losing it/ loosing it

For the last few days it has been raining in New York. I truly enjoy the rain. It makes me dreamy and okay with being at home and doing the things I need to do like writing and cleaning.

One down side to all the sleepy slowness of these kind of days is how pleasurable it is to stay in, make tea and just read all day, the kind of reading you do instead of TV, the kind of reading you won’t remember when the sun comes out. Doing the crossword and eating kimchi instead of showering and taking care of bills is a pitfall not to be lightly ignored on a damp day. It is also easier to daydream about projects that require much muscle and clanking tools on rusty nuts than it is get a current apartment ready to be vacated.

Something I’ve been thinking about during these recent rains is what I am doing with my reading and writing and the conclusion is that I need to slow down. I need to counter my voracious appetite for reading with more concentration on what I am actually consuming. That is maybe harder than it sounds here on the screen. My mind has been boiling with plots and characters and clever phrases to categorize it all- usually a pleasant distraction from obsessions and sad thoughts- but now nothing is coming from that mess but confusion and unmet obligations. I realize that it is hard for me to remember what I got out of all that time spent bent over all those pages, and for someone who lives and breathes (and writes about) books, this disconnect between pleasure and utility is disturbing.

Not as disturbing as the exploding glasses in my kitchen cabinet (discovered after an unexplained THAWUMP in the night), but a lot less easy to fix.

As always the comments are open for you guys to commiserate and advise. Please do.