How we grew each other's hearts and schemes of home

[sovay]

I got up early this morning for a COVID-19 test so that I can make my doctor's appointment on Friday. I would prefer not to have to see a doctor at all, but once again it turns out that being kept from regular access to medical care is bad for me. I am still not exactly sleeping and it means I'm not doing much of anything else except working, although I did eat some very nice Taiwanese food this afternoon and discover to my surprise that a pair of jeans I bought off the internet actually more or less fit. I have moved on to watching the 2005 BBC Bleak House, which I remember my father highly recommending to me at a point in time when I just couldn't picture anyone but Denholm Elliott as John Jarndyce. I am in fact enjoying it. I may also be maxing out my capacity to watch TV. I'm treating it as an experiment. While visiting my mother for purposes of honeycake-baking earlier this week, I ran into the neighbor with whom I had discussed the radio telescope I built in high school and Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud (1957); this time he wanted to know if I had read Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland (1884) and then he asked what sort of science I did nowadays. I had to explain that I am not professionally a scientist any more than I am professionally a classicist or professionally a musician or any of the other things I seem to look like to people until they get close enough, although I did at least remember to tell him that I am professionally a writer. I know part of it is the beginning of the academic year, which I am starting to feel I will have to be actually dead not to feel like a ghost-shiver from the wrong universe over. (I hope that one is less plague-ridden and/or on fire. Somebody should get to be.) I know the sleeplessness never helps and I have been rummaging around in parts of my head that were likely to produce this reaction. I think I'd feel a lot better if I could write a poem about it. But for that I would have to be healthier and sleep more, which is where we came in.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I hope the doctor's appointment does help, despite the nuisance of it. And I'm glad you managed to acquire the 2005 from someone after all! I hope you continue to enjoy it. <3 (And that there is sleep, soon, too.)

[selkie]

Your carbon husk is, as mentioned, extremely important and I appreciate your working up the courage to do more than scuttle into a lab and scuttle out, as I have topped out at. Grammar, what grammar.

[asakiyume]

You built a radio telescope?! When? How? Amazing.

Good luck with the doctor today.

You are certainly professionally a writer, and the other things you do--science and classics and singing and folklore and film commentary and so on--you do with knowledge and joy and accomplishment, enriching the lives of everyone who experiences them. You're a real *everything*, very much alive, a shining part of the kaleidoscope. ... I would very much like for you to be a less-in-pain part of it, and a less physically vulnerable part of it. Always praying for that.

[lauradi7dw]

I am impressed (right word?) that you got tested before your appointment. Was that required? Arthur and I have each had appointments in different locations of Harvard Vanguard that required removing our masks (ENT for him, dermatologist for me). We had to have our temperatures taken at the door and promise that we felt no symptoms or international travel, but that was it.

The only thing I really liked about the 2005 "Bleak House," the only version I've seen, was Smallweed's repeated line "Shake me up, Judy," and her quick responding action. I did a text search afterward. In the book, he only said it once or twice, but in any case, it's a great reminder that someone who is in a wheelchair for hours, especially someone who might be paralyzed, needs frequent re-positioning to avoid skin breakdown. Otherwise, I mostly wanted to smack those people (nearly all of them). I'm sure it did me good to be familiar with a Dickens novel that I would probably never read, though.

[gwynnega]

I hope the doctor's appointment is useful. Next week I'm going to have some overdue dentistry; I'm guessing this is much more risky for the staff than for me, though I wish I could keep putting it off.

[pameladean]

I think the line between professionally being something and doing it in whatever other fashion is even the opposite of that has been dug very deep for the wrong reason.

May the visit to the doctor be productive only of good.

P.

[a_reasonable_man]

What you in fact do, that is what you in fact do. So yes, you are a classicist and a musician, as well as of course a wonderful writer and a lovable human being.

I hope all the appointments go well.

And Shana Tova!

[dramaticirony]

Hope the medical appointment went well.

In the event you're able to confirm a television capacity limit, you might consider spending part of screen time budget on Undine, either at the virtual NYFF, or at some point later. It seems thematically up your alley.

[brigdh]

*hugs*

Michael York, Martin Sheen, et al

[nodrog]

If you have not seen it, this is, I do believe, still commercially available.

https://youtu.be/C8oiwnNlyE4