‘to reduce the fever of feeling’

Outside the wind howls. Inside a trio of snowmen converse in the vicinity of a conference of paper birds. Last night the ‘artsy’ neighbors continued their grand tradition of slamming doors and other unidentifiable objects against floors and walls for several hours between approximately midnight and the archetypal 3 AM hour. Result: current state of apathetic grogginess. Desire for absence of shared walls swells with each passing night of lost sleep.

Days less measureless than before. Crystalline structure of incipient routines inches out beyond the borders of a now worn and tarnished impersonation of L.B. in Rear Window. Except there never was anything even vaguely menacing to observe, only a sea of moment-waves rocking gently against the fragile hull of this origami sailboat.

Return to Pessoa’s words: no novelty in the universal, no comprehensibility in the individual. The old ruse of intentional obfuscation falls flat. But still the urge to fit words together roils inside. Maybe to do it, like Pessoa says, ‘to reduce the fever of feeling.’ Yet if all is unimportant (which it is), why bother describing any version of it. Unless perhaps to merely locate and handle the words themselves. To dive to the bottom, seeking words buried deep in a consciousness whose mirrored surface rests fathoms above undisturbed layers of sediment. Yes, perhaps it is for that reason: to extract anything worth contemplating from the granular level, to slip some small truth from the interstices and examine it from all sides, even if only to then return it unseen.

why, yes, i should’ve finished painting that wall by now

When we bought this house I made a list of things to do/fix soon after moving in. I think my idea was to get it all done and then kick back and relax. There were certain things, like painting, that I just knew if we didn’t finish before moving in, they might not get done for some time.  Well, I was sure right about that. As I sit here at my desk, my eyes wander to the pile of switch face-plates that have yet to screw themselves back into the wall, probably because they are patiently waiting for me to first slap on that final coat of paint.  After so many months of living with half-finished projects, you become dangerously ambivalent to their incomplete status. In all fairness, I did complete some things.  But there’s still a list and I still look at it regularly and sigh. I am quite adept at avoidance, wasting colossal amounts of time daydreaming and mindlessly surfing the Internet. I could blame this on the cold winter, and my desire to hibernate. Really, I could blame it on a lot of external factors. But mostly it’s because I just don’t feel like doing it. I guess I am a slacker at heart.

entering the dark cave

Receiving the first electric/gas bill of the winter season always horrifies me. For the past two years, it has been particularly horrifying due to 14 ft ceilings and huge drafty windows. If I could levitate, I would rise up and bask in the layer of warm air that is inevitably hovering in the upper two feet of space below the ceiling, far out of reach of those of us subject to gravity’s pull. But instead I spent my day climbing up and down a giant ladder in order to cover the windows with plastic in a pathetic attempt to winterize the place. When I did this at my last place, one of my cats immediately proceeded through the house to all the windows and systematically clawed through every single sheet of plastic. I nearly broke down and cried. This year I decided to seal up the French doors leading out to the porch, too, seeing as when I stand near them I can feel the wind blowing through my hair. Since the remaining cat enjoys sitting in front of these doors watching the outdoor activity, I anticipate slashes through the plastic there sometime within the next few hours. I will never, never, never again be swayed by tall ceilings, panoramic windows, or any other Siren song that seemingly benign rental units may sing sweetly into my hungry ears.

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