A bird didn't come down the walk today, but one did fly in the house, a sparrow that streaked by, fleeting shadow at the ceiling startling me as I came downstairs. D's out of the house, and my first instinct would have been to ask him to take care of it. Especially if it was a bat. Which it didn't take but a couple of seconds to verify that it wasn't. I'm not frightened of a little lost sparrow. I talked to it gently as it flung itself against the panes in the living room. I opened a couple of windows and pulled back curtains, saying (absurdly), look, come here, come here, the window's open, here. Which of course the bird, sensible despite its panic, understandably ignored me. I opened a third one wide, and off it flew. Perhaps it will be nursing a headache, and a bad memory, after all that thudding around, trapped within windows.

It was the second creature today that I rescued. So again, a bird didn't come down the walk - but a fat winged moth did, I found it sprawling helplessly on its back on the hot asphalt drive trying, seemingly, to right itself. I tore a succulent leaf off a burgeoning sedum (from the back of the plant where no one would miss the cactus-shaped oval) and with help of a convenient weed yanked from a crack in the driveway next to the moth (if that's what it was, or some enormous winged beetle), spirited the creature onto the barge-like stretcher where it continued to wriggle in panic. I deposited it in the bottom layers of a buddleia, deep in verdant shade, and it instantly calmed down, its ordeal (evidently from its own point of view) over. I suppose it rested for a little while. Later when I went out to water the garden and checked the spot - it was gone.

And that's the sort of day it's been, events small & smaller such as that, among the high points.

***
I want out of my marriage. I am beating against the windows. There is nothing in it that sustains me.

***
And I'm not even in a bad mood, just tired, a little overly so, considering that it's a beautiful temperate day, and I took a walk, and did a workout, and had fun with my new toy twice, and took a nap, and read more of the wonderful Sewall E.D. biography.

D and I just had a fight because the three remaining cats have become flea-infested and despite my having asked D to 'Frontline' them as soon as the warm-weather started, he didn't, didn't wish to part with the money, and so in fact, no surprise, the cats did get mightily infested. Gwynnie's been scratching herself for months, I thought it was dermatitis. But no - it turned out to be fleas. Because they hadn't been Frontlined. And now they have been and Gwynnie is so exhausted from having scratched herself for a couple of months that she just lies sleeping exhausted on our place mats on the kitchen table (which I do not like, obviously).

I had absolutely no say in D's unilateral decision not to Frontline the cats 2-3 months ago, let alone that instead of that he chose some cheap flea powder on Gwynnie that didn't work and only prolonged matters.

Oh fine - so now, lesson learned. To D the lesson is - no more cheap flea powders. And I disagree. Mine was - and we just went through this stupid contretemps on the porch, before retreating into our separate realms - no, the lesson is that cats need to be Frontlined as soon as the warm weather hits.

Big fight.

I had no say in it. Until now. Way after the fact, when it is just tedious.

And my imagination is working overtime trying to animate, humanize, a blue silicon toy.

I don't even have 'an allowance.' Anything I might possibly wish to purchase for myself, he has to know, allot the money, even the most routine supermarket run.

I don't understand. I don't even totally understand what I want at this point. Nothing from him, in terms of emotional sustenance. We had that for a long time, in each other, but it's gone. Maybe I should be content just existing as cohabiting roommates at this point. We're usually cordial with each other. It's not enough for me. Or is it?

You know (of course) that my writing is a funny thing. It's a source of guilt for me, a bit. I don't seem to have a novel in me, or some body of poetry or poetic prose or whatever you want to call it - except for what I write here. This is it, folks. And it's obviously very problematic, I recognize that. And yet I don't want to quit it, certainly not to quit writing. And my writing seems to require a beloved muse, even if the muse (or muses) are to say the least, problematic.

And let's say we could get together - what then? would I write? well, not to you I wouldn't, probably not

although I'd pick you over writing

or would I?

I certainly (hypothetically) wouldn't wish to pick you over writing and then turn around and find some other male muse to write to

so in some ways my situation isn't the worst -
except that it's pretty bad
it's pretty bad when things are loveless, and I don't mean in just a physical sense which I've been able to figure out for myself

it's just those little connections
going out once in a while, for a lobster roll in Noank
looking forward to a vacation together
having any kind of shared sense of mutuality

it's all gone
how do I get that back with him?
I can't
I really don't think I can

I don't feel it
he doesn't feel it

we don't even really have 'forms' to fall back on at this point

and yet I don't feel miserable
bifurcated

so how did that work: as long as my creative & erotic sides were suppressed my marriage worked
and when they blossomed, the marriage tanked
(plus there were economic factors in between)

I could rattle on in endless fashion trying to make sense of this
trying to figure out what to do next, how to proceed

I just have to believe in dailiness
in a completely nontreacly way

because I absolutely HATE pious paeons to the fucking beauty of simple dailiness
extolling trills over laundry and dish sponges
I couldn't even believe this one blog I read, she is so f***ing treacly, and preachy
well, she was a former magazine editor - a tastemaker
and in her most recent post she linked to a youtube song that I suspected I would find nauseating, and sure enough - did (no links, don't wish to pick fights)

I liked the bracing interview on Charlie Rose today,
with Erroll Morris, none of whose documentaries I've ever seen

but I loved the points each of them, in genial conversation, made
they're both expert, practiced, incredibly experienced interviewers
listeners by trade
and what thrills them in an interview that goes particularly well
is the sense of exploration
and of discovery
of revelation, something new, some new aspect, a voyage
(mostly we're unknown to ourselves, they each pointed out)
rather than of "confirmation" of some preset - 'handled,' as by 'handlers' - idea

***
sorry darling, this post wasn't exactly a Proust's Questionnaire of pithy probing, but it's where I find myself at this moment -

much love, and hope is well & happy with you, as much as can be expected, dreamed of, enacted - Vitruvianally

xoxo