Elinor Nauen

Looking back, I think all I wanted was to have an interesting life, interesting friends, & a few good stories. It's not that hard. It didn't take hard work or luck, not much more than the desire. Well, the luck was in moving to New York when it was easy, & marrying the man I love. Yes, definitely some luck to it. But maybe mostly because I wanted what I could have or did have. Right now I would like a cup of coffee. Is it possible? 

* 2 gym classes

* A great shower (at the gym)

* Kale salad

* Norsktime (Norwegian class). Among the highlights, the word slå, which may have as many meanings as "set" or "run" in English, that is, a lot. We don't think about the 635 distinct meanings of "run" but I sure do get confused by slå av, slå på, slå opp, etcetera! 

* Plans for this'n'that for the next few days. 

* Healing love for my beloved, who took yet another tumble. 

Seeing New York with a first-time visitor never fails to make me appreciate & love it all over again from the beginning. Even the air seems new, & every wall & block & building is magical.

Language is the main instrument of man's refusal to accept the world as it is. 

~ George Steiner

Also the main instrument of being in the world at all. 

In the same way that if you have one foot in the freezer & one foot in the oven, on average you're comfortable, I wonder if on the one hand you have great joy & on the other great despair, on average you're serene. 

Or maybe we swing between strong feelings & feel each as it comes, without rubbing it up against its opposite. 

It's funny how the more forthcoming one is, the more the unspoken, unsayable nuances pile up. The more one gives away, the more one has.

Doing my laundry makes me feel like I've accomplished something (because I have)... the weather is perfect.... I've stocked up on cat litter... I went to a ballgame & fell back in love with baseball, which I do every time I see it.... two unwell friends are markedly better.... I have yet another eagerly awaited friend headed my way.... The Economist, hardly a left-wing rag, gives 95% as the chances of the Democrats flipping the House of Representatives.... even my allergies are not plaguing me at the moment..... my accountant just called with very good news about a refund.... the guys working right outside my door have departed with their noisy machine (for now).... I don't think you need me to sum this up, do you?

Baseball is always perfect. The details of weather (it was COLD last night) or scores or streaks or errors aren't irrelevant. All of that IS baseball. It's one lifelong game, like a marriage. Marriages aren't made up individual days & baseball isn't made up of individual games. Every game is connected to every game that has ever been played. Time stops, & baseball is always baseball. 

Going to a ballgame tonight - in the 40s - I'll wear a sweatshirt & maybe not keep score - if my ears & fingers are warm, I'll be OK. It's the Twins at the Mets & one thing I'll say for the National League is they get on with the game. In addition, there are many recent rules designed to move things along. No more stepping out to adjust batting gloves (etc) after every pitch. 

The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom — these are the pillars of society.

~ Henrik Ibsen

because it changes every day

within the last week it's been 85° & 40° 

so I'm happy every day

even if I do complain when it gets hot

... the most handsome Stanton in Manhattan

as my sister calls him

because it's true

& whose daughter (my sister's) 

I had a long & laughing breakfast with today

Dang, move to New York, girl!

Johnny Johnny Johnny

I always thought Journey was cheesy & I never listened to them. They were in a general lump with Genesis, Kansas, Foreigner, Boston, et al, with their straining tenor lead singers. I couldn't have named any songs of any of these bands although I do recognize Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" (cheesy). So I was pretty surprised to learn that the lead singer for Journey is considered to have one of the best voices ever & is also one of the most popular singers. I saw Steve Perry on a list of soul singers influenced by Sam Cooke — Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, & more. I had no idea who that was. I'm not surprised not to recognize contemporary musicians but these are my era. 

Hey, looks like you can buy a copy if you want.

Amazon won't sell it because "Books with less than 100 pages should not have spine text." The title is on the spine, which is where it belongs. 

I also inherited a hundred copies of Now That I Know Where I'm Going, my selected from 2018 when my beloved publisher, Ed Foster, died. It's yours for postage or, if you're in NYC, a cup of coffee. 

