Last night we binged for four or more episodes of Game of Thrones. Not used to television, an addict like every other American in my youth, I’m tender, and these days bereft of TC calluses and I didn’t feel healthy this morning when I woke up. The silly theme song keeps repeating in my head. Jamie Lanister and John Stark and Lord Peter Baylish and certainly Kahlihsi always have the same damn expressions. I don’t really care about them anymore. I don’t know why I’m committed to seeing it through.
The antidote, aesthetically at least, is a good read. Reading is private, firstly. And I can toggle the pace and note where my mind takes this with the various suggestions, place names, song titles, seventies detritus referenced from advertisements at that time. I was determined to finish “The Fortress of Solitude” by Jonathan Lethem. I didn’t grow up near the Gowanus Canal. I wasn’t getting ‘yoked’ on my way to middle school. But there were many, many things that were familiar and I appreciated coming of age with someone who was my age, referencing the music and the advertisements and the products and the news of that era. It felt a bit like reading Saul Bellow for my generation.
Happy Father’s Day. I gave my dad a ring. Last night, when the day had yet to materialize I was asked what I wanted to do. I found a club not far from here that I’d heard about pre-Covid. They had Ghanaian jazz on. What could be better? I made a reservation. But today, after having binged on television and then feasted on two-hundred and fifty pages of literature I had an oddly melancholy feeling all day, like I should already be preparing for the onslaught of the work week. I can’t enjoy a New York Sunday, as its already an East Asian Monday.
We all drove over to my mom’s place. I’d promised to mow the lawn, which as I reckoned would be some good exercise on a ninety-degree day. My stepdad who is a decidedly active ninety-two fell the other week and he’s still not back in the game. I called my dad on the ride over. Wished him a happy Father’s Day. And I elbow bumped my stepdad for a similar greeting. As planned my little one and my mom went off to see “In the Heights” at the local movie theatre. My wife drove off to the Sabelicos, the nearby nursery. And I settled into the meditation of pushing circular patterns on the lawn, going round, cutting off geometric shapes, doing my best not to damage the blades on routes and all the while thought about the time when I used to do this as a sixteen year-old. I remember hating that one kid when I was sophmore and he was a senior and I had imagined fighting him. Whatever for?
Inside I was rather sweaty and the aircon suddenly made me feel wet and cold. I had no shirt to switch into and thought the better of asking. I tried to take a nap but my wife showed up just as I was nodding off. There on the desk was a picture of my grandfather, my namesake, whom I never met. I stared at him a while trying to unearth something interesting about the connection between he and I. And though he looked handsome, standing there with his hair back, he didn’t look like me.
Sunday 06/20/21
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