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9 March 2005
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9 March 2005
Today I have changed my schedule somewhat. I checked my email, messageboards, the weather and whatnot, and then I disconnected from the net and decided I won’t reconnect until the end of the day. I also blocked Matt from my IM lists. I could remove him altogether from them, but I’m not willing to do that. The idea that I should have no contact at all with him after being together six years is a little harsh on my Wah at the moment. And I think it’s also unnecessary so far. My fever has broken a bit, and I feel more positive than I’ve felt in a while.
It’s almost 8:30 a.m., and I’ve been up about an hour’n a half. I’m on cup number three, and I haven’t had any tobacco at all yet; though I may have a dip after this cup. As soon as I’m done in here I’ll go outside and prepare a row and plant cabbages and Brussels sprouts and get a row ready for potatoes. That should be the extent of my agri-business for the day, though not of my outdoor activities.
We need to erect more block’n board shelves to accommodate all our books. I have yet to unpack the ones I brought back from up north, and there are sixteen boxes or so of those. Every closet is also packed with books in this house, and all the available wall space is taken up by bookshelves. I would almost rather have a twin-sized bed, so that my room could accommodate more shelving for books. I’m not likely to be sharing my bed here with anyone anytime soon. We literally have thousands and thousands of books here in this house. If I didn’t love them all so much it would be oppressive. Even that attachment itself is a bit ponderous on my spirits from time to time – as all attachments are at some point.
There is so much clutter about in this room, so many loose documents and opened boxes and dust and tracked-in dirt from the garden and dog hair. It’s a bit overwhelming, and it accumulates more quickly than I can make disposition of it. Perhaps that is because I rarely take the time to do just that, but rather spend a good deal of that time online and fixated on that same problem I’ve chewed on for months and months now – really two years or more, to be honest.
So is some of this about simply letting go of all that internal conflict and ceasing to chew on that nub of a bone? Is there an ordering of life in order?
There is a certain amount of liberation that comes with simple personal management and the following of an easy discipline. It will take a little time to get that in process for me, if I want to make it an easy discipline to follow. And it will take the will to follow it and the inclination to want it. I’ve made but a bare beginning on that. I just unpacked two boxes that were mostly scraps of paper and old correspondence and notes to myself and other flotsam of the last few years I’ve carried around unsorted in these boxes. I have two filing cabinets here, short ones, and I will sort some of this stuff before I head outside. In spite of it being a beautiful day, I don’t feel so damned unproductive sitting here in my study, as long as I’m doing something and not spinning my wheels in that rut of what being online has come to mean to me.
Many of these scraps of paper just have phone numbers or things I wanted to remember written on them. Many of them also have scribbled notes from Matt with little X’s and O’s affixed. That being said, this process is such a positive step that I’m not feeling maudlin about sifting through that. Order out of chaos is a favorite theme in my life and a principle reason I enjoy life on the farm.
Now I have all these piles of correspondence on my floor sorted according to the people and circumstances of each. I’m hoping the dog won’t sit down in the midst of them and scatter all the work I did before I have a chance to file it all away.
It’s 10:52 a.m., and I just got off the phone with Becka in Henrietta, Texas. She and her brother were old high school friends at Irving High, and she figures in one of my stories (Hot Whiskey). She’s a grandmother now, has lost most of her hair and is living in Henrietta still. Her brother Bill, my best friend in freshman year, is serving a 75-year sentence in Huntsville, and I write to him weekly. She’s getting over the flu and seemed sober and talkative.
“The English, it must be owned, are rather a foul-mouthed nation.” William Hazlitt (1778 – 1830) in “On Criticism”
I just ran across a letter I wrote to Matt last year when I was living here on the farm. I never mailed it for some reason.
Sweetheart,
I fear sometimes that I may lose you, because I can’t leave you alone. And then I fear that leaving you alone will leave me without you altogether. You tolerate so much from me every day. You measure out your kindness and affection just enough to keep me wanting more always.
I miss the times when you needed me. I remember how strong I used to feel when I could do things for you and give you support. I never felt so worthwhile in my life than I did then. It was you who made me feel special. I was never better as me than when I was putting all of me into us.
I want so badly lately to press my face into your belly and feel your arms around me. I never felt so complete as when you lay on top of me in perfect silence with your head on my shoulder. I never felt so wanted in my life.
All of the phone calls, the talk, my whining and petty jealousies and my fears are meaningless compared to the joy you give me every day. Nobody can take that away from me. I couldn’t stop loving you if I tried.
I ache for you every day.
Frank
OXOX
That may be a load of sick, co-dependent crap, but it gives me a warm fuzzy at the moment. I’ll save it and file it away for future reference.
This morning’s listening in reverse order:
Built To Spill – Keep It Like A Secret
Elliott Smith – Super 8
Elliott Smith – Elliott Smith
Dad is making eggplant campanata (sp?) for lunch, and I will head outside now with Sarah and at least stake out a row for the cabbage and Brussels sprouts before time to eat.
He just came in to inform me that we’re having Zatarain’s dirty rice instead, as he didn’t like the look of the eggplants. I’m heading outside to do at least something before lunchtime.
I logged back on after eating to check messages and post this morning’s stuff. That’s not quite what I wanted to do, but I’ll live with it. I’m finding that being online may be as big a problem as any relational stuff I deal with.
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