No Hope, No Harm...

I sat on the neighbour's culvert and watched him. It was past midnight and he was stuck to that fence, afraid to move very far from it. At least there, there were other friendlies who wagged their tails and licked him through the bars.

He was limping. That was new. But then, he doesn't seem to have any traffic sense whatsoever. I've seen him sleep on the road, right in the path of cars, black as the road. They mow him down. They don't see him. And if they do, they don't care.

Like the person who abandoned him.

Sometimes when I offer food, he comes close and takes it. And looks at me from under his long black fringe. Deep brown eyes, the saddest eyes I've seen in a long time, eyes that tear me apart and make me want to gather him up in my arms and say, it's OK, I'm here, I'll love you, I'll take you in.

But it's too early. He lets me pat him a bit, his head hanging down, and then limps back to his security fence.

Little dog lost,
Little dog blue,
Little dog yearning,
I love you.

Oven Birds And The Like

There is nothing (and I mean nothing!) like being freshly showered and sitting here on my bed in jammies...listening to James Taylor singing he wishes he had a river he could skate away on.

The day turned out unexpected in a number of ways. For starters, the grand dinner planned for tomorrow took place today...a glass of wine, a book of verse, and thou beside me singing in the (sort of) wilderness (and the wilderness is paradise enow). You know who you are. Nuff said.

So tomorrow has opened up, yawning like the Grand Canyon and all the things I didn't get around to doing today I will do tomorrow. That's what it's there for. Not like I was really procrastinating (perish the thought). But I woke up late and did my moving through amniotic fluid impression.

But it's not too bad if you look at it. I secured some more work, fixed two interviews (heck, I will be filing stories from Saturday), set up a meeting for possible work, wrote to people, connected, called Elba to come look at my oven (they are, oh joy, they are!)...and a friend asked me for lemon curd cake. Sigh. It warms the cockles to have someone ask me for cake. Just like ole times. Num saying?

I have been filling books with thoughts but so far, there is no plot, no coherence, no storyline. Everything is disjointed but then, we have to start somewhere don't we?

The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
(The Oven Bird, Robert Frost)

So here I am, learning what to make of diminished things. It's not so bad. Looking at what I consider diminished things in other lights, they sparkle, they glow, they break out into song.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
(The Spell of the Yukon, Robert Service)

And so to bed.

Flurries

James Taylor's Christmas album is playing over my laptop. And I'm back in KL. For the past two days I've been doing my headless chicken impression and rushing around to meet people or do all the errands that have piled up on my to-do list. Proud to say I've managed them all (except for cleaning my room, which I hoped to get through today, ironically, the one day without social engagements).

Speaking of social engagements, maybe I should dust off my digital camera (or at least the digital camera batteries - I've lost the charger). To prove I have a life. Because since I've been back, I do. Lunch with Theresa, tea with Nits, lunch with Ambikah, dinner and drinks with Addy (at Sids, Kenny Hills, woo hoo!). Today, I'm alone, alone...but, considering the fact that I woke up at one in the afternoon (there goes all my morning plans) maybe this is a good thing cos I'll get all the home tasks out of the way.

I've been bingeing on eBay (some of the stuff never arives, but what can you do?) and have started my Christmas shopping (did the background music give that away?). So I've looked up wassail recipes but still undecided about that because wassail is perfect on a cold, blustery day when you've been from house to house, carolling under the porch lights....a mug of something warm and foamy (and slightly spicy and alcoholic) with a cinnamon stick stirrer...yum. But how would that go down in sunny and extremely hot Malaysia?

Also wassail is not a traditional scent associated with Christmas here. Will have to think this through.

I wish I had a river I could skate away on....

And then there is the Creole Christmas cake which has, I don't know, five different types of liquor to soak the fruit in for about a week. Angostura bitters. Even the sound of it makes my mouth water. Although I'm sure I'd hate it. What with it being bitter and all that.

