November 24, 2018

Bright and dingy alternation.

On the drive from Georgia I tormented myself for a while thinking of all the clothes my mother made me– knitted sweaters, shirts, jackets– which I scorned and which I would give anything to wear now. Many of them were quite terrible. I should have praised them and worn them anyhow. I was too young. I didn’t know what I would one day wish I had done. If I had only not squirmed when she tried to measure me. If I had not wept with embarrassment when she tried to get me to wear them to school. One does everything wrong.

Freddie Mercury died today.

Tremendous full moon in the morning light. Long talk with Colin at High Five. He is the one earnestly writing and reading Proust and Rilke in the mornings at the café. I gave him a book, and so he knows me a little. He is writing a Proustian epic wherein he turns his unpublished  poems into fiction. He wants to found a Press when he gets his finances in order. He is both very sweet and socially maladroit–probably somewhere on the autism spectrum. He is more attractive than you think when you’re brushing by with your coffee, trying not to be noticed. I was grateful, after all, for his company.

Actually got some writing done in the hotel room. Transcribing now. . . .