[journals] February 5 and 6

2/5 Late Evening:

I felt a fierce irritation well up within me. It was not that he was being obnoxious or overbearing. Nor had he made a rude or biting comment. It was not a particular expression on his face but rather the complete lack thereof. He was so damn subdued.

Perhaps I am going crazy but it’s as if a fog has descended over his mind and spirit. 

I walked out of meeting feeling sad and bothered. I can feel a room very well, measuring its temperature by intuition. Collected there were many confused and quietly desperate people.

Or maybe it was just the rain and the late hour.

2/6 Morning:

I feel much better today. I woke this morning and lay contentedly with my eyes closed in the dark calm shadows of my room. My mind purred softly as it floated from one thought to another. I thought about her. I thought about different projects. After a bit of this thinking in bed, I got up and took a shower, feeling the softness of the conditioner between my hands and the hot water pelting my back. 

My father called and told me had just found the ski boots he had been looking for all weekend. My brother had said that they were not in the closet, and so my father spent an hour scouring the countless boxes tucked away on the ceiling racks. Tired and frustrated at its continuing absence, my father decided to check the closet just one more time. He was almost sure he had seen them in there.

He opened the first door and sure enough they were there. I laughed and loudly exclaimed, “I though he looked in the closet.” My father chuckled back and we both commiserated and I sympathized with his pointless search. We humorously pondered my brothers ambivalence to my father’s avoidable extensive effort and search on his behalf. My brother must have been having a busy and tiring day.

Another call came from his office so he hung up. I put the phone down and returned to my breakfast. Toast and eggs and turkey and tapatio hot sauce. My diet consists of long runs where I just eat the same thing over and over again. I think this is the start of another run.

As I write this feeling perfectly full, I’m thinking about how It was good to hear the cheer and crackling energy in his voice. He is so alive. A brief phone call with him inspires me to do likewise this rainy Monday morning.

2/6 Late Morning:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is as Diaz puts it, “achingly assured” and the kind of book that “makes you happy to be a reader.”  Junot Diaz and Mohsin Hamid both have a deep sensitivity to how large currents of history quietly push our lives this way and that. Hamid soars in his delicate exploration of American imperialism and his own complicated complicity in this system. Weaved into this nuanced discussion is of course a love story. The chords of longing, loss, and hope ring clearly throughout this brief novel. The intricate weaving of the many motifs left me feeling so many ways. The firefly. The visitor he plays host to. The ‘fundamentals.’ 

I’m now off to the library to get some compulsory school work done, and then hopefully make some progress in Judt’s History and also the Fanon readings for the DeCal tomorrow.