I am no closer to starting my herb garden. KL is dry and arid and doesn't make for my more herbaceous fantasies.

I've secured all of two Christmas presents which makes me so proud of myself.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...may your heart be light...

I'm thinking I have to make another birthday card. But the inspiration, the inspiration, where is the inspiration?

(I'm moving from realistic figures I can't draw to abstracts I can't quite conceive. I am tired of allowing a lack of talent stand in my way towards greater and greater mediocrity).

Later for you.

PS: I downloaded a children's book, Understood Betty from project Gutenberg and simply loved it. So much so that even though it's on the computer (my least favourite format of reading) I've read it over and over again. This Dorothy Canfield Fisher woman is a genius.

A Green Thought In A Green Shade

I started a compost heap. It's in a big black bin and so far it has dried stalks, dried leaves, some potato peelings, some burnt ground and anything else I can think of to put in. I've been watching various tutorials on starting compost heaps and I think it's a brilliant idea. I remember this one guy saying we were eating a dead harvest because most food we buy is grown in tired ground that has not been rested or replenished. Maybe that's why whatever you grow at home tastes about 20 times better.

Well, anyway, the basil plant I bought not so long ago and handed to Mummy (asking her to take care of it and make sure it doesn't die) is thriving. Mum's green hands to the fore.

I've also helped Mum repot the large chilli plant (as opposed to the bird's eye chilli, although we did repot one of these as well), and replant some lemon grass that was struggling for existence in a pot filled with other stuff (like lilies).

I've sawed off branches (and have the blisters on my hand to prove it), dug up the ground, tried to start a fire (it didn't work - the rains came down hard and put em fire out)... so basically, I've been discovering the garden. Mum planted three rotten tomatoes and who knows, at least one of them may sprout into a plant. I want to plant garlic (the nice thing about garlic is that after you've done the initial planting, you're supposed to leave it there for about nine months), capsicum, God knows what else. Oh yeah, I know what else - chives, dill, sage, thyme, oregano and parsley.

So maybe I'll go watch more ehow videos on how to plant this and that.

Or maybe I'll go on eBay and look for seeds.

Or maybe (and this is the most likely) I'll watch another Miss Marple movie on Youtube.

Later for you.

The Last Worthless Evening

So I'm still in JB. Waking up in afternoon (except when Theresa calls and gives me an assignment which requires waking up semi-early), having my breakfast, helping feed the doggies, lunch and then it's evening and Mum is glued to the TV for her succession of evening-time Bollywood soaps, and I, I take the dogs for a walk. And come back and give them a treat each. They love it. They love any sort of routine.

Friends. Social networking sites. Jobs. Nothing quite sticks. And in a universe where everything swirls and curls like smoke rising from a joint, I have my blog. It is the still point, the one fixity, in all this chaos.

I find this vaguely comforting.

Maybe I should talk about the man I interviewed, my first reporter-like assignment in a while, and if this was yesterday or the day before I would have. But he has disappeared like water down the drain in the toilet and I can't summon up the requisite enthusiasm.

Speaking of toilets, there is a snake in the downstairs one. One night, tripping gaily into it, I noticed the snake's head imperfectly camouflaged against the cement in the drain. It was waiting for the rats. If there is one thing wrong with JB it's that there's too much wildlife around and poisoning the rats is not as good a solution as you would think cos they die in inconvenient places.

Anyway, I stared at the head to ensure that it was a head and not in fact my imagination, and then thoroughly spooked, I made my way out. I told Mum about it in the morning and came downstairs to find her cheerfully washing said bathroom. I peered into the drain hole to spot the snake and it wasn't there. While I was talking to Mum's the head appeared and I let out the screech of a lifetime and hustled out of there like there was a snake on my tail. Poor Mum who cannot walk very fast, stumbled out of there after me, not knowing where I was looking or where it was...her knees hurt for the rest of the day.

