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may 14, 2001.2 p.m. There's a little brown spider on my desk, crawling around in the area blocked by my monitor. She's been with me all afternoon; every once in awhile I'll see her crawling out of the corner of my eye and smile, then I'll lose track of her for an hour or so. She seems lost & rather sad. She crawled busily in tiny circles for awhile, but she's standing stock still now. I get the impression that she doesn't really know where she's going. I think I'm letting her live because she's far enough away that I feel safe. Hmm. Comfortable apathy, thy name is Amoret. But I guess I've seen this afternoon that apathy can be a good thing. The swarm of earthly insects remains constant in number thanks to its numbing effect, ferinstance. Little Spider would be proud.
9 p.m. I was wondering about heartburn this morning. You see, I don't think I've ever had it, although it's something you hear about quite a bit in ads. It made me think about the human relationship to illness. Back in the Middle Ages, if we got sick we just had to wait until we got better. Which wasn't so great, really. But when the alternatives are waiting to get better or dropping dead next to your herd animal, a long ignorant wait starts to look pretty damn good. Of course, today we have lots of experience with diagnosis. We have a stable means of recording illnesses so that possible cures can be correlated. We have a system of thought that seeks to keep arbitrary treatments at arm's length - not to mention the fact that we've mostly discredited leeches and holes in the head as treatments progressed. But the fact is that if I feel bad, I still don't know what to do for myself. I still have to go to a mysterious shaman who will do strange things to me and give me a label for my condition that has more to do with the doctor's worldview than the patient's. And as I was thinking all of these thoughts, I became aware of a hot tight feeling in my chest, like lava welling up from my thorax. Ah yes, I thought. This must be heartburn. "Stupid poetic justice." - homer
Correction: in a previous number, we stated that the word 'after' is used locally "as a verb modifier akin to 'going to'." Upon further observation, we have determined that the correct usage of 'after' as a verb modifier defies easy definition. ex. "I was after banging the leg right off me." I'm still trying to figure out this whole dialect thing. Please bear with me.
My brother left a kerchief behind, which we only discovered yesterday. Actually, to call it a kerchief is a bit of a misnomer - although I can't be 100% sure of this, I think the item in question began life as a table napkin. Nic has sticky fingers in restaurants, metaphorical and otherwise. After we discovered it lying on the floor of our closet, the Boy went to the bathroom to try on the jaunty green cloth. I heard him sigh 2 rooms away. "How come when Nic wears it, he looks like a wild-eyed anarchist punk, but when I wear it I look like I'm auditioning for a live action Rice Krispies commercial?" he asked sadly. "Or like a Keebler elf," I added helpfully. He took off the kerchief. I don't think he likes it anymore. |
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