Day: January 8, 2017

Trash

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The neighbor (who more or less handles the heating at my house unless something big is wrong) came by early this morning to try to fix it – it takes a few hours to take effect. I have my doubts. This means we need to get a plumber involved, and this cold nonsense will continue for at least a few more days.

The latest book I’ve completed reading is White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg. Given to me by my friend Martina for my last birthday, I am only finally getting around to reading it now – in this reading frenzy with which I’ve begun the new year.

Many passages struck me, but none more so than:

“Why this fascination with the hillbilly? In 1949, an Australian observer described this phenomenon best. Americans had a taste for what he called a ‘democracy of manners,’ which was not the same as real democracy. He meant that voters accepted huge disparities in wealth but at the same time expected their elected leaders to ‘cultivate the appearance of being no different from the rest of us.'”

Sound familiar?

(As usual the English don’t come out looking great.) 🙂

Photo (c) 2010 Cloud2013.

Chilly

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Sometimes you just don’t have the words. What someone tells you and expects you to respond to is just so far outside the norm or what you can fathom in reality that you can’t respond. You can only shake your head and wonder how things spiral and descend to such a depth. I am rarely stuck for words, but I am right now.

Or perhaps I am stunned out of words by the arctic chill of the interior of my house. The previous winters, the house was kept cozy and warm but the underfloor heating has been malfunctioning repeatedly this year. It’s just too cold in this place to live with this. I’ve danced and jumped and run around the house all evening to keep the cold at bay; now I am making hot water bottles, piling on the blankets and plugging in a space heater to make tonight comfortable. It may be time to look at some other solution while waiting yet again for a fix.

And to end and hopefully sleep, I listen to Glasgow’s Bubblegum Lemonade & read some very old French poetry.

Souvenir
–Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Quand il pâlit un soir, que sa voix tremblante
S’eteignit tout à coup dans un mot commencé;
Quand ses yeux, soulevant leur paupière brûlante,
Me blessèrent d’un mal dont je le crus blessé;
Quand ses traits plus touchants, éclairés d’une flamme
Qui ne s’éteint jamais,
S’imprimèrent vivants dans le fond de mon âme;
Il n’aimait pas: j’aimais!