After standing outside and peering in (she kept saying lemme go see and I kept saying, no, no, let's call an exterminator...don't go, I'm scared) she finally got some sulphur and sprinkled it over the hole... the snake withdrew its head.

On the one hand I'm glad if it's helping us keep down the rat population. On the other, I wish it would do the job remotely like a 100 feet from our house or in Tonik Chop Gajah next door.

I made creamy fudge today. I don't know how it tastes as it is now cooling the fridge. Mum and I watched four episodes of Monk Season 3 while I assembled it.

I thought I would stay a week. It's been three. I think I'm going back on Sunday.

But since everytime I was supposed to go, I either didn't feel like it or something came up, I won't commit myself.

I'll be back in KL.

Soon.

Maybe.

Catching Up

Am a bit tipsy now. Just came back from Duke where I watched Mark and Victor perform...for about half a set. Mark said: "I haven't seen you in a looooooong time. How's the book coming along?" Victor just hugged me.

Go figure.

Anyway I had one glass of overpriced house pouring (seriously table) wine on an empty stomach and now am sort of up in the air. Floating is nice when it's only me and when I'm back from watching my favourite misantrophe who told me, among other things, that he hates the place, that the crowd is too young...blah, blah, blah...but I know him...it's just first night jitters and that is how he lets off steam.

I was at Backyard earlier with Jab. Haven't seen both in ages. We caught up.

"I haven't seen you on Facebook for so long."

"Um yeah, that's cos I've deactivated it."

"Oh yeah? I thought you had gone overseas or something."

Sigh.

And I'm meeting Alison for breakfast tomorrow. And Esther on Saturday (to say nothing of my favourite dentist).

And then I'm taking off for Johor indefinitely.

And Mark said, see you real soon.

So I smiled and said, no you won't.

And Katherine will be here in October.

And Shelly whom I came back to chat with is not online.

Early breakfast tomorrow.

And so to bed.

(Am halfway through Catch-22. Yossarian Lives. No really. He does)

Hello World!

Esther just called which was good because I was thinking about her and wanted to call her and ask to meet. So we are. Yay! She told me her brother and his fiance have discovered Backyard and she was able to say rather nonchalantly that she discovered it two years ago and prefers to go on Mondays. (Har har!)

So I'm back from the Farmer's River and plunging into KL life once again (for a while). And then I'll be off to JB.

I'm a transient and don't stay anyplace for very long. And when stressed, I pull away from everyone, curl up into my shell and shut the world out.

I'm peeping out of the shell now.

Hello world!

The Sungai Petani Chronicles

I am in Sungai Petani now. After a night of no sleep (mosquitoes, what can you do?) I took off at six in the morning and arrived here at about 10.30am. Then I followed the signs, made my way to the middle of town, and called my friend Mary, to come meet me. She did. I've been staying with her ever since.

Today I'm having my second glass of jeera water (or water boiled with cumin seeds). I think it's having a very positive effect on my system. Also, despite the heavy traffic passing right in front of the house 24/7 (and I do mean 24/7 because I can walk up at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning and the traffic outside is just as loud and heavy) my body has slowed down and I'm having a peaceful time.

Mary's mom is delightful. She had been very deaf for a while (a case of misdiagnosis and her eardrums soaking in fluid for six months before the third audiologist found out what was wrong and gave her the required operation) but her hearing has improved marvelously (with Mary here full-time) and we have all these chats where she tells me about the old days and what things were like, in Kerala, in Malaya). As a sort of history buff (I don't care about politics so much, but more about the homely details of everyday life), I lap it all up.

On my second day here we went out to town, for a shop. I parked my car in SP Plaza, stuffed my car keys in my pocket and we walked all over town (stopping at the stationery shop for my Lamy refills, the pork lady for the Sungai Petani Chinese roast pork specialty) and from thence, to the open air market where we proceeded to get kilos and kilos of fruit (mangosteens, rambutans and durians). We left it with Mary's boy:

Boy: Just call me Mi...

Mary: Is that short for Suhaimi?

