I can’t stand Elvis Costello, but thanks anyways.
The musics I embrace are loud circus marches/galops/polkas; flamboyant overtures; soppy Broadway tunes from before 1960. And not much else. My crotchets about music and everything else grow more sclerotic by the day. And my kids are stepping up the pressure to remarry Amy. Every time I see them now they ask first thing “Are you going to marry mom again?” I’m working up to a ‘Hell no!”, but have not quite got there yet.
I know you are just dying to find out what I have eaten today, so here goes:
For breakfast I had two slices of Texas toast, on which I sandwiched two eggs scrambled with a tablespoon of cottage cheese and then nuked in the microwave. With a side of coleslaw. I drank a large glass of Tang, into which I squeezed half a lime. I thought about having a Hershey almond bar for dessert, but took a long nap instead.
When I woke up it was noon, and I felt hungry again. But I had only eaten three hours earlier, so figured my mind was playing tricks on me. Instead I started to reread C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra -- I don’t know what I ever saw in him as a writer; his prose is as pedantic as the lectures he gave at Cambridge and Oxford. As a Christian apologist he needs his own apologist. But I’m going to finish reading it anyway, because I’ve forgotten how it all turns out.
Today on my walk to the Rec Center in the early morning I brought along my digital camera and took thirty-five photos -- mostly of common ordinary things like fire hydrants and weeds. I was then going to post them one at a time on Twitter, accompanied by profound zen sayings, and become an instant social media star like https://twitter.com/jonnysun But after posting six of them I got bored with the whole idea and began to feel guilty because I hadn’t written any poetry yet for the day. So I did a poem based on a phrase by Boyd K. Packer.
I finally decided to eat at 4, because I really was feeling hungry. But I didn’t want to cook anything, since I had just cleaned up my stove real good -- using Mr. Clean and everything. So I opened a can of Progresso Split Pea Soup for the microwave, and made a lettuce and onion salad with Italian dressing. This combo tasted good but my stomach is now gurgling like the plumbing in the Lubitsch movie “Cluny Brown.” I’ve made some lemon/ginger tea to drink, in the hopes that my innards will not become unstuck at an untimely moment. Bad cess to my menu planning!
I actually discussed your google message with my daughter Virginia and her husband Andy yesterday. I blew up the whole thing with enough helium to launch a second Hindenburg -- telling them there was this rich Chinese lady with gorgeous looks who would marry me the minute I stepped off the plane and then we’d have great sex while I taught her English before we settled down in our own condo on the beach at Waikiki. We talked about the whole thing as a rational proposition, instead of the ridiculous fantasy it always was. First we listed the cons -- I’d miss seeing my kids/grand kids (but then Virginia and Andy are planning on moving to Texas asap to be near his family, and Sarah’s husband Jonny wants to move back to Washington state to be near his family -- so there wouldn’t be that many family left for me here in Provo anyway.); there was nothing in writing, so the whole thing could go south in a flash; and what if I got real sick again with kidney stones or my prostate? Then we listed the pros -- I would be living in Hawaii; I would be married again; and my wife would probably be an excellent cook of Chinese food, which I dearly love. So it almost balanced out. But then you had to spoil the fun by telling me she married a homeless bum. So the whole thing was over by the time we had our root beer floats.
Excuse me while I go get my tea -- it’s steeped long enough . . .
Bleah. I hate herbal tea. But all my kids drink gallons of it and swear it cures everything from scurvy to blood poisoning. So just to humor them I drink a few cups a day. It’s better than Mountain Dew, I guess.
Tomorrow, Saturday, I’m going to eat out. I won’t poison myself with my own cooking again till Monday. Cuz Sunday the kids are having me over for Father’s Day -- I demanded grilled salmon as the main course and a chocolate cake for dessert and they said they’d do it. There’s a place just off Center Street in downtown Provo that makes really good sliders and fries -- and they’ll cook ‘em for you for breakfast, so I think I’ll go there tomorrow after the Rec Center. For dinner I’ve got a Red Baron three-meat frozen pizza I can put in the oven -- those babies never upset my stomach.
The crowning achievement of my day was finding an old office chair next to a dumpster on my way home from the Rec Center. Perfectly good, except for a few tears in the seat. I wheeled it home, rubbed it down with some diluted Mr. Clean, patched the tears with duct tape, and now have another comfy chair for when visitors come calling. It only goes to prove that all things come to him who waits -- especially junk.
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