I’m not minding how lazy the sun is this time of year. It gives me an excuse to wake a little less aggressively. This morning, I slept until 6:30—nuts in my book—and only rose then because Grace took matters in her own paws and woke me herself. Lest you think she was mean about it, “waking me” means she settled softly into my chest and patted me softly on the cheek. Continue Reading →
Temperatures cool, winds pick up. The doves huddle on the fire escape, permakitten creeps closer by my side. Coming up from intuition sessions I’m so wild-eyed and ravenous. Rice goes in the cooker, mushrooms and asparagus get chopped. We roast a chicken Bitman-style: sea-salted, thymed and magic-oiled, stuffed with olives, garlic, lemon, and chili peppers, cast-ironed at high, high heat. Eyebrow cocked, ogle the big sunset (too soon, too soon), then Astaire’s restless gams, Wilder’s Daddy Long Legs. Caron on the satin screen, Hermine on the horizon, summer in the rear-view mirror. Rueful, real: red wine for all.
I woke four hours later than I normally do, and strains of the Beatles song “Yesterday” were already ringing in my ears. I’ve been trying to write for five hours and thus far my greatest achievement has been to kill a fly with my bare hands. Even permakitten Grace has given up supporting my desultory stabs at productivity–felinnui is real, man–and the four shots of espresso I’ve swilled have failed to lift the fog of my alleged brain. New moon and solar eclipse be damned. Nothing transcends the gloom of the last unofficial week of summer.