Boy: Also can?

Mary: Also can? What's your actual name?

Boy: Helmi.

Anyways, then we made our way back to SP Plaza to pick up my car so we could swing by and pick up our things...too heavy to carry and I was already drooping from the heat, which Mary assured me was mild compared to what it could be in SP. When we got back to SP Plaza, and Mary had done some light shopping at the supermarket, we encountered our first reverse. I stuffed my hand in my pocket and realised...there was no car key there.

Things went rapidly downhill from there. We had wandered all over creation that day. It would be next to impossible, firstly to retrace our actual steps, secondly, that even if we succeeded in doing that, that someone else would not have picked it up. We wandered in front of the median swatch of grass in front of the clock tower, and as we dragged our feet I saw the police station. I suggested we go to the police station and see if anyone had found the key and dropped it off there.

After all, that's what I would do if I found a set of car keys. It was a faint hope at best, and I didn't like police stations from various negative experiences in Selangor, where I would go to report something and instead of helping the police would bully me.

First we had to locate the entrance. The actual entrance was locked. The second entrance had something built in front of it. We had to go round the back. When we finally located the entrance and got into the place that would take our report, there was this young Indian girl there talking to the police officer on duty, who glanced at Mary and me (hot, dishevelled and worried-looking) and asked us what the problem was. I thought she was there to make a report as well, and thought, wow, for someone who has just been robbed or whatever, she does not look distressed.

OK, the long and short of it, was that this 24-year-old was not a member of the public but a police detective. And while I was making the police report (which the officer on duty actually did for me), she made some phone calls, and signalled for Mary and I to follow her.

Apparently, she had called the locksmith, was going to drive us there. Which was very kind (I had dreaded walking any further in this heat). But Milani's kindness did not stop there. She drove us to the locksmith, hopped out of the car to get the locksmith in question who could not leave his shop unattended to get on the phone and contact someone from the network of locksmiths in SP to come to SP Plaza, then drove us back to the car and waited and when she found out that we had left food at the market and needed to pick it up, drove us to the market to pick up the stuff, drove back to SP Plaza, waited until the guy had opened the car, disabled the alarmed, fiddled with the keyhole until he had made the necessary measurements, started the car, so I could follow him to his shop, where he made the key, and did not leave until she had seen us safely on our way home.

It was all a little surreal. I had never met any stranger who would be as kind and who would go so much out of her way. It was lunchtime and she was hungry but she refused to leave us to our own devices, or allow us to buy her lunch.

It's my job, she said, every time we tried to thank her or invite her out for a meal or tea or anything.

After a profusion of thanks (she kindly but firmly asked us to stop thanking her) she left and we exchanged a few text messages. We discovered in our talks with her than helping people was just what she loved to do.

She had joined the police force at 18. And while she was doing a diploma in IT at night, it was not because she wanted to get a job outside. She loved being on the force.

Milani was unusual. But everyone at the Sungai Petani police station was courteous, helpful and all said, don't worry, she will take care of you, she will help you. They handheld us every step of the way and what started off as a potentially horrible experience had turned into something really positive. Our hearts overflowed with gratitude and we were carried along, as it were, on the waves of all this collective kindness.

It's been a few days here. What I've learned in this short time is that Mary is a superstar.

Everywhere we go, we have taxi drivers honking hello to Mary (one of them even goes as far as taking his hands off the wheel to bring them together in a namaste), shopkeepers chatting happily and giving discounts without being asked, and of course, our fruit boy Helmi who willingly keeps all Mary's shopping for as long as he's there.

She bought him two Snickers bars.

He grinned and immediately gave one away to one of his friends at the fruit stall (he's a durian man and the three durians he picked for us were so good as to render us speechless).

I've also been feasting on the mangosteens and rambutans. Mary's cooking is superb. She made fried rice yesterday and she is making her famous bihun today. Tomorrow I'm making chicken vindaloo, herbed broccoli and mint and coriander rice. Mary says it will be a treat because they eat very simply here.

