A Dazed Goodnight

“I wonder why I don't go to bed and go to sleep. But then it would be tomorrow, so I decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent I am, I can skip on hour more of sleep and live.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Another dashed-off entry on this blog, late at night and about to go to sleep. I figure a brief bolus of activity is better than none at all, a little rain to keep the plant alive for another day.

After a little over 24 hours in Florida, I'm impressed with the level of insanity here. Speaking with a progressive friend in one of our wealthier enclaves who now carries a gun because he's afraid that if some MAGA business acquaintance finds him out, sees his photo of MLK on the wall of his office, he and his family are in real danger.

Driving into PC from PCB to see a giant hagiographic billboard featuring Charlie Kirk. I understand from another friend it's the troll's birthday, and I guess we all as a nation are expected to bend the knee to our very own Horst Wessel.

In response to the R's demand that all state colleges and universities in Florida designate a boulevard in honor of Mr. Kirk, wags among the alumni at New College advanced a nomination of the traffic circle in front of the school's administrative center in the old Ringling Mansion. It's suggested they call it the "Circle Kirk". We should laugh out loud at that--the despots cannot abide laughter.

Supper with a friend who's like a son, before I leave here for the upstate and he leaves to see his wife on a Thailand vacation after several months separated by the recent troubles. He's going to live in Germany. We talk about possible countries of escape, a regular topic among us. We have come a long way from feeding him burgers as a middle schooler in Lynn Haven and talking about little league baseball.

The food at supper, incidentally, was quite bad, what a Southerner thinks Mexican food should taste like, and gracious plenty of it. I quit early, feeling guilty for not finishing. Then I begged off on a nightcap because of the early flight tomorrow, and came home to do laundry and respond to the hundred or so emails that arrived while I was mediating all day.

So here we are. Pray for a steady motor and fair skies. Tomorrow this time I'll be curled up next to my P, which leads me to close with a wonderful quote from Milan Kundera I ran across recently:

“Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”

― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being