time alone

 

Eileen goes away today. I will have time alone until Sunday when she returns. Yesterday morning I returned to my usual routine of alternating reading and practicing which had been totally disrupted by having workmen in the house. Despite enjoying this I am not looking forward to Eileen going away. I know she will have fun. She is going with two colleagues to Chicago for a convention. Yesterday she said if she could have chosen any two, these two people were the ones she would have chosen. So that should make for a fun few days for her.

While she is gone I need to continue to prepare the house for the workers. I think I mentioned this means moving one more bookshelf. I also need to move the desktop computer.

I realize that I am operating with a bit of mental and physical fatigue that seems left over from the school year and choir season. It is this fatigue that has led me to skip the regional AGO convention happening (this week?) in Kalamazoo.

I also hesitantly mention that I have been doing some composing. I find that talking about this especially in the early stages can sometimes sabotage the process a bit. Curiously I had an idea on Sunday during church and have been developing it. I try to keep good old fashion staff paper by the organ for moments when I want to jot down an idea or a descant or something. Luckily there was paper there Sunday.

Looking forward to some time away next week.

In the meantime, here are today’s links.

1. Watching the Lights Go Out

This is the blog of someone who is suffering from Alzheimers. It has a “Flowers for Algernon” feel to me. His entry today talks about how he discover some of his decreased mental capacity by taking online IQ tests. I think about Alzheimers and related declines in my own life. My short term memory has gaps. But this is not new. Only my monitoring them for increase is new.

2. The strangely familiar browsing habits of 14th-century readers

A review of a scholarly book. The point of the review (and the book) is that readers pre-Gutenberg read in a fragmented fashion as is evidenced by the assembled collections of excerpts they owned. Unfortunately a quick glance on Amazon reveals the scholarly book to be practically unreadable due to its gobbedly-gook academic prose.

3. DNA Buried 7,000 Centuries Is Retrieved – NYTimes.com

I love this shit.

4. Understanding Steinese: Gertrude Stein’s Blunt, Beautiful Peculiarities : The New Yorker

I book marked this one to read.

5.Current Conditions – NYTimes.com

Linda Greenhouse’s astute comments on current SCOTUS behavior.

6. Disabled duck gets new 3D-printed foot | Crave – CNET

I also put this link up on Facebookistan. Excellent use of tech.

4 thoughts on “time alone

  1. Just found out yesterday that my childhood friend Jimmy Pastor passed away a few years ago. Kinda weird. He and I visited one summer in my early teens. Not sure if you remember.
    David

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