Elinor Nauen

The only time I really crave matzoh is the day before Passover. 

I could go home & eat some, inasmuch as I've done my Pesach shopping. 

I'll probably have a popsicle. 

The more I eat them, the more I crave them. 

Entirely unlike matzoh. 

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

~ Stanley Kubrick

I've always assumed that countries do what they can get away with. It really irks me when people think the United States is uniquely evil or ugly. First off because in so many ways the truth is the opposite of that, and then because they don't seem to think that small countries aren't any more virtuous than others, they just can't get away with it like the major powers can. 

My friend Artemis (aka Diana) & I have a new hobby: seeing the productions of Antigone that are roaring around NYC. We saw the incredible Oedipus on Broadway, with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville, which put the emotions front & center, making it not only modern but one of the greatest theater experiences of my life. Today we saw Antigone in Analysis at LaMama, where Jocasta is alive, and Lacan, Kierkegaard, Irigaray, Butler, & Hegel serve as chorus, arguing about the meaning of Antigone for modern. Cute conceit but not theatrical. There's an Antigone at the Public but tickets cost too much.

I've had so many fun encounters recently that I was probably due for a less elevating one. I offered to lift a woman's rollator/walker up the steps to the library entrance. You would have thought I was trying to mug her! She wanted help but she didn't want this or that or this. My husband has the same one, I know how to lift it (& that it's not heavy). She wasn't reassured. Her grudging thank you may as well have been a fuck you. Oh well. 

It strikes me how disconcderting it is to be dependent on something I don't understand. Cars I did & I knew how to proceed when something went wrong - I had a strategy for figuring out the problem & then I either could fix it (rarely) or knew who could. Some things I don't need to understand, of course. I use eye drops & I know what they're for & how to administer them ~ I don't need to know what they are doing exactly. I guess I'm really only talking about computers. Every glitch is a brand-new day. If restarting my computer doesn't fix it, I give up & try again later. So much a part of my life but an alien life form indeed. I hope I'm exaggerating! I hope they're not a life form. I'm ignoring AI as much as possible. 

Update: This website was not working. I waited. And now it is. QED.

Not surprising that what I miss most about karate, now that I'm only meeting up with friends to work on material, is kumite, i.e., FIGHTING. Maggie's going for promotion so we put on our gloves in the playground across the street & sparred a little. She looks great! She's lost her timidity & confidence makes up for a lot of skill, or it did in my case. I used to laugh that I had none of the tools except the belief that I could take on anyone. I never cared if I got my ass whupped, I loved engaging with a partner & using the skills I'd practiced. I don't know why, but I was never afraid & that made up for everything else. Get in there & do your thing, I told Mag; fight your fight not theirs. She'll be fine. That's pretty good general advice, it occurs to me now. Live your own life & you'll be fine. 

For years I (shamefully) told Lefty I would never love him as much as I loved Buster, but recently Lefty has won my heart, largely because he's the most vocal cat I've ever known. He knows words. If I say "Maggie" he runs straight up the stairs to her door. If I get out a tube of Churo treat, he has a unique word that expresses that this is his favorite thing ever. He talks in his sleep. He talks in his sleep! He loves other cats, kids, dogs, visitors. Also, I love that he gets in bed with us, although not that he takes up most of the room. 

We were crossing carts early in the morning at the grocery store & we both did it racecar style. By the third aisle we stopped & chatted. What a hoot. "Rosetta: like the stone," she introduced herself & within 5 minutes I knew that she'd grown up on Norfolk Street (& had the accent to prove it), lived in "the View" (Village View), had worked for 9 years as a bathroom hostess at Lucky Chang's — & a lot more. What a fun person & once again, I think how lucky I am to meet interesting people whenever I step out my front door. 

At his best, things do not happen to the artist; he happens to them. 

~ William Saroyan

In other words, reacting is acting?

I think I saw it, but I remember the title "Lost Weekend" more than the movie. Ray Milland? Who I can't remember exactly who that is. I consider it a lost weekend if I sleep in & skip going to the grocery store at 7 a.m. Guess nobody's gonna make a movie about me! 

I'm happy to go to any movie set in Norway or in Norwegian, as part of my education in the country & the language. I watch Peppa Gris all the time & am none the worse for it, although it's not, y'know, exactly intellectually challenging. I would have gone to see Sentimental Value to hear people speaking norsk, but to love the film as well was a real bonus. The main tension is between father & daughter, but the beautiful & subtle relationship is between the sisters. I could understand a lot, not everything, in part because the father was speaking Swedish (not mumbling, as I thought at first). I feel like I'm still living in their reality. 

Was it Helene Schjerfbeck that Peter Schjeldahl wrote about, noting that their names both began with Schj? I hope he praised her way more than for that coincidence of orthography. The retrospective at the Met was thrilling, absorbing, humbling. A great show - small enough to be manageable but extensive enough to get a good idea of her 60+-year career. Go if you can. 

What do you call a bulletproof Irishman? 

Rick O'Shea

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts!

~ Herbert Spencer

But isn't that the magic & fun of poetry, at least some of the time? And of adventures? You take a wrong or unexpected turn & wind up somewhere you have to fend for yourself. "Freudian bra" is funny, unexpected, & makes "Freudian slip" fresh. 

Aw well, Spencer is the "survival of the fittest" Social Darwinism dude. What fun was he? 

