Up 6-ish.
After breakfast/coffee, played through a very old unrecorded song, “Lonely Enough For Two,” possibly to record for the Love Hangover.
Read a chunk of Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space, How Successful Academics Write
Wrote about 10:30-1:30, felt ok about 2 grafs.
Therapy w/ Bree, 4:15.
Made chicken livers and mushrooms for dinner.
Watched part of Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel For Women (Gregory Ratoff 1939), w/ Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell - a little better acted and directed than it needs to be.
Played through a piece of sheet music from 1917 - “If You Saw What I Saw Back in Arkansas.”
Spent more time together in the evening when we often do.
Read more of the Sword. Usual evening routine. Lights out just before midnight.
1/26
Up 7-ish.
Read Schoeberg textbook up to where we are in the harmony lesson - to about p. 40. The speculative parts are wild. "Let the pupil know that every living thing has within it that which changes, develops, and destroys it. Life and death are both equally present in the embryo. In between is time.” Had class about 2:30-3:45.
Glanced at a couple sentences of the next chapter.
Joined Popular Music Books in Process Zoom call/talk about Bang on a Can.
Bree made Swiss chard; I had some after the call (will cook tomorrow), also made some buckwheat.
Poetry notebook - wrote a day ahead.
Recycling, walk outside. Did more quick revision on a paragraph, will come back to it tomorrow. Lights out 11:30.
1/25
Up 6. Watched some misc. video, and all but the last 10 min. Edward and Caroline. Reminds me a bit of that Schoenberg Zeit-Oper - domestic squabbles in a constrained mise-en-scene.
I went back to bed before 8, and didn’t wake up again until 11. Frustrating - not the direction I’m tying to go.
Mainly worked on harmony exercises, with a break for therapy at 3. After I scanned and sent them.
Didn’t have time or energy to make sauce, but put together some pasta, green beans, sardines in oil, and parmesan. Pretty satisfying.
Watched Knives Out (Johnson 2019). Not sure what people are so crazy about, though the bit where Daniel Craig sings “Losing My Mind” is fun.
Caught up in poetry notebook, 3 p. Lights out around midnight.
1/24
Up 6.
Watched 30 min. of Bombshell (Jay Roach 2019), and another 30 min. of Edward and Caroline.
Read a bit about sleep. It’s possible that caffeine is affecting me more because I’m smoking less. Considering ordering a book light, and a bedside phone charger (so I can use it as an alarm clock). Should probably start having my 2nd cup of coffee earlier - no later than 2, if not 1 or noon.
Read Garnier.
Worked about 11:30-2:30. Rewrote a longish graf, think I know how to move into the next 2.
Called dad, about 3-4.
Started dinner at 5 - made green beans and braised mushrooms w/ garlic and oil. Ate with Bree, restless after dinner, finished the last profile (W.R. Burnett) in the Garnier, came back to help clean the kitchen.
Watched the rest of Bombshell, part of it while doing more of my harmony homework. Played through it to find mistakes (such as tri-tone movement). Scanned and sent it later. Still have an exercise to do tomorrow before Zoom class Tuesday.
Took out recycling, short walk around 10. Put a couple of forms (proof of insurance) that need to be one file in the building dropbox.
Read a few p. of Ryan Walker. “the eskimos have 200 words for snow/and a bitch ain’t one.”
Posting this now so I don’t have to tomorrow, but might stay up a little while.
Falling off on poetry notebook, piano practice, and meditation.
1/23
Very little energy today, for this or anything else. Up late, foggy, didn’t work on the book.
Watched 30 min. Edward and Caroline (Jacques Becker 1951).
Read 50 p. Garnier.
Read editor’s introduction and a bout 20 p. of Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony.
Ordered some books.
Did harmony exercises for an hr.
Updated to-do list app.
Typed up/lightly revised a poem from earlier in the month.