Trying Not to React

Quiet hibernation is no more than small attempts at house cleaning. It’s amazing the amount of mold that likes to grow in a bathroom with no windows. “No windows” is not exactly a correct assessment of my bathroom: there is a window, but it leads to an airshaft and was nailed shut a couple years ago after a party at which some friends tried to open it for air. [See previous entries for entreaties on such friends, and such “parties.”]

Maintaining a large New York apartment is a unique experience (and “large” is a relative term for those in other cities). The black layer of dirt(?) that coats furniture insistently. The strange crevices between wood moldings and linoleum overlays. The holes behind the tub-on-feet that create a feeling of illness and despair somewhere deep in the stomach….

~

The shift between summer and autumn has brought cleaner air and much talk of death, oddly. Friends promising not to die, others admitting they are slowly dying. Still others looking for affirmation of their own lives in ways that will kill them. Why does this happen? Why does a shift in season seem to route out such existentialism? Is this a uniquely citified preoccupation?

In a recent meeting with fellow thesis students, I had to listen to an exegesis on the meaninglessness of psychological treatment. The blathering student came from a Central Asian country. “Why don’t people just talk to their friends?” she wondered.

I steeled myself and did not smack her.