Johnny's phone had better luck with the bus than Johnny & I did. We waited 45 minutes for the M-8 - the closest we got was the app telling us 14 minutes ... 11 minutes... 3 minutes... just departed 27 minutes... Not a lot of cabs on Avenue C & one sailed right past, no doubt because the driver spotted Johnny's walker. Eventually I snagged one. The drivere was patient & helpful both with getting Johnny into the seat & folding up his walker (which I have not yet figured out how to do). The fare was $11.25 & I gave him a twenty, both in appreciation & encouragement that he (& maybe others) will do it again.

And Johnny & I had a nice time waiting, without me having to keep him from falling or do anything but hold hands.

Johnny came home & announced he'd lost his phone. I called the gym & B&H, the only places he goes. Nope, so he must have left it on the bus. I submitted a lost & found report to the MTA, then remembered the "Find My" app, & saw that his phone was at 93rd & 1st, then on 2nd Avenue headed downtown. I kept an eye on sailing homewards, & when it was across the street, I pounced. You have my husband's phone! Some confusion, as there'd been a shift change. The driver had heard me calling but thought it was a passenger's phone. It only took a minute before I jumped off the bus with Johnny's phone in hand. A happy ending & like me going to Coney Island last week, I guess his phone needed a small change of scenery. 

Ed Sanders, with Steven Taylor, closed out the fantastic 3rd season of the Bowery Poetry Club Tuesday series, organized by Bob Rosenthal & Ed Friedman. It felt historic to be there, like seeing Bruce Springsteen at the Bottom Line (as Johnny did). Ed said that except for a group reading in June for Allen Ginsberg's 100th birthday, this would be his last-ever reading. He's 86 but still plenty of fire. He read, he sang, he exorcized ICE. Impressive that he's not interested in being impressed by himself. Still learning, still having heroes, but also matter-of-fact about his accomplishments. A pure being. Zen without Zen. He's there. He's only himself. I will keep trying to say why it was so thrilling to be there. 

I've noticed her for years, her several dogs mostly. Today she complimented my hair, which thanks to Shimmer Lights shampoo has a lavender glow  ~ I get compliments on it a lot. We ended up having a conversation so friendly that it concluded not just with names but a hug. Hair, the block, general chat in a friendly glow of neighborliness. I don't imagine 2 guys having a similar encounter. Which I'm not saying in a pointed or disparaging way, just that women open up more easily & find chitchat warm & comfortable. 

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes. 

~ Stanley Kubrick

Happy day to all the strong, brilliant, funny, kind international women in the world. And those who deserve to be supported in their attempt to become educated, safe, happy, & whole. 

Special happiness to my niece Rachel, who had the presence of mine to get herself born today. 

You had to be there to believe it.

His son said darkly that no one knew him as he did, & he wasn't the great guy you think, but go ahead, believe what you want.

One guy never mentioned him at all, till he was nudged three times by the rabbi; first we heard that he is a WASP from Louisville, where he went to college, who he married, when their daughter was born; he finished with an extremely tasteless joke. And the deceased? Oh, they had lunch every couple of months.

The humorist from Tasmania seemed to think it was a roast not a funeral. Some words I have never before heard from the bima in a synagogue: shit, my penis, & short shorts. He did refer to the dead person's famously bushy eyebrows as a verandah.

A granddaughter read an assignment she'd written at age 12, not featuring her grandfather.

The daughter seemed to be normal but I couldn't hear much of what she said.

The cantor kept a straight face. 

If the city is my neighborhood, then Coney Island — a straight shot on the F on my corner to the end of the line, after all — is my neighborhood. I've been feeling cooped up so I went there yesterday. My intention was to dream with the waves & get a tiny bit of sand in my sneakers. But I couldn't figure out which direction the ocean was & I thought I might not find the subway again if I let it get out of sight, so I wandered the dispiriting closed amusement park for a few minutes & came home. Liked leaving Manhattan (briefly!) & reading uninterrupted on the subway.

The Rite Aid is gone, replaced by a soon-to-open grocery story called Metro Acres. Yesterday they painted over the oversize mural of happy bees & squirrels on the 5th street wall. Why? Their signage is pretty uninviting & the solid dark green makes it that much more grim. 

Watched the intro film at the Tenement Museum & was as impressed as ever to live in this vibrant neighborhood. Walked to Chinatown, where I went for the first time in ages to Kan Man & bought a bowl, a tiny LED light, & some nature stickers. I'm planning on reading under the light & if it only works for a few weeks, who cares, it was only $12. Then at the bakery next to the hotel where my sister stays, except I was with a friend, we had German custard like my mom used to make & I was pleasurably infantilized. How could I ever leave New York? Not planning to!

Living we fail to live but insist on impaling ourselves on fossil horns. 

I have forgotten something important that I wanted to say. Thus having forgotten and remembered that it was important the folly of all thought is revealed. 

~ William Carlos Williams, The Great American Novel, both from chapter XVI

The poet I love

It wasn't yesterday, it isn't today, but all those February 29 babies were born sometime, sometime that has only occasionally existed. A conundrum of time. And they feel special, although I would be a horrible pest about the deprivation if it had happened to me. But then it's a Pisces un-birthday & I don't think they are so fiercely dedicated to their birthday as we Aquarians. Happy not-quite-birthday, Greggo, Wayne, Lanis, Robin, & Miss Kleinsasser, my high school English teacher.