John said something about Aardvark that can be loosely summarized as: "You must get some satisfaction out of knowing that you don't have to wake up every morning and live his wretched life." He also mentioned the lone chicken patty eaten in the middle of the night, complete with snarfing and crumbs everywhere. John is fascinated by the chicken patty phenomenom.
He's right. But Jason called me a few hours ago with news that Aardvark has been telling someone else that Jason is so different because I'm suffocating him, or some such shit. It makes me irritated all over again, and even more irritated when I have to come into the school library and see his smug little face, and re-assess whether or not I really need that biography about Alice Paul or Jason's request for a Simone Weil book.
Jason doesn't think I should be angry anymore. He's right in that's it's a waste of time and energy -- both of which would be much more productively directed toward my thesis and other writings. But I can't help it. I never get angry in a calculated way -- I suppress and suppress until I'm so furious my anger is almost irrational.
No Marion at work today. Maria sat me down with a list of instructions, and then left me to boxes of student folders and The Beekeeper.
Rue wanted out of my bedroom at about five this morning, and the second I left her out, Carl waltzed in and vomited all over the floor. It was a disgusting early morning wake-up call. Jason says the apartment is beginning to reek, what with all the cat litter boxes, bowls of cat food, and what smells suspiciously like a male cat spraying in corners of rooms, marking his territory.
I am 90 pages into Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt. In the afterword, Highsmith writes that "I wrote some eight pages in longhand in my then current notebook or cahier. This was the entire story of The Price of Salt, as Carol was originally called. It flowed from my pen as if from nowhere -- beginning, middle, and end. It took me about two hours, perhaps less" (260). I feel that this is an apt way to describe the book, so far. Rushed, rudimentary prose with conspicious gaps in action (for example: how did Therese end up sitting so that Carol has to swing her legs over T's head?)and plot. Also, I am always skeptical about characters who go on and on about loving someone without giving any evidence for this love. Why does Therese hang on to Carol like a lost puppy-dog, when frankly, Carol is cruel and snide and distant? I understand that Therese is young and naive. Yet these qualities don't seem like enough evidence for her complete devotion.
posted by Empress Girl @ 2:03 PM
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