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Mirage of Zenith
Jul. 21st, 2018 10:44 pmHaving started off this day with a determination of many things I needed to clean up, I really didn't do any of them, except to trim and water my house plants. I don't think they actually like as much sun as they've been getting in the west-facing window. It's been pretty hot there of late.
My mother asks me sometimes, when I call her in the evening, "Well, what did you do today of note?" And I'm like, "Noooothinggggg . . . ." I dislike that question. Like, what am I SUPPOSED to have done? She doesn't really care, though. She's just making conversation. It's my own guilty conscience that gets me! I can only tell her about very simple things, anyway, because if it gets at all complicated, either she can't hear what I'm saying, or she loses focus in the middle and is confused. Even simple words can be difficult if they're unfamiliar. "I won the lottery!" "What?" "I won the LOTTERY!" "You bought some pottery?" "Arghhh . . . " (I didn't win the lottery, though.) I don't think I could explain to her that I spent some of my time today thinking about James Tiptree Jr.'s struggle to find a voice in a society that was (and is in many ways) still essentially homosocial. And how that affects trying to write female protagonists.
The Sparrowhawk, in doing some more cleaning in the closet, found a box of things including his old slide rule and some packets of letters. He's been reading those with interest, since he's writing some memoirs, on and off. In a letter I wrote to him, he found an amusing segment where "I said to myself, 'Five months is approximately one-seventeenth of seven years.' My mother looked at me very peculiarly and said, 'What?' 'Oh, nothing, never mind.' She sighed and said finally 'Well, I hope you appreciate the fact that I'm not nosy.'" I think I was about 18 then. So I have a long history of not trying to explain things to my mother.
It was the kind of day that is always threatening to rain. When I went for a walk, the air was humid and sticky. When the clouds are this dark and close to the ground, the birds continue to chant sleepily as if they're not sure the sun is all the way up yet. The cup plants and sunflowers by the pond tower over my head, and even the occasional clumps of purple asters that have started to bloom are five feet tall. the cup plant and the compass plant are both forms of silphium, but apparently not the kind that served as a contraceptive in classical times, and which is now extinct. Last night's rain raised the water level in the pond. I saw a young frog that still had part of its tadpole tail hopping across the path by the pond.
Tonight I made a dish combining zucchini, onions, and tomatoes. We had three rather large summer squash from our plants--one yellow and two striped. I used to make this dish when we were living in our communal household, but I haven't done it for awhile. I sauteed the onions and squash, trying to get some of the juice out of them, and then layered them with sliced tomatoes and sprinkled the layers with grated cheese. In this case, it was a wedge of Romano pecorino that was gathering mold in the refrigerator and needed to be eaten. In the old days, it would have been some kind of government cheese, whatever was cheapest! I also put in some thyme and marjoram from my little herb bed out back. Then I put it in the oven for half an hour or 45 minutes. It was still very juicy, but we can save the juice and put it in soup. It's a simple thing, but it still tastes good to me.
My mother asks me sometimes, when I call her in the evening, "Well, what did you do today of note?" And I'm like, "Noooothinggggg . . . ." I dislike that question. Like, what am I SUPPOSED to have done? She doesn't really care, though. She's just making conversation. It's my own guilty conscience that gets me! I can only tell her about very simple things, anyway, because if it gets at all complicated, either she can't hear what I'm saying, or she loses focus in the middle and is confused. Even simple words can be difficult if they're unfamiliar. "I won the lottery!" "What?" "I won the LOTTERY!" "You bought some pottery?" "Arghhh . . . " (I didn't win the lottery, though.) I don't think I could explain to her that I spent some of my time today thinking about James Tiptree Jr.'s struggle to find a voice in a society that was (and is in many ways) still essentially homosocial. And how that affects trying to write female protagonists.
The Sparrowhawk, in doing some more cleaning in the closet, found a box of things including his old slide rule and some packets of letters. He's been reading those with interest, since he's writing some memoirs, on and off. In a letter I wrote to him, he found an amusing segment where "I said to myself, 'Five months is approximately one-seventeenth of seven years.' My mother looked at me very peculiarly and said, 'What?' 'Oh, nothing, never mind.' She sighed and said finally 'Well, I hope you appreciate the fact that I'm not nosy.'" I think I was about 18 then. So I have a long history of not trying to explain things to my mother.
It was the kind of day that is always threatening to rain. When I went for a walk, the air was humid and sticky. When the clouds are this dark and close to the ground, the birds continue to chant sleepily as if they're not sure the sun is all the way up yet. The cup plants and sunflowers by the pond tower over my head, and even the occasional clumps of purple asters that have started to bloom are five feet tall. the cup plant and the compass plant are both forms of silphium, but apparently not the kind that served as a contraceptive in classical times, and which is now extinct. Last night's rain raised the water level in the pond. I saw a young frog that still had part of its tadpole tail hopping across the path by the pond.
Tonight I made a dish combining zucchini, onions, and tomatoes. We had three rather large summer squash from our plants--one yellow and two striped. I used to make this dish when we were living in our communal household, but I haven't done it for awhile. I sauteed the onions and squash, trying to get some of the juice out of them, and then layered them with sliced tomatoes and sprinkled the layers with grated cheese. In this case, it was a wedge of Romano pecorino that was gathering mold in the refrigerator and needed to be eaten. In the old days, it would have been some kind of government cheese, whatever was cheapest! I also put in some thyme and marjoram from my little herb bed out back. Then I put it in the oven for half an hour or 45 minutes. It was still very juicy, but we can save the juice and put it in soup. It's a simple thing, but it still tastes good to me.
