I have had the last two days off. I go back to work tomorrow and now it is that moment of "Fuck, what I have done with myself?" during the twilight of my free time. Yesterday, I left my house to go to the grocery store and spent the day eating junk food and reading. Today, much of the same except I went and did some Christmas shopping.
Yesterday, I finished American Purgatorio and I had had plans to be a little reflective about it and maybe I will when I finish writing this, but you see within minutes of finishing it, I started Griel Marcus' Mystery Train, which is about rock and roll and America, and the idea of America, something I am a little obsessed with - notions of America, and I am loving it. I read the chapter on Robert Johnson today and am now listening to him. I also picked up Artforum and The New Yorker while I was supposed to be picking out gifts for family members.
I have such a hard time thinking about other people and what they might like. Really, when it comes down to it, I am totally and hopelessly self-centered. I realized that I could not for the life of me think of what my mom or my sister might like. I could only think of things I would like or do like, and thought about getting them a CD by this artist because I really love them and they should too. I have no concept of what might be considered objectively good, just what I know to be. Going shopping for other people is a repressed, a stifled shopping for yourself.
Anyways, I want to suggest that you guys drop five dollars and pick up this Winter Fiction issue of The New Yorker like I did today. By yourself an early Christmas present. It's Table of Contents are all writers I love. There is this essay by W.G. Sebald that is beautiful and meandering as all his stuff tends to be. Do you remember that episode of The Simpsons where the town of Springfield decided to take on Nelson and the bullies, and even Grandpa Simpson is enlisted. He gathers up other old folks and their weapon is pointless storytelling that quickly loses its point, jumps from one subject to the next with a long aside about who this was, and who his mother was, and what his mother said this one time at a dance to his uncle about the school, which was under construction at the time... Do you remember that episode because that is what WG Sebald reminds me so much of, and I love it. The effect is has is to sort of set you off on your own string of daydreams, thinking about past things much like his narrators. Supposedly another one of his books is going to come out posthumously this spring, and I think this may be included in that book. But yes, the issue is worth the cost just for new Sebald, but it also has AM Homes, Chris Ware, Ian McEwan, Dave Eggers, and Edward P. Jones.
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Dara, my roomate, just told me that last night at karaoke, Matt and Kevin were there, and that Matt was really cute and sang cute songs. I am not sure I needed to know this. I had sort of considered joining her and Niki for the free pizza. I am glad I did not. Dara is moving out at the end of January. Jaymay is probably going to move in. I have been daydreaming a lot. My lips are chipped. I am going to Virginia on Wednesday. My hair is getting long. I love it. It is the one thing that keeps me happy, being able to twirl it nervously, or pull it stressed.
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