Even moreso

Last year I learned about Christmas Adam, which some people call today, December 23, which I've always called Christmas Eve Eve, and which you could also call Christmas Lilith... right? I won't google any of that for you.

It's crazy how after being retired seven years, my days and evenings feel as full as ever, even moreso. I mean, I do religiously take two naps per day, and we sit and sip coffee whilst lightly bantering for the first 30 or 45 minutes of our morning, occupying our seats in the living room, watching the fog slowly morph, below and past our perch, north on College Hill, downtown, the river, and the distant hills. Then our gadgets come out: the customary games, stupid headlines, stock market silliness, more coffee, and eventually breakfast. No hurry except on rare days when there's a cat vet appointment. I guess I wasn't complaining! But there is a mental list of "to do" items that seems to grow in my brain, and I have to expend real effort to get them done, especially if they are truly optional, which most of them are.

Today, we took a walk to a neighborhood bookstore. I had a $25 gift certificate, a Christmas present from two years ago. I'm not used to shopping anymore for p-books in a p-store, but I ended up purchasing three books and three arty postcards, succeeding in totalling exactly the amount of my GC. I got Hollywood by Charles Bukowski, a slim photobook of Man Ray images, and The Palm at the End of the Mind, a mass market paperback of Wallace Stevens' poetry. I'm a Bukowski fan, and I'm pretty sure I don't already have that title for Kindle. Man Ray is a pivotal figure in the company of Surrealists and Dadaists, a bit of a revolutionary in the field of cameraless/lensless photography. But the Stevens book was an odd choice for me. I don't really know anything about him or his poetry. But I do know he's got a big reputation, and the book was only $4. I think Jonathan Lethem mentioned him in glowing terms in the Lethem essay collection I just read, More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and Writers, but I'm not sure. It was a library book that I've already returned.

Last week, before taking all my borrowed books and videos back to EPL, I finished watching the three half-viewed Wes Anderson movies I may have mentioned in a previous blog or in a comment on a previous blog: Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Great flicks! I'd just paused each of them at points where I got anxious about the plot. Silly, yes, but I do that. I'm on a bit of an Anderson kick lately. I've also recently watched The Phoenician Scheme and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Actually I think I'm a full-fledged Wes Anderson FAN by now. I've still got a few more to see before I'm fully caught up with his complete (so far) filmography.