Zeus takes the scales in his hand

and weighs the fates of the champions. Just as Hector, beloved of Zeus, was fated to die, so must I write this evening. Fate is fate, regardless of desire. I have no desire to write, but fate does not care. (Neither does Zeus.) I will battle the wind to reach my home, pull on my heroine pants, make a big pot of tea, and continue writing.

I hope I don't have to be either Hector or Achilles. Hector never gets to finish the dissertation; Achilles never gets a job afterwards. Doom either way. I have to figure out how to be Aeneas.

I wonder what my metaphors will be when I move on to Middlemarch.

Dear Everyone,

It seems that many of you missed the memo, so here it is:

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL PERSONS

FROM: the philosophotarian

SUBJECT: leggings

Leggings are not pants. Leggings = undergarment. Alternatively, leggings (like flip-flops) = verboten. Do not wear leggings in place of pants, skirts, shorts, kilts, etc., unless you are a method actor in a production committed to historically accurate clothing. In which case, I expect to see codpieces.

Heroines need pants to wear for heroic activities

This heroine has 11 pages. Villains everywhere are perking up, ready lure the heroine away from her heroic activities. Stop, villains. It will not do. I will not submit to your villainy. I will pull on my new coffee-colored, petite-length, super-soft writing pants and thwart you. Yes. Thwart. I expect to reach 24 pages by the end of the weekend.

But Rilke makes it better

Lösch mir die Augen aus

Lösch mir die Augen aus: ich kann dich sehn,
wirf mir die Ohren zu: ich kann dich hören,
und ohne Füße kann ich zu dir gehn,
und ohne Mund noch kann ich dich beschwören.
Brich mir die Arme ab, ich fasse dich
mit meinem Herzen wie mit einer Hand,
halt mir das Herz zu, und mein Hirn wird schlagen,
und wirfst du in mein Hirn den Brand,
so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen.

--Das Stundenbuch, in Das Buch von der Pilgerschaft no. 7

prickles and you don't let anyone get close to you

Tuesday October 12
1:47 am
dream

I just recently awoke from a dream. Cat decided to chase after a python which had slithered 87 feet up a tree [actually, I think it was a wall and a tree]. Cat fell out of the tree and snapped his neck. Intense grief woke me up. In my dream the tears came so thick and fast--tears piled on tears before any even fell. If I could have formed other thoughts, I would have worried that I might drown or choke on tears. I sobbed in a great howling wail. I didn't even hear myself making sound. Felt rather than heard the wail which, looking back, didn't even feel or sound real.

And the pain! A column of pain from my neck to my belly. Squeezing, suffocating pain. Even now [I woke up and wrote this a few minutes after having the dream], I've lost the depth and reality of the pain and it is only a memory of a dream.

That's what I felt for my cat in a dream. I have never felt grief over any human person's death. What if I never do?

Aunty Philosophotarian reads Kafka

Tonight I am teaching philosophy for 2.5 hours to a bunch of freshmen. I am both excited and terrified.