Daily Office
¶ Matins: Due at Westphalia at eleven.
¶ Lauds. Unable to sleep, I read most of what’s left of Breakable You. Lights out who knows when.
¶ Tierce. In the Times, Letters to the Editor grapple with the meaning of The Great Gatsby.
¶ Sext. Mission accomplished at Westphalia, despite heavy traffic.
¶ Nones. Gotham ugliness is not confined to Queens.
Oremus….Â
¶ Matins. For years now, Kathleen has stored a pair of love seats, formerly her grandmother’s, at the office. At Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, they were out in the open, for people to sit on. At Katten, Muchin & Rosenman, they’ve been sitting in a hitherto vacant area that’s up for refurbishing. I can only imagine what kind of shape they’re in.
I’d love to have them at the apartment, but (a) there’s no room and (b) I can’t sit on them. They’re small and low-slung, and the only way I could get out of them is by sinking to my knees on the floor.
The good people at Katten have notified Kathleen that it is time for the love seats to find another home, so they’re being delivered this morning to our storage unit on 62nd Street.
Yes, that’s right: the storage unit has a classier ZIP code than we do. You can imagine what that does to the rent.
¶ Lauds. The same old story. I had set the book down on my chest and closed my eyes, almost weeping with fatigue (all that walking!). Then Kathleen closed Atonement and turned out her light. I got up to go to the bathroom, lay the book and my reading glasses aside, and turn out my lamp — and got back into bed just about wide awake. That was at eleven-thirty. It must have been well past three when I finally got to sleep for good. By then, I’d almost finished Brian Morton’s most recent novel.
¶ Tierce. The other day, there was a piece in the Times about students at Boston Latin who were drawing inspiration for their American dreams from Fitzgerald’s great novel. Today, two letter-writers, one of them a fellow student, argue (correctly) that Gatsby is actually a “cautionary tale.”
The light does give Gatsby hope, but between West Egg, where Gatsby is, and East Egg, where his hope is, there lies an insuperable cultural divide. The green light represents all of what we want, but that we never can attain. Jay Gatsby would never reach that light, for the end of his American dream saw him face down in his swimming pool.
Perhaps, though, the dreamers are only being American. For strivers, winding up face-down in the swimming pool is just the risk of the road.
¶ Sext. (Even the dullest novice wouldn’t mix up the hours as quickly as I’ve done. But then novices don’t have to worry about linking to bookmarks. Maybe they do today.)
I came away from Manhattan Mini-Storage with a business card on the back of which a clerk wrote the contact of a moving company. I will call said moving company later today. I will ask them if they will move my castoffs (and big, empty boxes) to — the destination of their choice! I estimate that half of our room is full of sheer rubbish. The other half is now full of two love seats.
I have so many issues about the storage unit that I may need the help of a second psychotherapist. Cheaper to have it hauled, no?
¶ Nones. Toward the end of Breakable You, Brian Morton comes right out and says what everyone in Manhattan thinks but is either too good-natured or too politically correct to say:
The cab emerged from the Midtown Tunnel. Queens is one of those places that makes you suspect that humanity has an ugliness instinct, an innate drive to live amid hideous surroundings.