And it's even hotter today. Grrrr 

And I guarantee it won't be the last. Ugh, & people are so jolly & appreciative. Why do they love summer? My damp forehead. Burning mustard air. Maybe if there was a little goldleaf sprinkled on the day? I gave it a good hour, & now summer is dead to me. 

A gun silent as snow & more deadly.

I don't know where this came from. I wrote it in a recent notebook with no attribution, but I highly doubt it was my own line, not that I often do recognize my own lines. But even lines I don't remember usually sound like me; this one doesn't. Good line & perhaps I'll never know more. 

We got an uncrowded members' "last look" at the Wilfredo Lam show at MoMA, which I liked seeing very much, although too reminiscent of too many of his contemporaries. But a few paintings were terrific & I liked learning that he collaborated with so many of his contemporaries, like Cesaire & Char. Then we walked around & looked at redbud, magnolia, & cherry trees in Central Park. Hey, nature! Right here in the city! I liked getting out of my neighborhood. We didn't even get lost in the Park, or maybe we did ~ I wasn't in charge of directions. 

One day I'll have one thing & it gets canceled. The next I'll have 4 meetings &/or classes & 1 gets added. It's really hard to feel a rhythm when there isn't one. The days when I have nothing I prefer the busy days & on the busy days, I prefer the leisurely ones. The first thing I did the first month after I left home for the first time was get arrested. My parents must have despaired. I feel like these thoughts are connected but probably I need a nap. 

Baseball's back & even though I used to read baseball books in the off-season, I guess I'm a fairer weather fan these days because I'm now reading Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, redemption, and baseball's longest game, by Dan Barry. Published in 2011, it's the story of one 1981 game, the Pawtucket Red Sox vs the Rochester Red Wings, written 30 years later, so we know how everyone's career came out. It's deeply about baseball, but like the best writing about baseball, even more deeply about a million other things — hope and redemption, sure, but confusion, becoming an adult, finding one's course in life, and minor league baseball, as well as the history of a small New England city. 

33 innings! That's almost 4 full games! Played on a cold cold day in April. Crazy! 

I've been thinking about the so-called sovereign citizen movement. When you see videos of people using incredibly dumb arguments during traffic stops & in courtrooms, they look so befuddled & hapless that it was a surprise to discover that experts consider the movement — which started with Posse Comitatus — to have a high potential for violence. "Sovereign citizens" are anti-government and claim to be exempt from laws unless they consent to them. A big one: they claim a "right to travel" that exempts them from driver's licenses, vehicle registration, and insurance, arguing that they are "traveling" privately rather than "driving" commercially. I knew someone who got arrested all the time because he refused to have a driver's license.

Unsurprisingly, these arguments have never worked in court.

The part I don't get is not why they want to be annoying since they all sound stupid as rocks when you hear them making their arguments, which sound like they cut-and-pasted from the internet without even reading what they are assembling. No, they KNOW they're not going to get anywhere, they KNOW it is going to go worse for them than if they just deal with the issue at hand, but they still make their ridiculous "that's your opinion" speeches. I guess they ARE dumb as rocks.

All memories are the same memory.

~ Pessoa

A typical meaningful/meaningless quote from Pessoa. How I would have loved him if I had discovered him as an adolescent! 

Oh right, I took 3 whole days off to commemorate Passover. That included a fun six-hour seder that I stayed awake for with no problem. Now I'm waiting for the Yankee game to start - it's been delayed 4 hours so far & is so cold I turned on the heater in my office, although it's giving me cold air. But gently. Anyway, I'm back & will think of something interesting to say soon. 

Meanwhile, you could read this sensational essay-with-photos by my friend Rebecca Norris Webb, a fellow South Dakotan in New York City: she's Beckota, I'm Eldak.

Have a good holiday, my friends, whether it's Passover, Easter, whatever else is going on on, or nothing at all. 

Why can you never starve in the desert?

Because of the sand.which.is there. 

This time of year, it's mostly camel dung & desserts sweet enough to cover up their lack of taste, at least for me. 

Well, we do chant Shir haShirim, the Song of Songs, nothing more beautiful.