She has lost a lot of weight as she walks everywhere here and lives of fruit, vegetables and rice.

We have been downing jeera water like there is no tomrrow.

Yesterday we watched the Middle Earth Paradigm episode of Big Bang Theory. She loves Leonard. I adore Sheldon.

I brought a whole bunch of books to read but am reading her Pickwick Papers instead which I find addictive and I love Sam Weller and Sam Weller's daddy.

So there you are.

Updated.

It is Finished

I'm done. I finished in the wee hours of Sunday morning and celebrated by watching the sun rise and writing a letter to a friend. If not for the love and support of friends and family (and by family, I mean my mother) I would not have seen this through. Definitely. I was so ready to throw in the towel a million points along the way. Every time I felt angry or frustrated or cheated (which was like, all the time).

And towards the end I worked in a vacuum, with no reply for the stuff I sent, no acknowledgement, nothing.

Note to self: Working in vacuum is hard.

But I did it. There was not one point in the journey when I felt everything coalesce, come together. Before this, no matter what I've done, what I've finished, at some point, things coalesced. Here, it was just more misery, one weary foot in front of the other, wading through mud.

But I finished. Every night, I worked till six or seven in the morning. Till my eyes were scratchy and my neck and shoulders ached. Till the whole bloody world dissolved into a single flaming cursor on the screen. Until I could have thrown my laptop across the room and screamed until I passed out.

When I sent the final profiles, I said in the email that I would be stopping at the office to drop off all the material that had been clogging my room these past four months. Of course, it wasn't acknowledged and I had no idea of my reception. Shouldn't have worried. Mr Nothing If Not Fake (or we call it civil), met me with every appearance of friendliness, helped me carry all the stuff from my car into his office, asked me to send him the interview transcripts and then said he would get my cheque ready and if I didn't want to come collect it (if I wasn't back from my road trip) he would bank it in. So I sent him the transcripts and my bank details and as usual, he acknowledged nothing.

I do think I'm going to be paid. There's no reason to drag out this unfortunate connection any further. The question is when.

On another note, have finished Moll Flanders and moved on to Catch 22. Hmmm...Moll seems to have been very adept at lying. She was a survivor who told everyone what they most wanted to hear. And never got at anything directly.

Frankly I think the book is brilliant. I never quite take to Moll (I don't like prevaricators but then they seem to get through life a whole lot better than I do), but I think the way she sums everyone up, the way she manipulates everyone, the way she always ends up coming out on top no matter what her crime...well, she's a true survivor.

Maybe my problem is that I've never had to live by my wits.

The Narnian Gives Way to Moll Flanders

On an unrelated note I finished the CS Lewis biography and I was wrong with my assessment at the beginning. It was written by an academic, there was sufficient meat to bite into, to masticate, to swallow, to nourish. Of course after reading such a biography the normal response would be to rush out and get his books. But I wont. I still have all the unread books on my table (noticeable lessened since I have been hacking away at them and not allowing myself to read books I've already read).

I'm now quarterways through Defoe's Moll Flanders which is a lively tale indeed. Sex, sex and more sex, but told with modesty. I love the euphemisms employed. To do a kindness, to be someone's gallant, to have conversation with...but what I've come to see is that despite the extremely sexist introduction (which now I'm reading it again, appears to be more tongue in cheek than anything, rather like the introduction for Taming of the Shrew which sets that up as a farce) it seems to be a feminist text.

Which is good. Kind as CS Lewis was, he was anything but feminist.

So moving from Ursula Le Guin to him was a bit of a jolt.

I feel like reading Narnia. I did read a children's book, Moonfleet, which Helen gave me all those years ago, and which lay on my desk for just as long without being tackled. I especially want to read Narnia now armed with everything I've read about Lewis. Which is stupid because you take the book as the book, without an inquiry into the author's life to guide you. The text should stand by itself, no?

