And so it was, our unhappy fears were confirmed; when Daddy did the stove the following morning the clip used for fastening was found among the ashes. Not a trace of the gold nib was found. "Must have melted and stuck to some stone or other," Daddy thought.
I have one consolation, although a slender one: my fountain pen was cremated, just what I want later!
Anne Frank
Diary entry
November 11, 1943
Still not out of loserville. Can't deny, can't euphemize. My wife remarked how strange it was that being down was a comfort zone. I've failed so many times. This fact has been a source of anxiety, vanity, and drive. Yet this new experience: to fail as a family. I don't know how to wrap my head around it yet. Even the kid is down! Anyway, I'll meet my classes tomorrow. I'll devote this night to prepping. But if I screw tomorrow up as well, I would not be surprised. That's why it's a comfort zone: when you're down you can humiliate yourself with a straight face. God help my students.
Nob 10, 2009
Calling in Sick
Gonzalo's vision is affecting mine. Before I knew Gonzalo, dinner at Maxim's with wealthy people was an aesthetic experience. The place all in red, sensuous plush, exquisite crystals, candles, crockery, the courtesy of waiters, the elegance and beauty of the dresses. I never really saw the people close up. I saw them as one sees a Viennese waltz in a film or on a stage. Crystal chandeliers, music, animation, rhythm. Lyrical moments. This time my eyes opened and I saw their faces, their gestures, saw expressions I had never noticed. The rich and the noveux riches, the aristocrats and the tycoons. I saw irony, arrogance, greed, malice, mockery, self-satisfaction, shallowness. And when I questioned the value of each person at the table as individuals, I could not find any.
Anais Nin
Diary entry
November 1936
I begin the semester with little unspeakable illnesses as well as fresh set of grudges. How is it mathematically possible that, for three years now, I've been shedding friends at a much faster rate than I gain them and yet I still have this good handful left? I can type their names here, it won't take 2 minutes. But I fear that if I do that, I will - by way of word-magic - lose them.
Anais Nin
Diary entry
November 1936
I begin the semester with little unspeakable illnesses as well as fresh set of grudges. How is it mathematically possible that, for three years now, I've been shedding friends at a much faster rate than I gain them and yet I still have this good handful left? I can type their names here, it won't take 2 minutes. But I fear that if I do that, I will - by way of word-magic - lose them.
Nob 9, 2009
I, Menial
Walked to my brother's, where my wife is, calling at many churches, and then to the Temple, hearing a bit there too, and observing that in the streets and churches the Sunday is kept in appearance as well as I have known it at any time.
Samuel Pepys
Diary entry
November 9, 1662
Yesterday, the grandmother contracted sore eyes. My family and in-laws went to St. Therese. I stayed home for the chores. My how they still manage to pile up on you despite all the hours you've already put in. Life is not a fool's errand, I reminded myself. Chores are not without satisfaction though. When you've built up enough momentum, you actually want to find more work - any plate or room that needs cleaning up. Steriliza what? Where's a loose screw? The child was asleep when they got home. They said she sang along with everybody else's Alleluia.
Samuel Pepys
Diary entry
November 9, 1662
Yesterday, the grandmother contracted sore eyes. My family and in-laws went to St. Therese. I stayed home for the chores. My how they still manage to pile up on you despite all the hours you've already put in. Life is not a fool's errand, I reminded myself. Chores are not without satisfaction though. When you've built up enough momentum, you actually want to find more work - any plate or room that needs cleaning up. Steriliza what? Where's a loose screw? The child was asleep when they got home. They said she sang along with everybody else's Alleluia.
Nob 8, 2009
The Old Drum
There happend this Weeke so thick a Mist and fog; that people lost their way in the streetes, it being so exceedingly intense, as no light of Candle, Torches or Lanterns, yielded any or very little direction: I was my selfe in it, and in that extraordinary danger, robberys were committed betwene the very lights which were fixt between Lond: and K[e]nsington on both sides, and whilst Coaches and passengers were travelling: and that was strange, it beginning about 4 in the afternoone was quite gon by 8, without any wind to dissipate it. At Thames they beate drumms, to direct the Watermen to make the shore, no lights being bright enough to penetrate the fogg.
John Evelyn
Diary entry
November 8, 1699
A message from my sister came in yesterday: "While Neneng's ninang is shuttling from clinic to ayala to PGH... I yearn for weekends with blaring band music waking us up. Simpler times."
She was referring to the Sunday mornings of our youth when my father played marches top volume to wake us up. If them horns were not enough, he'd come stomping up to the bedrooms shouting: What do you think you are, pensionados?
