7:48 a.m. Saturday
Been treating this like a lazy day, so far, though it’s not. We’re having four people over for dinner tonight and have to tidy up a bit and cook extensively. But so far, goofing off. Was awake before 6; meditated; played word games and read the papers; C & I in our default positions: computers open on opposite ends of the couch.
Now C. is cooking breakfast—bacon and eggs. In our project of weaning ourselves from mammals, today is the penultimate day of pork. (And it’s going to be very porky indeed).
It’s raining outside and has been since early yesterday. Outside the sun is just coming up and the sky is lightening weakly.
Feeling slightly nervous in an ill-defined way. Started thinking over the Year in Humanity after I meditated, assigning things to the positive and negative columns. (The election could have gone worse; democracy, in its contemporary hobbled, bought-and-sold form, didn’t completely collapse. On the other side, all the mass shootings—Uvalde, Tops Grocery.)
Then I thought: I don’t have to do this. I can relax and be mindful and enjoy the day—cooking and our dinner party tonight.
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”
11:22 a.m. Saturday
Have finished active time of the first stages of cooking. Beans simmering on the stove. Onions and carrots chopped. Pork shoulder cubed. “Cubed” is euphemistic: the pound the butcher gave me was almost half thick fat-cap, so what I’ve actually got are orts and fragments, not cubes. Irked by this.
Have been listening to music whilst puttering in the kitchen: a spin of what the Amazon Music algorithm kicked out for me. (Who was it who said: in the future you’ll either be telling computers what to do or they’ll be telling you what to do? Pretty clear which category fits me).
Thinking: I should call my nephew and check in on him. He’s been having difficulties, and the restaurant he’s been working at, and on which had pinned some future hopes of a good position, is closed through April due to some physical plant problem.
And: what can I squeeze in today in between cooking sessions and tidying? A bike ride? (I think the rain has stopped.) A short writing session? Some pleasure reading?
Feeling: good, absorbed, occupied.
2:25 p.m. Saturday
Opted for a bike ride. Feet a little chilled (it was 41 degrees when I started), nice post-exercise buzz. I rode south from my house in Indy, heading downtown; the sun was fighting for some space when I left but was out by the time I got home. Pleasurable. Pretty quiet, not much traffic. Streets still a bit dirty from snow/rain.
My mind was pretty quiet while cycling; intermittently playing the song “New Morning” by Bob Dylan in my head. I promptly listened to it when I got home, sitting on the couch and eating a half cheese sandwich and some black-eyed pea salad (a day early, I know). It passed through my mind that I’m in the midst of a long weekend, towards the tail end of 11 days off. Ironically, I’m writing this “Middletown” diary on a day when I’ve not been to Muncie in—what—7 or 8 days?
Now it’s time for cooking, Stage 2.
5:12 p.m. Saturday
Cassoulet in the oven, after almost two hours of active time—browning meat of various kinds, keeping the bottom of the pot from scorching, stirring, pulling duck meat off of bones, etc. Now it’s almost two hours until our guests arrive and I’m done cooking, except for 5 minutes browning the bread crumbs at the end. This is one of the many miracles of cassoulet. (Another: its unequalled capacity for conveying delicious animal fats of various kinds).
Listened to Dylan’s Planet Waves while I cooked (C. bought me Dylan’s zany new book for Christmas, which probably has me in this Dylan-y place—which is never too far away, in any case). Then put my music on spin and, as I was wrapping things up—mixing the sausage and beans and vegetables and braising liquid, then cleaning up—one of Wayne Shorter’s long, intense avant-garde pieces, with orchestral accompaniment, came on. I flattered myself with the notion that this was appropriate to my creativity in the kitchen. After scrubbing duck and pork fat off of various surfaces, cleaning knifes, pots, and pans, and wiping the counters, I put on sneakers and took out the garbage. The sun was still up by a degree or so, and it had warmed since I was out last. The air was cool and crisp. I walked to the front porch to gather a couple of cardboard boxes we had thrown there, and saw the 2/3 waxing crescent moon on the eastern horizon. And I thought, “I’m happy today.”
Now I can relax for a bit.
6:40 p.m. Saturday
T-minus 20 minutes. Bread crumb crust browning nicely, no need to broil. The “To Serve Man” episode of the Twilight Zone is on TV. (“It’s a cookbook!”) I read on social media for a bit: an article from the Atlantic about what a disaster social media has been, in fact; did some scattered bits of final tidying (cleaned the mirror in the bathroom, e.g.), showered, dressed.
