Leave the gun, take the cannoli

Monday: I won't even discuss this morning's ridiculous hyperventilating panic attack. What I will discuss is what I'm reading, which is Rumer Godden's The Battle of the Villa Fiorita. It might be even better than In This House of Brede, and that's a very high bar. It reminds me in many ways of Brideshead Revisited, despite the fact that it's absolutely nothing like Brideshead Revisited. Except it is. It would be more accurate to say that Rumer Godden is nothing like Evelyn Waugh. She was probably a much nicer person than Waugh, who was famous for being a jerk, but they were both converts to Catholicism, and both possessed sparkling clear moral vision. The Battle of the Villa Fiorita anticipated--and refuted--the myth that children of divorce don't suffer and that they're better off with happy, though separated parents. And Caddie Clavering reminds me of Cordelia Marchmain, though they are also two very different characters. I recommend it. Now I want to read Brideshead again.

And speaking of moral clarity, and speaking of books, I'm not going to read Comey's book after all. I don't need any more convincing that Trump is a liar and a scoundrel and unfit for public office. And now I think that Comey is kind of a jerk. And not the Evelyn Waugh kind of jerk who recognizes and acknowledges his own jerkitude. I read an excerpt of the book, the part where Comey describes Trump's personal appearance, and I think that a guy who has obviously never suffered insecurity about his appearance who writes so cruelly about another person's very obvious massive insecurity is a special breed of jerk.

Thursday: I went walking after work, dressed for January on April 19. It's just too cold for spring, but I still enjoyed every moment outside. My iPod (my husband's iPod, actually; mine did not survive the laundry incident) was on shuffle and I skipped around, singing along with songs that I hadn't heard in a while. The cherry blossoms and forsythia, though fading, are still in bloom and the sky was pale, pale grey blue warmed by fading, thin spring sunlight.

Paul Simon's "Train in the Distance" played as I walked and contemplated the horrible fact of the suicide of a 12-year-old boy at my son's middle school. How lost he must have been, and how lonely. I don't want to think about his last moment. I hope he lost consciousness quickly.  As Paul Simon sang that "the thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains," I thought about how this is sadly not true for everyone. I hope the child is at peace now.

Saturday: You know, I had something in my head, and I failed to put it on paper , so that might be it for the week. It might come back to me. Stranger things have happened. Like the President tweeting that he's sure that his lawyer won't "flip," making it official that a crime boss is the President of the United States. I mean, think about it. How would cooperating with the government constitute "flipping" from the perspective of the President? That's the one guy who should be on the government's side, right?

You got a nice Department of Justice here. It would be a
shame if something was to...HAPPEN to it. 

I'm sure I'll remember it later. Just when I try to get OUT, it will pull me back IN.