Monday, April 26, 2010

monday

A placeholder for Monday. It is Monday, April 26th and my head is swimming. So much to do, yet not enough time to do it. Not enough discipline, not enough willingness to sit down and plow through it.

I offset this frustration by plowing in other ways yesterday. Sometimes it's just so nice to do something tangible like dig in the ground. Churning the earth with compost, ashes to ashes, and removing the long roots of the quack grass. I uprooted my daffodil bulbs, which need separating and thinning out, and noticed that their roots kind of look like my barber's description of nerves. White and squiggly.

- I am finishing Crow Planet, which I mostly like. I am a bird nut and an earthy freak but in the gentle way that Mimi Smartypants is a vegetarian -- I won't hand you a pamphlet about my feelings. So even though I stand with the author deep down I am a little put out by the gradual sense of righteous environmentalism; it is not unsound but it is a wee bit tiresome. But I like it for the insistence on simple wonder and celebrating the patch of earth you happen to find yourself upon, no matter the concrete coverage. The book sort of reads like a blog more than a book. The material drifts from personal experience to larger picture to small image kind of sporadically, and cannot accurately be described merely as "a book about crows". You might not want a book to do that, which is why I am warning you about it. I find it pleasant, and I am a bird person (not a regular person) so I do enjoy this book.

- Keri Smith has a little eyelid cancer. Like many people I have had a chilling relationship with "cancer", the word, made more poignant with an acquaintance's recent diagnosis shift to "terminal". Keri Smith's situation is much lighter, particularly with her red badge of courage. But I have been thinking a lot about cancer and death and the fragility of life lately so it's a little jarring for one of my daily reads to pop up on topic like this.

- I wish I'd known about Mummenschanz long ago.