last Wednesday at 10:00.

Phone hardware to see if radon test arrived.

Keep an eye out for a new yellow blanket. Left B’s on the plane, though he seems over it already. Left most recent issue of Z in the seat. That will make a few businessmen boil. I liked the man who sat next to me, he was sweet to B. Hated flying, said he never let all of his weight down.

Need to get books in the mail today. Make time pass in line at the P.O. imagining man in front of me butt naked. Fellow in the good-preacher-blue-suit, probably has a cold, hard bottom.

Call N for green tomato recipe. Have to get used to the Yankee growing season. If this is Wednesday, N goes in hospital today. Find out how long after marrow transplant before can visit.

Mother said she read in paper that Pete was granted a divorce. His third. My highschool boyfriend. Meanest thing I could have done, I did to him, returning a long-saved-for engagement ring in a Band-Aid box, while he was stationed in Da Nang.

Meant to tell F this morning about dream of eating grasshoppers, fried but happy. Our love a difficult instrument we are learning to play. Practice, practice.

No matter where I call home anymore, feel like a boat under the trees. Living is strange.

This week only; bargain on laid paper at East Side Copy Shop.

Woman picking her nose at the stoplight. Shouldn’t look, only privacy we have anymore in the car. Isn’t that the woman from the colloquium last fall, who told me she was a stand-up environmentalist. What a wonderful trade, I said, because the evidence of planetary wrongdoing is overwhelming. Because because because of the horrible things we do.

If this is Wednesday, meet F at Health Department at 10:45 for AIDS test.

If this is Wednesday, it’s trash night.