…I just have to record the fact that I just ate an all day breakfast sandwich - for non-British readers, that’s sausage, egg, bacon, ketchup - which came in a box bedecked in a sticker that solemnly informed me that said sandwich contained no mayonnaise. Which is obviously important, for health reasons.
Slicing lemon to go with my lunch: the knife dug deep into the tip of my middle finger. True story: when I was ten, I cut my thumb while slicing carrots, fainted from the sight of the blood, hit my head on the radiator, and ended up in intensive care with a severe concussion.
I was scared it would happen again. I flung myself down the stairs and pounded on fellow work-from-homer J’s front door.
“I HAVE AN EMERGENCY” I cried through the door. He wrapped paper towel around it and held my arm aloft as I crumpled to my knees.
“You’re OK,” he said. “It’s only a small cut.”
“But it is a key cello-playing finger!” I whimpered.
“You don’t play the cello,” he said.
“I used to,” I pointed out.
Antiseptic, plaster: a few minutes later, he sent me home, with a recommended poem to help me get over the trauma: Cut, by Sylvia Plath.
discuss (via blandben)
Do you carry dozens of photos of yourself around in your wallet? That would be awkward.
Will I regale my children with tales of my youth in London in order to make myself seem glamourous, as I drive them to their orthodontist appointments?
- When I have my eyebrows threaded (which I did a few hours ago), my body goes into exactly the same panic reaction that I used to have on airplanes. I mean, having one’s eyebrows yanked out with a piece of thread isn’t pleasant - it’s pretty painful, really, although a must for a beauteous eyebrow - but why does it actually make me feel claustrophobic?
- When someone comes round to fix things in my house, why am I expected to offer him tea? I never do, partly because I am not British and partly because he is always two hours late, at least, which makes me quite cranky. But apparently this is a giant faux pas and I am essentially a rank violator of etiquette. But he’s not a guest, and I don’t want to hang out with him, so why must I put the kettle on? Am I an intolerable curmudgeon?
Kurt Vonnegut
from the mouths of Gods
(via afghanistanbananastand:yoquieropancakes:24freedinner:kerr:iainbroome)
I beg to differ, dear departed Kurt. A good semi-colon is a beautiful thing; it is the champagne of punctuation. And semi-colons are also useful for other things: making lists of phrases; creating a pause longer than a comma, but shorter than a colon; generally, adding elegance.
Poet Laureate: does poetry need one? - Telegraph
Oh, Andrew. That said, I think we should still have one because there is something quite sweetly anachronistic (as opposed to just plan anachronistic, like the Royal Family) about having a dedicated national poet in the age of Twitter.
This makes me feel rather better about my own working habits, especially the bit about not writing scholarly books.
Sadly, however, I’ve no Sartre to hang out with.
INTERVIEWER
People say that you have great self-discipline and that you never let a day go by without working. At what time do you start?DE BEAUVOIR
I’m always in a hurry to get going, though in general I dislike starting the day. I first have tea and then, at about ten o’clock, I get under way and work until one. Then I see my friends and after that, at five o’clock, I go back to work and continue until nine. I have no difficulty in picking up the thread in the afternoon. When you leave, I’ll read the paper or perhaps go shopping. Most often it’s a pleasure to work.INTERVIEWER
When do you see Sartre?DE BEAUVOIR
Every evening and often at lunchtime. I generally work at his place in the afternoon.INTERVIEWER
Doesn’t it bother you to go from one apartment to another?DE BEAUVOIR
No. Since I don’t write scholarly books, I take all my papers with me and it works out very well.INTERVIEWER
Do you plunge in immediately?DE BEAUVOIR
It depends to some extent on what I’m writing. If the work is going well, I spend a quarter or half an hour reading what I wrote the day before, and I make a few corrections. Then I continue from there. In order to pick up the thread I have to read what I’ve done.(via Daily Routines, first published in The Paris Review, Spring-Summer 1965)