OK, going to do some actual work now.

Later for you.

Grinding Towards The Inevitable End

This thing is finally, finally drawing to its close. I think when we are assailed by the huge waves, tossed about on a sea of emotion and the pure unadulterated fear of non-performance and overwhelm, we break out into hysteria and madness.

I was mad.

I felt myself going mad.

I knew I was mad.

And try as I might I couldn't do anything about it.

You try standing on a walnut in the midst of the ocean and battling the waves. No matter what you throw at them, the waves are going to win.

Yesterday, for the first time, after a weary night of putting together profiles, I didn't feel scared. I had done enough so the task ahead of me wasn't as overwhelming as before. I could see the shore.

As anyone who has ever despaired can tell you, seeing the shore is the thing.

On the one hand, the other party, whom I faithfully send the products of my day's work, is silent and resentful.

It makes me no never mind. He can continue silent but once I have finished, I can wash my hands off it, and take off without worrying. I cast all worry from my mind.

This job was a mistake. It's hard to see a mistake when you think you're desperate and need to take whatever comes along.

Nobody is ever that desperate.

After Monday, I will need to figure out how to move on from here.

But it's like when I broke up with one persistent millstone around my neck. He said, one day you will come to regret this. I said, maybe, but the relief of not having to deal with you now, the sheer relief makes it all worth it. And then I waited to feel sorry. And I waited. And years passed and I was still waiting. And not only did I never feel sorry, I wondered why I had allowed him to drag out the end for so long, why I had endured his noxious presence for a microsecond longer than I wanted to.

I hear that some people even miss their tumours.

Apparently, I'm not one of them.

Dear Wormwood

It is nearly two in the morning and I still 16 profiles to write. What of that? The important thing is, no matter how distasteful my task has become, to keep on, trudging ahead, even though I don't feel like it, even though I stopped feeling like it a long time ago. In fact, where this project is concerned, did I ever feel like it?

Doubtful.

I see his lips curl in a mocking sneer. "You see, I knew you wouldn't finish. You don't have what it takes to stick it."

And I say: "Oh yeah, then you're double the fool to have hired me."

He shrugs: "Oh well, you came cheap. What can I say?"

And I say: "You don't seriously expect to drag this damn thing on do you? I mean it's already taken forever, we're not talking to each other and when we do, we're barely civil. Other than royally screwing me by making me work for more and more time, with the law of diminishing returns on my back, what do you get from it? You hate me nearly as much as I hate you."

And you say: "You got that right. But I need to win. It's all about winning. And crushing you beneath my heel. You think you can bark? I'll make you howl. And just to be ornery, I will draaaaag out paying you. How's that for charming?"

And I say: "Oh screw you. If I keep talking to you here, I'll burn all the documents, tell you to go screw yourself and take off on my road trip right now. Today. I can't let you get inside my head. You're not worth the emotion, not even this anger. I have to remember that."

And you say: "Oh yeah? Good luck. Hop little bunny, hop. You'll find that you end up doing what I tell you to do. Eventually. Remember that. Over and out."

Mornie Alantie

And in the declining light
of this decaying world
I see only suffering
and the promise of worse
I've got to escape
life is a curse
before the light's
completely faded
and my spirit
completely jaded.

The Morning After

You do not call.

I don't even know
if I expect you to
You were cold when I was there
right next to you
why should you warm up
when I'm a couple of miles away?

For there you lay
turned away
cuddling the cat
soothing the dog
your back
a huge red wall

uninviting

insensitive

unloving.

It resisted me
shut me out.
You know how a back can be.

And so
I tossed all night
on twisted sheets
the dog at my feet
so I couldn't stretch out
sad, uncomfortable
thoughts skittering around
like mice
or white moths
flapping tired wings.

I awoke at four
and waited for six
when I knew your alarm
would go off.

Resisted your offer to "sleep in"
asked to be sent to the station
so I could get back to my own bed
and relax.