Now I’ve poured myself the ritualistic 1/3 shot of tequila with ice and lime to relax and wait for the guests. Fun!
8:40 a.m. Sunday
Yes, fun. With our friends MF & JP and M & P, we ate my cassoulet and excellent salad and a fruit-compote-based dessert that MF made, drank a respectable amount of wine (maybe 2 1/3 bottles among us), as well as a couple cocktails, and chatted and laughed until about 11:20. M and P were weary from traveling and declared they couldn’t make it to midnight, and M & J followed their cue. JP has chronic health problems and, though he was having fun, he seemed to be struggling a bit to get around, etc., so MF talked him into leaving as well. At which point C. and I formed an energetic, efficient assembly line and washed all the dishes. (We’re awaiting installation of a new dishwasher, which is occupying a large space near the windows in our kitchen).
What did we all talk about last night? We hadn’t seen each other much in the last year—which, recall, started with the omicron variant. (I’ve been reading my personal diary for last year in the last few days, and we didn’t do any socializing until around Feb. 15). Later, when omicron died down, we all traveled a good bit & struggled to find times to get together. We call ourselves the West Side Dining Club, dating back before the pandemic, when about four times a year the six of us would go to ethnic restaurants on the West Side of Indy and try out new cuisines. So last night we talked about our travels—us to Italy and France, M & P around the UK, including P’s solo visit to some 3-Michelin Star restaurant in the Lake District where they plied him with eighteen or so courses. As this group always does, we talked about politics, but not too much—railing about the Long Island Congressman who made up his whole biography, arguing with JP about his conviction that Trump will end up in jail. And M asked JP how he stays optimistic, and JP—his voice slightly scratchy and diminished, spoke movingly about his long experience as a social worker and told the story of a young man, a former client, with spina bifida who died suddenly last year, and how despite his severe disability he was big-hearted and brought joy to his adoptive parents and everyone he knew.
Earlier, as we were greeting each other, I told MF. that she looked great (she’s lost weight) and she laughed and said, “Stress.” “I’ll have to try that,” I said.
Well, the evening went well and was fun. We all resolved to see more of each other this year.
C and I stayed up and watched Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus (who also, weirdly, sang duets with David Byrne), then a few Saturday Night Live skits, and 20 minutes of a Twilight Zone. And were in bed by about 1. Woke up at about 8:20 and here I am, maybe just slightly hung over. Time for coffee:
Feelings: positive, a little sleepy, relaxed, grateful.
Thoughts: … see above.
11:35 a.m. Sunday
Been lazing all morning: bagel for breakfast, reading New York Times; put a load of laundry in. Affect now a little subdued, maybe a little bored, kind of in that “What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do?” mode. (C. and I just kind of literally had that conversation.)
We’re making a stop at a party around 3. The rest, just a lazy day of reading and goofing? Play guitar? Write a little? It’s a luxury to be bored like this. A luxury quickly expiring—I have one more day off after today.
1:30 p.m. Sunday
Played guitar for about 30 minutes. My fingerings are seriously rusty.
9:47 a.m. Monday
At Hubbard and Craven’s coffee shop at 49th and Pennsylvania, where I’ve come to do some writing and have a peek at next week’s schedule—to get everything that smacks of work/duty off my plate early this morning so I can goof off seriously this afternoon before going back to work tomorrow.
Yesterday afternoon, I was getting into that end-of-holiday blahs place. But the New Year’s Day Party, at CC and N’s house, which I hadn’t really been looking forward to, pulled me out of it. I talked to people and had two drinks (though the Bloody Mary, from a pitcher, was extremely weak); talked to a guy named B., who is a musician and plays in bands; I played “Feeling Alright” with his band at CC’s birthday party in 2018. This party resumed a once-annual New Year’s Day event that CC & N haven’t held since the pandemic started.
Inside their house, it was intermittently crowded and noisy; kids were running around; various TVs had the day’s football games on while music played on the stereo. Outside there was also a TV with football, and coolers of beer and the table with the bloody Marys. Here I talked with B and some of CC’s other high school friends, and with my good friend D., whom I hadn’t seen probably in a month. Then later I sat on the couch and talked to K (D’s wife) and a couple I had met at the War on Drugs concert in the summer and had fun with. Their little girl, M., who is four and quite adorable, was running around. M’s mom (I don’t know her name) was telling the story of having met the girl’s ‘genetic mother’ (whose frozen egg helped produce M.) on Cape Cod this past summer. She passed her phone and showed us pictures to demonstrate the family resemblance of M and her egg-mother.
