The night before last I dreamed that I had a green onion growing out of my ear. The feeling I experienced was one of embarrassment. How long had I been going to work with a green onion growing out of my ear?
Given the price of groceries -- $100 for two bags; that is what it added up to last night -- it might be a plus to be able to sprout vegetables out of one's head.
Jonathan Schell died this week. He was only 70. The big 'C' was the cause. My last stint of true freedom -- three months spent unemployed during the spring of 2011 -- I read Schell's superb The Time of Illusion (1976), which is a thoughtful deconstruction, beginning with the decision to secretly bomb Cambodia, of the perfidy of the Nixon administration.
I did a lot of running during that unemployed spring. My core conditioning, after a year spent commuting three hours every day, is finally beginning to dwindle to a state of unfitness. This leads to not only a physical state more prone to injury and illness but also to a slothful mentality. Exuberant flights of the intellect are few and far between when most of one's time is spent at work and on the train while running is reduced to weekend jogs.
Like a serf looking forward to a breezy afterlife, lately I find myself imaging a new, close-to-home job suddenly being offered up.
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