But now,
icy sheets piled on me
I can't sleep
I can't get out of bed
I just lie here
in my misery
feeling ashamed
that I did it again.

Starbursts and Glitter

I've painted another picture. I always think when I paint I should come up with a verse to complement it. But so far there are only colours.

Theys swirl around me in starbursts.

All the despondence that came from having to apply myself to a task I would rather not be doing seems to have evaporated.

Which is miraculous.

You know why the centre seldom holds? Because we haven't put in any love to keep it together. When I look at what I've abandoned I realise that it I just didn't care enough, love enough, to see it through.

Loving nothing makes me weak, brittle, just about to break, never quite breaking, on the floor, swept up with the other rubbish, brief, discordant, fading.

Can you learn to love if it doesn't happen spontaneously? I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about projects. Can I pour myself into one I have no feeling for?

I'll let you know.

Second half of the year...you know what that means!

You know what time of the year it is? It's time to start making wassail, Christmas fruitcake (with enough alcohol to show up on a breathalyser test) and buying and wrapping Christmas presents and hiding them in convenient boxes and figuring what I'm going to give everybody.

Also, this year, I want to make my own cards.

Wow, for the first time in a long long time, I feel happy.

Chewing the Cud

I have been working steadily, maybe because I'm way past deadline and as such, have no choice. The drama is there bubbling under the surface and erupting once in a while in mild and not-so-mild hysterical outbursts, but thankfully, I have the house to myself so there is no one to witness the bouts of weeping, the screaming into pillows, the full out tantrums in front of the TV and the wild angry dances I do by myself to really soft, gentle music, you know the kind with waterfalls in the background?

Sometimes I go out in the garden to pluck stalks of grass and chew meditatively. Is this how it tastes to cows? What if I had four stomachs? Could I stand chewing cud for hours looking out into the uninteresting horizon thinking about...who knows what cows think about.

Maybe they're reciting The Wasteland in their heads. Maybe they're translating Greek poetry. Maybe they're chuckling at a scene from Lysistrata. Maybe they're wondering how to design the next birthday card. Maybe they're trying to figure out what Gary Larsen's cow tools are. (Not the saw, I got the saw, the other two tools)

Anyway, I can't chew cud now. I chew pizzas instead. And have The Big Bang Theory playing in the background as I write about chevron lights. Not a good idea as no matter how many times I've seen the episode I have to watch it again. Sheldon fascinates me. Like a blinking chevron light. Like a median screen. Like tiger's eyes (the road stud not the semi precious stone).

When you're chewing cud you can get sorta thirsty.

My fourth stomach is reserved for dessert.

I may become normal again when I have finished this book.

But then again, it's me we're talking about here.

Which means, I may not.

On All Fours

Sometimes I feel like I have manacles on my feet.

Every step hurts, pushing forward, breathe, breathe, breathe, OK one inch forward, maybe two inches today? So it's half five in the morning and I've finished another section. It killed me to do this and I wonder, why? I am an experienced journalist and I know how to write on demand, hell, how many times before have I written on demand?

It's just that this project is so vast and cavernous and unwieldy. I fall on all-fours and crawl forward. Little by little. Laying track as Julia Cameron calls it.

Deadline come and gone. I don't hear from the person who is supposed to be overseeing all this. He's decided to go silent again.

Never mind.

Crawl a little further. Push a little dirt out of the way.

Move forward.

Just a little today.

OK, little more.

And now, a little more again.

Coming up with tricks to fool myself into writing. There is a blank wall up in front of me. The blank wall is me. The blank wall is my monumental indifference. The blank wall is my fear. I am trying to push past the blank wall. The blank wall is impervious to my fists.

My fists are bleeding. The blank wall is indifferent to my pain. It is deaf. It doesn't hear me screaming. I don't hear me screaming. Except inside my head. Inside my head I'm loud. Inside my head I'm unbearable. Inside my head I cannot find the black hole to disappear into.