Good times, good times. Incidentally, father was asking about his grandchild and I said that she was diagnosed sore eyes, and even with the meds the virus would have to run its course - a week, at most - before she gets better. I told him the tables have turned. The ophtha said we would have to wash our hands after carrying her. She's contagious.
We were relieved. Because of the allergy and the insect bites that had happened recently to that same eye, we were already imagining her blindness.
We had always been on guard, always expecting she'd pick off some germ or fever from us, but this time she's the bully with the virus. And my father rubbed it in, remarked on the beauty of the situation, how funny it would be to see a dad infected by a baby. Now we could laugh it off. Listen, these are the times.
John Evelyn
Diary entry
November 8, 1699
A message from my sister came in yesterday: "While Neneng's ninang is shuttling from clinic to ayala to PGH... I yearn for weekends with blaring band music waking us up. Simpler times."
She was referring to the Sunday mornings of our youth when my father played marches top volume to wake us up. If them horns were not enough, he'd come stomping up to the bedrooms shouting: What do you think you are, pensionados?
Good times, good times. Incidentally, father was asking about his grandchild and I said that she was diagnosed sore eyes, and even with the meds the virus would have to run its course - a week, at most - before she gets better. I told him the tables have turned. The ophtha said we would have to wash our hands after carrying her. She's contagious.
We were relieved. Because of the allergy and the insect bites that had happened recently to that same eye, we were already imagining her blindness.
We had always been on guard, always expecting she'd pick off some germ or fever from us, but this time she's the bully with the virus. And my father rubbed it in, remarked on the beauty of the situation, how funny it would be to see a dad infected by a baby. Now we could laugh it off. Listen, these are the times.
Nob 7, 2009
Matching Type
Sent off some proofs and corrections to Pantheon at 10 A.M. and joined the von Leydens for a visit to their simming-pool club where Westerners and Indians (the latter, mostly Parsees) were sitting around under parasols. At the table next to the one at which we settled there was a company of Hindus, including the young woman who turned out to be the sister of Rama Mehta. When she heard my name she said, "You are a friend of my sister. I am reading your book. It is inscribed, 'To Rama, with love...'!" Apparently Rama and her husband will be coming to Bombay next week.
Joseph Campbell
Diary entry
November 7, 1954
The family was invited to the birthday party of an elder coleague. We had to miss it. We three passed the front of her house, and we probably would've walked much faster if I hadn't been carrying the child at such a slope. The child was mostly the reason why we had to skip the party. Her eyes were sore again and we wanted to make an appointment with the doctor for the weekend, but before that, I felt we had to close the deal with the new household help. We were off to meet the candidate.
Our house is far from tiptop, the electricity needs to be fixed, the child's room hasn't been cleaned for weeks, bulbs busted here and there. The toilet could use a new faucet. It's not a total mess, but we're not comfortable with it. My wife dressed the child up with an ensemble in mind, but because a shoe was missing here and a sock missing there, we had to resort to violet shoes to go with her orange and yellow outfit. We failed to take the wind into account, so when we noticed it, my wife plucked the nearest pair of baby glasses which was pink. The only hat that the child would tolerate (even this only partially, and with some thorough negotiation) was violet and white with a sunflower sewn in. Her bib was green.
She's a baby I know, she'd get away with motley or worse, but since I was never avant-garde nor a practicing clown, I felt like an irresponsible parent. Anyway we met the candidate. I was not sure if she was forthright, but even if she were I didn't think she's a fit. I don't consider myself too meticulous in these types of choices - and with classes opening next week, we can't afford to be - but even then, the things she presented disturbed me.
The child's asleep in the cleanest room. We'll meet the doctor later.
Joseph Campbell
Diary entry
November 7, 1954
The family was invited to the birthday party of an elder coleague. We had to miss it. We three passed the front of her house, and we probably would've walked much faster if I hadn't been carrying the child at such a slope. The child was mostly the reason why we had to skip the party. Her eyes were sore again and we wanted to make an appointment with the doctor for the weekend, but before that, I felt we had to close the deal with the new household help. We were off to meet the candidate.
Our house is far from tiptop, the electricity needs to be fixed, the child's room hasn't been cleaned for weeks, bulbs busted here and there. The toilet could use a new faucet. It's not a total mess, but we're not comfortable with it. My wife dressed the child up with an ensemble in mind, but because a shoe was missing here and a sock missing there, we had to resort to violet shoes to go with her orange and yellow outfit. We failed to take the wind into account, so when we noticed it, my wife plucked the nearest pair of baby glasses which was pink. The only hat that the child would tolerate (even this only partially, and with some thorough negotiation) was violet and white with a sunflower sewn in. Her bib was green.
