I'm glad I don't really hear all the lyrics to songs; it means that I can revisit my favorite albums (like Full Force Galesburg, at the moment) and hear something utterly new. Even my favorite songs, even the ones whose words I may repeat to myself under my breath when circumstances are pissing me off, can hide whole verses from me for years. And the spectacular moment in the realisation is when I sense that I have heard those certain words dozens of times before but never let them cross the rainbow bridge into meaning.
In my dreams, I am a child finding secret rooms in a Victorian rectory; the most exciting thing I ever imagine is the sudden unexplained coming-to-consciousness of a door to somewhere new. Today's secret hidden lyrics were from Minnesota: "god the humidity is something / our shirts are soaked clean through / the house is throbbing and the heat keeps coming / and i keep looking at you." And yes, I did love the Narnia books when wee.
Sapsucker outside my window is searching for supper, clinging absurdly to the bottom of the half-dead maple branch. It took the tap-tap-tap and the bird for me to realize that the tree at which I've been staring for months through the solarium window has four bare branches. And it's not that I'm unobservant. What is it, precisely, that brings things to the top of the heap of thoughts? I ask this in the interests of controlling my fantasies of discovery: what sorts of things do I have to do to encourage acts of noticing, to routinize the excitement of a job, keep me engaged when the shine's off the apple?
The heat broke yesterday evening with a big wet thunderstorm. I was waiting for KM at the T station when it happened; I took shelter under the overhang with a really attractive guy covered in rather bad tattoos; he and I each had a smoke as we watched the techies scrambling to cover the speakers in the park opposite. I am never sure what to do in these situations of casual sociability. I hardly like to talk to my friends, and talking to strangers is almost insurmountably daunting. At least until there are enough of them to constitute a crowd. I should just set it down as an injustice of human behavior, that we want to talk and interact with our fellows, but don't, for whatever wise and careful reasons.
The concert was merely all right: the flutist and violinist were having intonation and phrasing problems (I wondered if it was because they were older -- if it was because they hadn't played an antique instrument until they were well and truly calcified -- perhaps they had just gone deaf). The fortepianist and cellist were more aware of what was going on, but were trying not to let it seep through into their playing. The program was a Hummel piano trio with flute, and settings of Mozart and Beethoven symphonies for chamber ensemble -- interesting repertoire, at least, but the playing was agony: they rushed through desperately, like Indiana Jones running from the big round stone. At the interval, KM and I chewed each other's ears about how bad it was, and then went back in for the second half, so through the Beethoven I was not only wincing at the lousy intonation, but also feeling guilty of having skewered the performers so savagely.
Still no word about job offers, and the work week just ended. I have no fingernails left -- I've chewed all of them to the roots and am no longer flexible enough to start on my toes. The six-pack of Belhaven's Best that I bought the other night is now completely gone (and I only had one), I'm broke, and the coriander's dying. Nothing lasts forever, not even summer, and I feel warmly about that.
Other people might have a very different experience of consumerism; for me the thrill of purchasing a new object is mostly in the thought that I might live far enough into the future to enjoy it. A CD can be as much as seventy-two minutes stolen from Death.
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This postcript added, 1:00 Saturday morning to let you all know that I'm nowhere near as miserable as I sounded this afternoon (having just made sushi with CC and SC and co.). The Haydn piano trios are helping -- they're less relentless than the Mountain Goats -- as did a few minutes of merry quality time with SLB this evening. Also I corrected a few embarrassing errors in this entry.