We left around 5, went home, and just settled in and watched some TV and relaxed, I slightly buzzed. Quiet and relaxed evening. We watched some Twilight Zones and some Office episodes, then started watching this goofy film from the 30s on Criterion. It was grouped with screwball comedies but was really a kind of zany picaresque about a cop (a very young Spencer Tracy); the first two acts were more a series of gags than a movie, though Tracy is flirting with Joan Bennett throughout. Then in the third act Joan Bennett’s sister’s connections with a mob guy take over the plot, ending in a shootout in which Spencer Tracy kills the escaped mob boss. By this time C. was out cold on the couch next to me, so I watched two episodes of Atlanta.
That was more TV than I’ve watched in one sitting in a long time. At which point I went to bed and slept until 7:45 this morning. Slept a lot in the last few days—like 8 and a half and 9-hour sessions. Don’t know why, but whatever, give the body what it wants. Though it may be challenging to get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight now, to get up around 5 (!!) tomorrow and re-start the work treadmill.
5:47 p.m. Monday
At the coffee shop this morning, I wrote the paragraphs above and wrote on some memoirish stuff I’ve been working on (not imagining it for public consumption—doing it for therapeutic reasons—but we shall see where it goes. An item for next year’s list is to clarify my writing goals—many projects in competition. A good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.) Also at the coffee shop, finished constructing a “year in review” in my regular diary, something I did for the first time last year at this time. I worked on this on and off over the last week. It entailed reading all of last year’s diary, which filled about half of a large, ringed school notebook.
Reading it revealed or reminded me of, among other things: as mentioned, that Omicron dominated the first six weeks of 2022; that after beginning to socialize in mid-February, and to travel in early March, we did a great deal of both—Chicago, LA, Allentown (to visit friends)/ Cooperstown (with P. and his son), Detroit (to visit friends), Bologna, Paris, Washington D.C., New York; that I was fairly depressive in spring but better in the second half of the year; that I had a sinus infection for almost three weeks in March and April; that I saw four baseball games (that’s a good number, normal-ish); that I taught a course in Black film with my beloved colleague E.; that the Phillies won the pennant and contended for the World Series; that feeling better in the second half of the year involved holding the news and my anxiety about the election at arm’s length; that (as mentioned) the election turned out better than I hoped; that it’s been a year of worry about my relatives in Pennsylvania. That I was hot and cold on work all year, veering between commitment, even inspiration, and discouragement and frustration. Also important to note the absence of certain elements in the year—e.g. significant injury or illness.
I worked in the coffee shop until just after 12; went home & changed into workout clothes, and rode my bike downtown, the air unseasonably warm and also moist. Along the way: a rooster crowed, vociferously, at 20-minute intervals, in a backyard along the trail. It was crowing when I passed going south, and crowing when I passed 35 minutes later, going north; at a shed in a brownfield abutting the trail on the east, a man swung a door shut, after which I heard the unmistakable grunting of a pig; three young men, one in pajama bottoms and wearing no shirt, passed a blunt back and forth; as I cycled around them, one was telling the others a story about the day before, the story also involving a blunt; and I saw my good friends V. and E. (E., with whom I taught the class), having exited a coffee shop, which was a treat.
Back home, C. was cooking vegetables in olive oil; I played the guitar for a half-hour; made myself a lunch for tomorrow (work really is starting back up!); cleaned out the fridge and took out the garbage and recycling; read (Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift—a re-read); ate dinner prepared by C (re-heated chicken cacciatore over a baked potato, salad); read some more, finished writing this.
I’ve been off for eleven days, and it’s been like living in a dream—a lot of reading and writing (as exemplified this morning) and listening to music (as I write, Bill Evans is playing “Blue in Green” on the stereo I bought in March—as I was reminded in reading my diary); and movies; and a couple social things. And lots of food and drink.
And so with the new year here and upon us, I carry forward these simple and imprecise aims: refine my work mission—“work” in the broadest sense, and with emphasis on writing and creativity; be healthy (dry January starts today for me); be mindful; pour my best love out into the world in all that I do. (Nothing to it!)