She's a baby I know, she'd get away with motley or worse, but since I was never avant-garde nor a practicing clown, I felt like an irresponsible parent. Anyway we met the candidate. I was not sure if she was forthright, but even if she were I didn't think she's a fit. I don't consider myself too meticulous in these types of choices - and with classes opening next week, we can't afford to be - but even then, the things she presented disturbed me.
The child's asleep in the cleanest room. We'll meet the doctor later.
Nob 6, 2009
Mirror
I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.
Cesare Pavese
Diary entry
November 6, 1938
Doses of true nostalgia since the sem break began drawing to a close. There's a buildup like you won't believe. I say "true" because we drones of literature have many ways of faking or provoking nostalgia. And when we do succeed, when we do feel something, some of us hesitate to call it the real thing. I don't know. It's just feels more genuine to dream when you're asleep, to cry when you're suddenly hurt, and to be hit by nostalgia when you're unawares.
Semestral breaks are so notorious for nostalgia that it's been sung. Anyway, in my case this year, it's late in coming. I must have avoided it somehow because of the tasks required by the division, the organization, and the child. It still managed to creep in though, from the cold wet soil as it were and sometimes with such violence that I had to hit my temples.
Before the Soul's Day, the child kept us busy, grossly entertained, and exhausted. I texted my father about this. Good, that's the way things should be, he replied.
Cesare Pavese
Diary entry
November 6, 1938
Doses of true nostalgia since the sem break began drawing to a close. There's a buildup like you won't believe. I say "true" because we drones of literature have many ways of faking or provoking nostalgia. And when we do succeed, when we do feel something, some of us hesitate to call it the real thing. I don't know. It's just feels more genuine to dream when you're asleep, to cry when you're suddenly hurt, and to be hit by nostalgia when you're unawares.
Semestral breaks are so notorious for nostalgia that it's been sung. Anyway, in my case this year, it's late in coming. I must have avoided it somehow because of the tasks required by the division, the organization, and the child. It still managed to creep in though, from the cold wet soil as it were and sometimes with such violence that I had to hit my temples.
Before the Soul's Day, the child kept us busy, grossly entertained, and exhausted. I texted my father about this. Good, that's the way things should be, he replied.
Nob 5, 2009
Speaking Engagement
Gonzalo has definitely entered into his activities as an agitator, writer, talker, leader of eighty South American intellectuals. He is close to Pablo Neruda, to Jose Bergamin. I heard Neruda read his own poems. Jose Bergamin, a Catholic philosopher, is trying to balance Catholicism on one hand, and Marxism on the other.
Gonzalo's passion about politics, his vehement speeches, his sincerity are not without effect on me. I was won over to his Marxism.
"Strange," said Gonzalo, "that even though you were so far from all this, it was you who urged me to fulfill myself, and brought on my desire for action."
Anais Nin
Diary entry
November
E was showing off his new website. He had time on his hands, he said, he was convalescing during the sem break. It was his birthday two days ago, by the way. I think he's happy that he got an extension for his grant. On the other hand, I want to be done with my book as soon as possible.
For once, we're up before my aunt. We're all up, in fact, the child, my mother, and my wife. They woke up in that order. Last night, I remember noting tears on my wife's face while she was sleeping. It was about a dream, she said. Then she said some more.
I brought home the work of my three advisees. I wish to use these theses as the subject matter of my speech on the 5th of December. I'm preparing this early because the organizers wrote that they expect a full paper. Also, I have to reacquaint myself with the courses I'll be handling this semester. I should hear at least a whisper of this speech in my head before the end of this week. It just occurred to me: December 5, 2009 will be the 2nd death anniversary of my own thesis adviser.
Gonzalo's passion about politics, his vehement speeches, his sincerity are not without effect on me. I was won over to his Marxism.
"Strange," said Gonzalo, "that even though you were so far from all this, it was you who urged me to fulfill myself, and brought on my desire for action."
Anais Nin
Diary entry
November
E was showing off his new website. He had time on his hands, he said, he was convalescing during the sem break. It was his birthday two days ago, by the way. I think he's happy that he got an extension for his grant. On the other hand, I want to be done with my book as soon as possible.
For once, we're up before my aunt. We're all up, in fact, the child, my mother, and my wife. They woke up in that order. Last night, I remember noting tears on my wife's face while she was sleeping. It was about a dream, she said. Then she said some more.
I brought home the work of my three advisees. I wish to use these theses as the subject matter of my speech on the 5th of December. I'm preparing this early because the organizers wrote that they expect a full paper. Also, I have to reacquaint myself with the courses I'll be handling this semester. I should hear at least a whisper of this speech in my head before the end of this week. It just occurred to me: December 5, 2009 will be the 2nd death anniversary of my own thesis adviser.
Mag-subscribe sa:
Mga Post (Atom)