Woke up 6:30. Unusual - not too early, not too late, slept through. I hate to say, it might be that I didn’t have afternoon coffee (though I’ve also had a one-cup day and stayed up until 2). Regulating sleep matters more when you’re hitting middle age.
Anyway: breakfast/coffee - talked to Bree longer than most mornings, about the state of the world.
Started on the radio show before 9, finished the file, playlist, and log just after 10.
Didn’t do that much until after 1 — caught up on the news, some other light internet reading. Did put on a Robert Wyatt record from 2010, but I wasn’t concentrating on it.
Finished Brenda Lozano, Loop. A very European novel; I’m not sure it added up to much, nor would doing so be the criterion it would accept for itself, but I like this paragraph toward the end, which is of course metafictional:
“Rivers have a source, a life, a youth, an old age. Some have longer trajectories than others; some are abruptly cut off, while others follow a peaceful path to the end. The book only classifies the longest rivers. A grey box describes each one: its name, where it beings where it ends and how long it is. Footnotes at the bottom of each page give the sources consulted, along with other measurements. Comparing one river to another, you see how slight the differences are in the lengths. In other words, it’s obviously impossible to classify them exactly. That desire to classify them, like the desire to write accurately about the past, is based on a fiction. The book of rivers is like a silent novel. The trajectories are so similar despite being in different places, and yet the rivers, ordered from biggest to smallest, lie side by side. Impossibly side by side. They may not all meet along the way, but all the rivers are part of the same book.”
Page in poetry notebook - found that I’m a day ahead.
Read to p. 90, Ashbery, Breezeway.
Watched a piano lesson, practiced 30 min.; chromatic scales considerably faster, my control breaks down around 160 bpm. Major scales, “Stella By Starlight” w/ metronome. Didn’t have much time for “Dancers in Love.”
Joined Segue reading w/ Ron Silliman and Tonya Foster.
Made some Swiss chard, ate w/ Bree. Heard some of the Jimmy Dean CD she was playing. Almost 9 by the time we cleaned up.
Got together materials I needed to drop off w/ a neighbor who’s replacing me as building secretary; also emailed some older minutes, scanned an insurance form that needs to be on file. Took those upstairs when I went out for a walk, took out recycling, short walk. Did the Sunday crossword, just under 30 min. - looked up 2-3 things. Listened to the rest of the Wyatt trio record.
Read to p. 100, Breezeway. “The young men are building a boat/Definitely a freedom container.” (“Warm Regards,” p. 75)
Lights out midnight. Forgot to meditate today.