January 24: His Habits, Daydreams, Mary Ruefle, "Saga," New Cartoon

[Ives] had his habits.  In the office by eight-thirty, lunch at one, home (God willing) at six, though quitting time often varied.  Once a day, usually at four in the afternoon, he'd call his wife, careful not to disturb her between noon and three, when one of the next-door neighbors would watch his son, and Annie might do whatever she liked:  pursue her studies, go to a library, see old friends, or, if she liked, try some drawings herself.  He liked riding elevators up to his office on the tenth floor, and one morning had the fantasy that the elevator would continue onward like a Jules Verne/Wernher von Braun rocket to the stars.  Many daydreams.

I think the reason I love Mr. Ives' Christmas so much is that I identify so strongly with Ives.  Ives is a man of habit.  I am a man of habit.  Ives adores his wife and kids, would do anything for them.  Ditto me.  And Ives daydreams in a very Walter Mitty way at times.  Elevators turning into rockets to the stars.  I have similar fantasies, especially on particularly tedious work days.

My daydreams are a little less fantastic than Ives' daydreams.  I don't want my car to suddenly transform into a submarine so I can drive into Lake Superior and hunt for a giant lake sturgeon.  My fantasies are more grounded in some form of reality.  For instance, I once read a story about how the writer James Michener was working in a business office after the publication of his first book, Tales of the South Pacific.  A tedious, mind-deadening job.  Suddenly, the phone rings.  It's a call for Michener.  On the line is a reporter from a newspaper, informing him that he's just been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  That was the last day of office work for Michener.  That's the kind of fantasy in which I indulge.  Sudden, surprising acclaim.  Something to lift me out of the everyday drudgery.

I love the freedom of weekends, when I can pretend I'm in charge of my life a little more.  I still have obligations, but they are obligations of my own choosing.  People don't tell me what to do.  I make and follow my own schedule.  Of course, there's still a little daydreaming going on.  For instance, sitting here, typing this post, I imagine suddenly receiving an e-mail from a literary agent, raving about my blog and begging to represent me.  I know, I know.  Delusions of grandeur.  But cut me some slack, please.  It's the weekend.  I'll be back to my structured existence in two days.  Until then, I can dream.

I have another poem from Best American Poetry 2014.  It's about life and time and eternity and repetition.  How we are all part of the same story, told over and over.

Saint Marty would choose to repeat James Michener's story tonight.  Or maybe Robert Frost's.

Saga

by:  Mary Ruefle

Everything that ever happened to me
is just hanging--crushed
and sparkling--in the air,
waiting to happen to you.
Everything that ever happened to me
happened to somebody else first.
I would give you an example
but they are all invisible.
Or off gallivanting around the globe.
Not here when I need them
now that I need them
if I ever did which I doubt.
Being particular has its problems.
In particular there is a rift through everything.
There is a rift running the length of Iceland
and so a rift runs through every family
and between families as a feud.
It's called a saga.  Rifts and sagas
fill the air, and beautiful old women
sing of them, so the air is filled with
music and the smell of berries and apples
and shouting when a gun goes off
and crying in closed rooms.
Faces, who needs them?
Eating the blood of oranges
I in my alcove could use one.
Abbas and ammas!
come out of your huts, travel
halfway around the world,
inspect my secret bank account of joy!
My face is a jar of honey
you can look through,
you can see everything
is muted, so terribly muted,
who could ever speak of it,
sealed and held up for all?

Confessions of Saint Marty

March 15: Same Stuff, Big Glass Cases, Different P.O.E.T.S. Day

I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked, and put it on.  I knew I wouldn't meet anybody that knew me, and it was pretty damp out.  I kept walking and walking, and I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to.  I thought how she'd be different every time she saw it.  It didn't exactly depress me to think about it, but it didn't make me feel gay as hell, either.  Certain things they should stay the way they are.  You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass gases and just leave them alone.  I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway.  Anyway, I kept thinking about all that while I walked.

Holden repeats himself a lot.  Much of it has to do with the spoken quality of Salinger's narrative voice in The Catcher in the Rye.  People repeat themselves in verbal interactions.  Casual conversation is sloppy.  In the above paragraph, Holden uses several words and phrases more than once:  "knew" appears twice in the same sentence; "walking and walking" in the third sentence, along with "kept"; "thinking about" and "think about" and "kept thinking about"; and the last word of the entire passage is "walked," echoing the earlier "walking and walking."

There is a point to my little paragraph parsing.  I think Holden's repetition reflects his urge to keep things the way they are, "in one of those big glass cases."  He's trying to hold on to a life that's slipping through his fingers.  He's already lost his little brother, and he doesn't want to lose anything more.  That's one of the qualities of Catcher that has kept it so popular for over 60 years.  Salinger is able to capture that teenage angst about growing older.  We're all Holden.

I'm Holden right now.  I look at my twelve-year-old daughter and have moments of quiet grief for the little girl who came into my life one snowy December morning over a decade ago.  I find shirts she used to wear when she was three and four.  "Daddy's Little Girl" and "Daddy's Princess."  I want to put her in one of those big glass museum cases, keep her young, untouched by that big old bully Time.  I want to be my daughter's catcher in rye.

That's pretty heavy stuff for P.O.E.T.S. Day.  I'm supposed to be all "fuck it, tomorrow's Saturday."  I can't do that this morning.  I'm in a reflective mood, a little sad and thoughtful.  I've been like this all week long.  When I got home last night, I was in such a bad mood that I didn't talk much for over an hour.  My son was in bed, and my daughter spent the night at my parents' house.  It wasn't my "normal" Thursday night.  Perhaps that's why I wanted to kick a puppy.  I was "out of sorts," as they would say at Hogwarts.

There's something to be said for museums, where the past is preserved and held sacred.  Everything stays the same.  I'm with Holden on this one.  That kind of stability is comforting.

Put Saint Marty under glass.  He's ready for his exhibit.

I'm the tall, good looking one in the fur coat