• Location: Iamuna Dorsa
• Mood: restless
• Music: Nirvana, "Dumb"

meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet

One reason I have so few days off is that it's too easy for them to turn into Bad Days. Which only almost happened yesterday. I may not love the work I do, but at least it keeps my gnawing mind occupied. It seems that I am incapable of simply resting, no matter how exhausted I might be, mentally and/or physically. My mind will not be idle, and if not given some object on which to fix, it will find some object of it's own, and these are usually things I should not dwell upon. And so the Bad Days ensue. So I write to keep my mind busy, which is really how this all began, way back in 1992. I started writing because writing was a less self-destructive means of occupying my thoughts than the distractions I'd been using for years. Today is supposed to be a second day off, but I can't yet say if that's actually going to happen. Spooky has said it can only be a day off if we get out of the goddamn house and find something to do*, so that I don't run the risk of a Bad day.

And, yeah, all this is probably TMI. Probably more than you want to hear and more than I want to be saying. But there it is anyway. The confession that my mind is bereft of an OFF switch.

We did at least have a very good walk yesterday. A bit more than two miles, through the three easternmost of Olmsted's Atlanta parks, beginning with Oak Grove (née Brightwood). We discovered a wonderful bit of wilderness between Oak Grove and the next park over (Shadyside), a swath of woods along the banks of Lullwood Creek. A steep descent from Ponce, but it's wonderfully green and leafy down there. Turns out, this is the northern end of the same patch of woods where we released Drinker, connecting to the south with Candler Park. Spooky and I speculated on all the varieties of reptiles and amphibians we could possibly glimpse there in the green shadows. In the presence of those trees and vines and the creek, it was easy to pretend we were nowhere near a city. Anyway, after our detour to Lullwood Creek, we continued east to Shadyside Park, where we left Atlanta and walked into Decatur. We followed Shadyside all the way to the easternmost edge of Dellwood Park at the intersection of Ponce de Leon and Ponce de Leon South.

David called from Athens yesterday, but Spooky spoke with him; I didn't. We read another chapter of The Children of Húrin. I did a drawing for girfan that I should have sent her weeks and weeks ago. I had a bath. Long after dinner, we watched The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), certainly the least interesting of the Creature trilogy, but still a very serviceable monster movie. There isn't much else to say about yesterday.

I think an actual political entry is brewing. Maybe. I haven't made one of those in ages, it seems. My appetite and tolerance for politics have diminished until they are almost nonexistent.

Here are the lyrics to Tori Amos' "Bouncing Off Clouds," behind the cut, because it seemed I should point out that they have nothing much whatsoever to do with the actual story that is "The Ape's Wife." That's almost always how it is. It's the sound of the song, the mood it evokes, not the lyrics, when it comes to the music I get stuck on while writing:



Bouncing off of Clouds we were
Is there a love Lost and Found

Make it easy
Make this easy
It's not as heavy as it seems
Wrapped in metal
Wrapped in ivy
Paint it in mint ice cream

We could be Bouncing off the top of this Cloud
I'll put on my silver
We could be Bouncing off the top of this Cloud

Failure to respond but
I did. But did you listen

Bouncing off the top of this Cloud
I'll put on my silver
About what you said, has it come to this?
I'll put on my silver
Bouncing off the top of this Cloud

Well you can stare all day at the sky
But that won't bring her back
That won't bring her back
You say you're waiting on fate
But I think fate is now
I think fate is now
Waiting on us

Make it easy
Easy easy
We could make this easy
Easy love easy
We could make this easy
Make this easy
It's not as heavy as it seems
Wrapped in metal
Wrapped in ivy
Blue umbrellas now smiling

We could be Bouncing off the top of this Cloud
I'll put on my silver
About what you said, has it come to this?
I'll put on my silver

Bouncing off the top of this Cloud
I'll put on my silver
About what you said, has it come to this?
I'll put on my silver
Bouncing off the top of this Cloud

Bouncing off of Clouds we were


By the way, turns out I actually listened to "Bouncing Off Clouds" 160 times, over the course of three days, while writing "The Ape's Wife."

* That is, something besides a walk, as walking rarely ever manages to occupy my mind.