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Destiny's Drumroll
Jun. 12th, 2018 06:54 amSometime yesterday, I came to the realization that several of the projects that I've been working on in recent months are now at or near completion. At least in terms of where they're going for the foreseeable future.
With it came a sense of accomplishment, but there was also a pronounced feeling of what, relaxation? Which could be owing to a sense that whatever comes next will simply be a manifestation of things already in place. Still, odd for me, at least in recent months, and in that sense somewhat disquieting. A signal of what, exactly, existentially speaking?
Later, I did order a couple of books, which I'd been considering for a while, The Radium Girls, which the book club read last month, and Eleanor and Hick, which they're reading next month. And I've finally gotten well into Jay Parini's John Steinbeck, which I've literally been reading, minutes at a time, for months.
I think my problem with the Parini book has been that, although I've always loved literary bios, it's the story part of the writer's life, his or her interactions with other people, that has always interested me the most.
When I was an undergrad, I used to pride myself on understanding the philosophical roots of a writer's work. And with Steinbeck, there's quite a lot of that. He's not an intellectual, by any stretch, but more of an eclectic, self-educated thinker and theoretician. And I think that Parini does a credible job of sorting that out.
Unfortunately, I seem to have regressed to a point where I have the attention span and intellectual acuities of a 3rd or 4th grader, and the process is on-going. As for the book itself, and my selection of it, Parini has written a scholarly work which, figuratively speaking, fell off the shelf and into my lap at a used bookstore.
I'm pretty sure that it's mostly me, mostly about where I am in my life. Which has made it difficult to comprehend, to even want to understand, where Steinbeck was at various stages in his. But I'm also willing to consider the possibility that Parini has in fact written a monumentally boring book about another monumentally boorish and entitled male literary figure of the last century, LOL.
In any case, there's no final exam waiting at the end of this one, so I think I'll keep slogging along until the end of it. Or until the end of me. Maybe, just to be sure that I see this through, I should specify that it be cremated with me. You know, in case I'm finished with this effing life before I'm finished with this effing book.
In the meantime, Talulla's plastic drum set is waiting in the basement for the completion of promised repairs. She's a kid who likes banging on things, and she bangs on them hard. That's just how she rolls. And she's only recently turned three.
Which has led me to conclude that plastic is probably not the best material for this repair, so I'm using aluminum bar stock--which will probably outlast both the drums and the person who repaired them.
Anyway, if it's Destiny's Drumroll that I've been hearing, I'd better get to it.
Because Talulla is not the sort to be forgiving of promised tasks left incomplete. Regardless of the excuse...
LPK
Dreamwidth
6.12.2018
With it came a sense of accomplishment, but there was also a pronounced feeling of what, relaxation? Which could be owing to a sense that whatever comes next will simply be a manifestation of things already in place. Still, odd for me, at least in recent months, and in that sense somewhat disquieting. A signal of what, exactly, existentially speaking?
Later, I did order a couple of books, which I'd been considering for a while, The Radium Girls, which the book club read last month, and Eleanor and Hick, which they're reading next month. And I've finally gotten well into Jay Parini's John Steinbeck, which I've literally been reading, minutes at a time, for months.
I think my problem with the Parini book has been that, although I've always loved literary bios, it's the story part of the writer's life, his or her interactions with other people, that has always interested me the most.
When I was an undergrad, I used to pride myself on understanding the philosophical roots of a writer's work. And with Steinbeck, there's quite a lot of that. He's not an intellectual, by any stretch, but more of an eclectic, self-educated thinker and theoretician. And I think that Parini does a credible job of sorting that out.
Unfortunately, I seem to have regressed to a point where I have the attention span and intellectual acuities of a 3rd or 4th grader, and the process is on-going. As for the book itself, and my selection of it, Parini has written a scholarly work which, figuratively speaking, fell off the shelf and into my lap at a used bookstore.
I'm pretty sure that it's mostly me, mostly about where I am in my life. Which has made it difficult to comprehend, to even want to understand, where Steinbeck was at various stages in his. But I'm also willing to consider the possibility that Parini has in fact written a monumentally boring book about another monumentally boorish and entitled male literary figure of the last century, LOL.
In any case, there's no final exam waiting at the end of this one, so I think I'll keep slogging along until the end of it. Or until the end of me. Maybe, just to be sure that I see this through, I should specify that it be cremated with me. You know, in case I'm finished with this effing life before I'm finished with this effing book.
In the meantime, Talulla's plastic drum set is waiting in the basement for the completion of promised repairs. She's a kid who likes banging on things, and she bangs on them hard. That's just how she rolls. And she's only recently turned three.
Which has led me to conclude that plastic is probably not the best material for this repair, so I'm using aluminum bar stock--which will probably outlast both the drums and the person who repaired them.
Anyway, if it's Destiny's Drumroll that I've been hearing, I'd better get to it.
Because Talulla is not the sort to be forgiving of promised tasks left incomplete. Regardless of the excuse...
LPK
Dreamwidth
6.12.2018
