The Cleverless Me in Various Endearments

Joyful yesterday and today. Last night, Willow and I made spaghetti, and Kalil came over to watch The Hedgehog. I wept big, unattractive, German tears. Manly tears. It was incredible. Of course, The Elegance of the Hedgehog is better. The book is almost always better, and a book of essays by various characters isn't going to translate in its entirety to film. But it was the best film adaptation of a book I've ever seen. I love them both. Renee (pretend the fucking accent is there, prick faces) resonates with me. Read your books, that's wonderful, but don't be afraid of people and life. They all end.

That's what I've been thinking about. My own mortality is something I think about pretty frequently, but the mortality of those around me, especially if they aren't family, is outside my sphere of concern. Other people die. Everyone will die. Willow will die, Kalil will die, David will die, just as Atticus and my father and mother and brother will. Only the latter group had really occurred to me before. Even if I think to myself, "this is water," and I think like a conscientious English and Philosophy major who thinks she gets human sadness and beauty and tragedy, the inevitability every life faces still goes unnoticed. Completely unnoticed. Because I'm a foolish person who thinks that, in her modest way, she knows what to think about and likes to think and automatically thinks. She doesn't know what to think. She eats glitter and then giggles.

This was going to be a happy entry. Happy things had happened. Breakfast this morning with Willow and Kalil at the bakery. Mrs. Parsons with a new butterfly apron to match her butterfly tattoo. She is the butterfly lady. Enormous, heart-shaped linzer cookie for breakfast. Pretty much a sugared jammy dodger. Got along with that professor. Tutored two philosophy students and one of my remedial students from last semester. And then I felt like a fool in a flash and now I feel somber, and I like it because I'm one of those people who won't really learn, ever.