Gotham Diary:
Boxed In
21 October 2014
“What have you got on for today?” asked Kathleen on her way out the door. “Panic,” I said.
Yesterday, I filled another ten boxes with books. Two and a half shelves were emptied — two and a half shelves of books stacked three deep. That’s seven and a half rows of books, with each box holding most, but not all, of a row. There was also a cluster of odd shelves to clear — shelves designed to hold stereo equipment but long ago given over to atlases and bibles and law books. They filled two boxes. I brought Kathleen into the blue room to show her the progress so far (not impressive), and she picked up a roll of heavy-duty tape. “Is this the roll that you wanted me to look at?” It was a big roll of Scotch Extreme Shipping Tape — beyond strapping tape? — and there had only been the one roll at Staples. I couldn’t find the edge, but Kathleen quickly did, so now I can pack some more boxes this afternoon, and at least clear out the central block of the big bookcase. We broke down and ordered an expensive lifetime supply of strapping tape from Uline. We’ll probably go through all of it. Moving day is about three weeks away.
Panic.
The cousin of a friend has just been appointed to a foreign mission to the United Nations here in New York, and she has arrived in town without much in the way of household goods — so she can take some of our plates. We’re getting together for dinner on Thursday. I shall put out the tableware that we no longer wish to keep, and throw in some pots and pans. (Against my better judgment, I’m giving away some small All-Clad pots. I never use them. Then there’s a gigantic Le Creuset dutch oven, a little the worse for wear but with years yet to go.) I hope that our new friend takes every last piece of it.
Tonight, we’re going to have macaroni and cheese for dinner. That’s what I make when I can’t think of anything else. We had grilled chicken last night, and very tasty it was. When I removed the chicken from the marinade (sesame oil, lime, soy sauce and canola), I replaced it with a piece of London broil, so that will be dinner tomorrow night, or perhaps over the weekend. We enjoyed the chicken picnic-style, with hunks torn from a baguette and chunks of cheese. It was very satisfying. Later, I fell asleep in my chair.
Falling asleep in the chair is better than not falling asleep in bed, which is what happens if I lie down too soon. If I lie down too soon, I am almost immediately disturbed by what I suppose might be called a primordial fear of wetting the bed. There never turns out to be much of anything in my bladder, but to the bathroom I must go. For several years before the doctor prescribed a pill that gets me to sleep but doesn’t keep me there (that’s not required; it’s the falling asleep that’s the problem), I would lose hours to this miserable phantom, unless of course I’d had plenty of wine in the evening. The pill knocks me out nicely within about half an hour, and on most nights I seem to know exactly when to get out of my chair and slip into bed. If I fall asleep in the chair, no harm is done; I wake up an hour or so later, not the slightest bit uncomfortable, drift across the room, and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. If I get into bed too soon, I might have to make three trips to the bathroom for no good reason. Even without the dread of insomnia, it’s not very pleasant to get comfortable under the blankets only to have to toss them off and get up again.
Or maybe I’ll pick up some bratwurst at Schaller and Weber — an even more mindless menu, teetering on the edge of delivery. (“Delivery” is what “take-out” is called in Manhattan.) You can buy the bratwurst cooked, but I like to poach and then brown it myself. Cucumber and potato salads come ready-made. I wasn’t going to go out today, but I see that I have to pick up a prescription at Duane Reade, which is practically next door to Schaller and Weber.
The thing about delivery is that we are so tired of it that it is easier to cook from scratch. That is what we’ve come to.
***
A gratifying stack of books did not get packed yesterday: rejects! German Self-Taught. I’ve been carrying that around for decades, but I’ve never used it. The World As Will and Representation, in two thick Dover volumes. I am never going to read Schopenhauer, any more than I am going to cook from Mrs Beeton. I am never, I now see, going to learn anything from philosophy, except the utter uselessness of it. Now, I use the word “philosophy” narrowly, to describe systematic metaphysical thought. What all philosophers have in common — and this is why I don’t consider David Hume to be one of them — is the belief in an immaterial reality that serves as the foundation for the world of sense impressions that we experience. Philosophers hold that our impressions are delusive at worst and misleading at best if the underlying reality is not understood. In almost every case, a Creator underlies what underlies.
I do not know for certain that there is no Creator, or that the world as I experience it is not underpinned by reality of another dimension, but I do believe that thinking about such things is a waste of time — a rather terrible waste of time, considering all the problems that I see around me. I am well aware of the philosopher’s curse: none of those worldly problems will be solved until the metaphysical nature of things is fully grasped. What troubles me more deeply is the sheer need that men seem to have for this invisible order. Primarily concerned with exhorting educated Americans to act up to their intelligence, I worry that traditionalists like David Brooks and Ross Douthat are right, and that the elites of this country will never Rise to Occasion without a compelling belief in something larger than themselves.
I have found something larger than “themselves,” and it’s a nightmare: the humanity that swarms over the earth, empowered by technologies that it does not fully understand and fully capable of destroying the planet. We have become the gods that we feared. Only as an attentive and articulate society of individuals will we survive our colossal aptitudes for blunder. If I could stick a halo on that and make it blow magic smoke rings, I almost would.
***
Update: Now I can back boxes, all right. The delivery from Uline arrived this morning. Where to put the boxes when they’re empty and flat is already a problem. (Maybe we ordered the wardrobe boxes a bit too soon.)
Panic.