Well kiddies, it’s another dreary day in December in Western Michigan. I got up late, cleaned the kitchen, and made coffee and chocolate drink for Eileen. Then I switched the order and did my exercises before my stretches. It was probably a mistake to listen to the new Talking Feds podcast. Doom and gloom about the abortion ruling coming up and the general direction of the Supreme Court.

Later I decided it was a one-two punch to the old morale to listen to that podcast and then pretend to be a grown up and call people after breakfast about house stuff. I have taken over trying to contact Ryan of Sharp Construction about the storm door hanging off our house. I have called his cell twice today and left messages. I did manage to get a line on someone who will fix our broken window. I’m waiting for a call back on that. That will probably be tomorrow.

I made several calls before I connected with someone to fix the window.

It looks like Rhonda’s husband, Mark, and son, Isaac, are going to help me move my harpsichord. I don’t think Rhonda’s going to use it as she was considering. It will certain boost the old sagging morale if I can get my harpsichord and marimba home.

I have about decided that I don’t like Ben Lerner’s poetry. This figures since I ordered several books by him. Only two of them were poetry but still. It may be that he is a bit too John Ashbery for me. I’ve never appreciated Ashberry very much. Lerner admits in a poem that he likes early Ashbery, whatever that means. I’m just finding his long book length poems obtuse to this old fucker. He does a lot of clever things. I’m not sure he loves words the way say, Hayden Carruth does. Both poets send me to the dictionary regularly. I don’t mind that so much, especially since most words pop up with a phone search. Plus I love words almost as much as I love footnotes.

I will finish reading Lerner with as open a mind as I can muster, but this morning I realized he was turning into a bit of a chore for me. He just goes on the lengthy list of my ongoing projects.

Yesterday was Frescobaldi and Hindemith at the piano. Today was William Byrd on the piano and some Dave Bromberg on Spotify.

Ending Roe v Wade is part of a long campaign to roll back democracy itself | Jill Filipovic | The Guardian

I haven’t read this yet but the general idea is why I was upset this morning listening to Talking Feds. The right are only doing what they intend which is to win the culture wars by hook or crook. Clarence Thomas has made no secret of the many advances he would like to take away from our country. Now it looks he can. I’ll have to keep reading Thomas Mann and Hannah Arendt in order to survive being informed as my country’s democracy is systematically disassembled.