Inside my head is a rattling gourd.

Rattle, rattle, rattle.

But the sounds have no meaning.

I want to sleep now.

No more coffee for naughty Jenny.

Ripeness is All

I have finished Ursula Le Guin and have now moved on to a biography of CS Lewis. That the guy who wrote it is not an academic is evident from some of his comments in the introduction.

The book does not have the polish of a Daphne du Maurier or a Claire Tomalin or even, a Peter Ackroyd. But it does have its own charm. And CS Lewis is a fascinating subject. And I find, like me, he only read Kenneth Grahame as an adult and it made him all warm and fuzzy.

There is nothing quite so comforting as curling up with a cup of hot chocolate and Wind in the Willows. (I think it's the food that does it. It's the food that does it in Pickwick as well, the food and the milk punch and the games and the gaiety and the benevolence and the stories,and my dear, dear Sam).

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.

This was how Lewis (or Jacksie as he liked to be known) described himself.

I've only finished the first chapter which deals at some length with the illness and death of his mother. His feelings about this, while breezed over in his memoir, Surprised by Joy, is treated more honestly in The Magician's Nephew, the prequel to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, written much later:

"And so would you...if you'd lived all your life in the country and had a pony, and a river at the bottom of the garden, and then had been brought to live in a beastly Hole like this...And with an Aunt and an Uncle who's mad (how would you like that?)- and if the reason was that they were looking after your Mother - and if your Mother was ill and was going to - going to - die." Then his face went the wrong sort of shape as it does if you're trying to keep back your tears.

Helen wrote thanking me for the birthday card I made for her and the poem I wrote inside it. I decided to use an original one rather than taking one of the numerous ones I have on standby.

She said it made her cry with happiness, which was a first.

Her card was like a flame that flared briefly in this dark night.

These were the words on CS Lewis's mother's calendar the day she died. The first six words were later to form his own epitaph:

Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.

The Lake-Sunk Stars Were Ringing

Swinging between Suzuki and Le Guin, one is apt to get a little unhinged.

Nine times the nine white heavens
call the things that creep, run, fly.
Come to the fish-meal, eat from the tympani,
drink from the chasing cymbals.

Or:

We say, "When the night is here, the dawn comes." It means there is no gap between the dawn and the night.

Today, I cleaned my room, because as I sat in the middle of dusty chaos and read about the socio-economic benefits of highways, I found I could not, no I could not, go another minute, minute! with these dusty windows, with my broken bed (how broken, I would need to lift the mattress and find out), unaired mattress, cupboard overflowing with clothes smushed in, floor scattered with the ruins of reports - torn papers, dust, oh my god, dust, dust, all that dust, choking up my windpipe, silencing me effectively.

So yes. After learning however many billion dollars we saved by having one highway, I started to fold some of the scattered clothes on my bed. But stuffing them into that overflowing cupboard was beyond me. I started to pull out the clothes, cast them on the floor, fold them up again...and it was like dropping a tiny pebble from atop a mountain.

It unleashed in me an avalanche of cleaning. I swept and sweated and cursed and sneezed and organized and dusted and found things I had lost (one beautiful bookmark a friend had given me as a present), Cocktail Time by PG Wodehouse which I read in one sitting when I was supposed to be reading or writing about highways - just a few days under the bed and it was covered in dust and old cobwebs.

Under my bed is where dreams go to die. Which is why every time I aim a broom at it it turns on me, snarls, hisses, bites.

The curtains heavy with the dust of years. Years! Maybe decades. Well one decade, at least. I pulled them down. I soaked them in bleach. I will leave them there for a while. And then run them through the machine.

And all the while, at back of my mind, the sad, ponderous clanging of the work I'm supposed to be doing.

Go away!

No!

Go away!

No!

So I sit here, meekly, sorting through the torn sheets, reading through pages, making notes, and soon, very soon, I will start the next piece.

And finish it.

And reward myself with...

Something. Only I don't know what.