Mornings were still at the edge of the cliff

[sovay]

The good news is, I didn't jettison Wiscon and then promptly perk up. I have spent the last several days feeling—and continue to feel—appalling. That's also the bad news. I want a refund on my entire body. I think the most intelligent thing I have done since Wednesday is summarize my rewatch of Pirates of the Caribbean in an e-mail to Eric. Translated some Pliny. Experienced a belated epiphany concerning Eastern Promises (2007—it's a perfectly classic film noir, we're just seeing the traditional relationship of femme fatale and mark from an unfamiliar angle). Had a really, really unhelpful doctor's visit. And this afternoon identified an old photograph of my mother's as All Souls College, Oxford:



It was taken in 1968, the year she backpacked around Europe. I think she has to have been up in the tower at St. Mary's; she considers this plausible, since as a reader of Gaudy Night, she would have had a sentimental attachment to the roofs of Oxford. (One of the slides in the same box is a shot of Christ Church Meadow, which she remembers taking because of Alice in Wonderland.) My father has started scanning the photos from this trip into the computer for safekeeping, but of course none of them have annotations except for a small notebook my mother carried around with her, and she did not necessarily write down the kind of information that is useful forty years after the fact. I may be doing this for the rest of the week.

I think that's about it for excitement. At least I don't have bronchitis again.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Fwiw, even when you are at low ebb it seems you are full of life and discernment and care. May your full good health soon return.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

Sorting through old travel photography is, at least, a good distraction from feeling woeful, I hope.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Remind me never to parachute into the quad of All Souls - it's far too full of spiky things! Almost as if they built anticipating an airborne assault by the heavenly host...

Sorry you're still feeling crap. Which Pliny, as a matter of interest?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Every time I listen to "Trouble is a Friend"--which is often, since I just burned it to a CD I've entitled Noisy May--I think of you.

That's a beautiful photo.

[hans-the-bold.livejournal.com]

So sorry to hear about Wiscon; they are much the poorer with your absence.

Though it is not really compensation, you are invited to Hanscon, complete with curry, conversation, episodes of Lost in Space (oh, the pain!), Futurama (bite my shiny metal a$$!), Greg The Bunny (Blah), The Tick (complete with a slice of righteous combat pie!), etc., and a nice comfy mattress on my bare floor. Date to be determined at your convenience...

I'm also holding you in the light.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I think she has to have been up in the tower at St. Mary's

Urglesquish. Now I'm going to be wondering all afternoon if she was there or on the roof of the Rad. Cam. I think maybe the latter (for even more Gaudy Night associations), but I may be wrong, or it may even be somewhere else entirely.
"...the twin towers of All Souls, unreal as a house of cards..."

Anyway, feel better! and sorry to hear the doctor was unhelpful. I hate that.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your mother's photo. I'm glad you're getting some interesting things done, although I'm sorry as anything that you're feeling so rotten.

I hope you're feeling better very soon.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Been away for the weekend, and sad to return to see you still not well. I hope this does not continue for you.

I wish there was something... say...

I'll post more pirate story!