I have a habit of picking things up and reading from the middle. If it piques my interest, I'll go back and start over, from the beginning. That's how I read a Joyce Carol Oates short story by mistake the other day. It's called "I.D." They snuck it into The New Yorker. Well, they didn't sneak it in, exactly. I would have had fair warning had I perused the table of contents. But the table of contents is in the beginning of the book and, as I've just explained...yeah...right. Anyway, Joyce Carol Oates is on my list of things to avoid. I like pretty people falling in love. Preferably with English accents. Joyce Carol Oates is the opposite of that. So now I've got to live with this poor, abused girl and her violently murdered mother in my head forever. Great. It's so awesome to be haunted by darkness and tragedy.
Short stories are tricky for me, anyway. Anything that concentrated can put me into sensory overload. I prefer a novel. Novels help me keep a safe distance.
Do you know what else I can't get out of my head? This little baby in a television commercial I saw ages ago for a show called "Southland." I've never watched "Southland." I don't think anyone else has either. I think it's cancelled. Anyway, in this spot, a little baby is sitting, crying on a city sidewalk and a police officer rushes over and picks the baby up. Can't shake that image. And that was a little actor baby. It didn't even really happen. But now I'm afraid that very specific form of neglect might be really happening somewhere to some sweet little baby.
Another thing I can't shake, the image of Harold Bloom's creepy old hand on Naomi Wolf's innocent undergraduate thigh. I saw her on television a few weeks ago and that was all I could think about. Well, that and her famously weird hair. I know. I know. I've read The Beauty Myth and I fully expect to be booted right out of the Sisterhood for being preoccupied with physical appearances and personal relationships. Although, I'm not sure being groped by a drunken professor counts as a personal relationship. In any case, it's a horrible image and I wish I could shake it. Yale is a funny place. Must be those fake Gothic buildings.
OK, so do you want to take a look at my barn? Seriously. My barn. Look. It's not bad from a distance, right?
But then here we are up close.
Dégrader-chic or desperately in need of a paint job? Sometimes it's so hard to know what Ralph Lauren would do.
Here's some Forsythia.
And little blue flowers.
It's so pretty here in Spring.
That's all I've got for you today.
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