All the Moths Adore 'em Thursday, September 04, 2003

Panic sets in. I woke up at 6 am and realized: I haven't read enough books. I haven't written enough. I haven't burned off enough calories. I haven't spent enough time with my friends or my family or my wife. And I have maybe three good hours a day to do all this.

I was too tired to type this in last night:

Three o'clock and suddenly awake amid the smell of dreams and of the years come back and peopled and blown away again like smoke. A young man am I, twenty nine, but I am as full of dreams as an ancient. At night the years come back and perch around my bed like ghosts.

My mother made up a cot in my corner of the porch. It is a good place, with the swamp all around and the piles stirring with every lap of water.

But, good as it is, my old place is used up (places get used by rotatory and repetitive use) and when I awake, I awake in the grip of everydayness. Everydayness is the enemy. No search is possible. Perhaps there was a time when everydayness was not too strong and one could break its grip by brute strength. Now nothing breaks it--but disaster.

...

REMEMBER TOMORROW
Starting point for search:

It no longer avails to start with creatures and prove God.

Yet it is impossible to rule God out.

The only possible starting point: the strange fact of one's own invincible apathy--that if the proofs were proved and God presented himself, nothing would be changed. Here is the strangest fact of all.

Abraham saw signs of God and believed. Now the only sign is that all the signs in the world make no difference. Is this God's ironic revenge? But I am on to him.

Dr. Percy, natch. This comes from one of the bleakest pages of "The Moviegoer," where the hero, Binx, reveals the full face of his despair. But as I type it over I'm laughing. I think: They haven't won yet. Not when thoughts like this are possible.

Still: Can you organize time like an apartment? More important, will my mortgage broker extend my rate lock until I finish my existential crisis?

Winners to announce:

Best Comment Ever about this blog goes to everybody's favorite uncle, who said last night: "Gee, Rob, you sure go to church a lot."

Best Novelty Present Ever goes to King Bowser and Princess Dragon Mom for a 45-rpm record -- autographed! -- by one Mario Altomare, whose thigh-parting eyes are gazing at me even as I type; in contradistinction to the devotional image of the Madonna and Child on the obverse side of the sleeve. If you want a copy, it is available from "Ape Records" of New York, or Bacciolina's Rosary Den, 37 Patterson Plank Road, Seacaucus.

This beats the previous Best Novelty Present Ever, a copy of "El Porompompero" by Latino triple-threat Manolo Escobar. I still have the record, but I lost the guy who gave it to me.

@ 8:44:00 AM,

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