Journal of a Sabbatical

December 28, 1999

millennium approaches

Today's Reading: Winter from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, From Ponkapog to Pesth by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, King Philip's War by Eric Schultz and Michael Tougias

Laundry. Not quite the same as huckleberry fields, but experiential nonetheless. Yesterday afternoon and evening was expended on washing stuff in hot water and waiting for it to dry in the world's most expensive quarter-eating dryers. The stain remover froze solid from sitting in the trunk of my car over the weekend. I'd meant to do the laundry on Friday morning, but ran out of time. With all the driving and present wrapping and so on, I never got around to unloading the laundry supplies from the car. Serves me right, I mumble as I try to smear chunks of stain remover onto the clothes. Does frozen stain remover have any effect? Why am I bothering? What state of spiritual development was I supposed to attain by doing this instead of dropping it off at the wash/dry/fold place? I have already jammed $20 worth of quarters into various machines, especially the quarter-eating dryers. So how is this cheaper than the wash/dry/fold? The real reason I am doing this is of course to kill off any last remaining traces of ringworm. No laundry place will wash colors in hot water no matter what you tell them. If you want to wreck your clothes in scalding hot water, you have to do it yourself. I didn't even remember to bring a book this time, so I ended up watching the news and back to back episodes of Suddenly Susan. You can bet I won't do that again.

So did I get to those huckleberry fields today? Nope. Therapy. Lunch from the Earth Food Store. Coffee with Tom. Reading pages and pages of From Ponkapog to Pesth now that Tom thinks I should write 19th century travelogues or run a bookstore that sells 19th century travelogues or something. It's possible that I live in the right place but the wrong century. I wonder if anybody ever skated the length of the Merrimack River. Then or now. Aldrich is caustic, sarcastic, funny, witty, acerbic, many other adjectives about Europe in 1895. His account of an audience with the Pope is well-observed and outrageously irreverent. He makes street life in Naples sound like a vaudeville show. He describes an English manservant as if he were some exotic species of bird discovered on some remote island. His world is definitely skewed. So is mine, obviously. Either the world is skewed or my viewpoint is skewed. Either way the view is at a strange angle.

I just heard my gate creak. My first thought was the movers for the unit next to the Scottish lady are delivering stuff to the wrong house. I look out the window and the moving truck is nowhere to be seen but a UPS truck is driving off into the night. I venture downstairs, wondering how I could hear the gate creak but not the doorbell. The doorbell worked fine last week when BusyBody was ringing it incessantly to get me to come to the door and accept Christmas cookies. Someday I will get a professional to look at this doorbell. Anyway, there's a small amazon.com package tucked between the screen door and the back door. Wilbur howls to be let out and I refuse. He hasn't grasped the concept of "indoor cat" now has he? The package turns out to be a Christmas present from Charla and Bob, a CD by Mediaeval Baebes. I slide it into the Mac's CD tray so I can listen and write my journal at the same time. I don't think I actually have enough memory to do that but it seems to be working OK. I like the sound. I can't understand the words, but the voices sound really cool.

So is it possible to catch a cold from doing too much laundry? From reading too many 19th century travelogues? I was sniffling some at the laundromat last night but figured it was because it was very very dry in there. I woke up this morning with a stuffy nose and sore throat and have been sneezing off and on all day. I've loaded up on echinacea tea and lemon ginger juice with echinacea and vitamin C yet my throat is still scratchy. I do not wish to have a cold. I refuse to have a cold. So there.