cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A February of Literature Last night I started to re-read 'The Sun Also Rises' and got about a quarter of the way through it before I fell asleep. Now I see why I had forgotten everything about it except the hard boiled eggs, white wine and chicken. Nothing remotely interesting has happened. I mean, it's not the worst thing I've ever read. But so far the whole thing is pretty boring. Some ex-pats living in Paris have empty, vapid lives where they constantly drink alcohol and sniff each other's bottoms without ever actually doing anything. Snore. Hemingway's notoriously sparse style is truly a blessing in the sense that at least it means getting through a lot of nothing very quickly. If you have nothing to say then you might as well be quick about it. I bought the wire to finish work on the fence but I got home just at dark and couldn't actually do anything with it. I think that I might be in love with Tractor Supply. They have the most wonderful things for sale. Mower blades and water pumps and hose fittings. Aromatic piles of leather riding tack that mingle in the air with saddle soap and a faint dusty whiff of grain from the chicken feed in the next aisle. Mysterious gray cylinders as tall as a man (on sale!). Pocket knives and cowboy boots and denim jeans lined with flannel. There is something terribly wrong with any man who could not spend a happy hour wandering around aimlessly in Tractor Supply. Once again, I'm flat broke for the next few weeks. And totally out of heating oil with snow predicted for this afternoon. Also my car is just about out of gas. Well, if it means poaching a deer out of season to eat until the end of the month then I suppose there are worse ways to put food on the table. I'm sure we've got enough food around the house to get us through the rest of the week and then I will devote Saturday to creeping about in the woods and shooting anything edible. I've got a fat dividend check coming in the middle of next month and that should set everything straight for a while. Hunger certainly does sharpen the mind. I am damn well going to find something in the woods for us to eat this weekend. When you literally have to find something to kill in order to feed your family, you will certainly find something. Assuming that you have some idea of how to go about the whole business in the first place. Speaking of hunger sharpening the mind, it occurs to me that I have no way of buying lunch today. I have exactly 71 cents in my pocket. There are some granola bars in the car that I could grab. The comforting thought is that one of 2 things will happen. Either I will scrounge up something for lunch or I won't and I will just go hungry until I get home and raid the cupboard or shoot a couple of squirrels if it comes to that. Either way the problem is going to get sorted out. One eats or one doesn't. I've got no use for February generally. It's sort of a nothing month around here. A lot like November, except without Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years to look forward to. And you can't legally hunt. The bare trees, cold air and soggy ground were at least novel in November. February is a broad plain of nothing extending to the horizon which is to be endured rather than enjoyed on it's own merits. The only thing you can say for it is that it is mercifully brief. Like Hemingway at his duller moments. __________________________________ By the way, I get emails from Diaryland informing me that people have left me notes. But I can't actually look at them yet since I don't have a proxy service to use at present which is not riddled with malware. So I hope nobody thinks I am being deliberately rude by not responding. 11:08 - 2008-02-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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