The rest of the northern hemisphere is deep into summer, the news media is frothing over with stories about droughts and heat waves, friends in the midwest complain about 90+ degree conditions. And here in northeastern Vermont? Cloudy, damp, the thermometer outside the dining room window reading 59F (up from 49 yesterday evening). Stepped outside earlier this morning, my breath immediately began misting. It's been like this since later in the day on Friday, cool enough that the storm windows have gone down. Not very user-friendly.
Yes, I'm talking about the weather. Sue me.
Have been slipping into an overdue work mode in recent days, a state that has me going through different rooms and closets of the house, beginning a long-needed process of culling, recycling, dumping. Amazing how things accumulate, and I'll be curious to see if certain items might generate a little $$$$. Like, a stack of American Film magazines, a great (now extinct) magazine put out by the American Film Institute -- about 36 issues in all, ranging from 1984 through 1992 when AFI pulled the plug on it. (Entertainment Weekly and then Premiere tried filling the black hole left by the magazine's demise, Premiere recently announced the end of its print version. EW continues on, but it's not exactly a movie mag.) And a stack of Film Comment magazine -- about 33 issues from 1988-1993. A good, less slick, more intellectual alternative to American Film, put out by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. And to balance out all that slick, thoughtful tastefulness, four issues of Psychotronic, the shamelessly trashy B-movie 'zine. Including issue no. 16, whose lurid, psychedelically-colored cover (main image: a monstrous octopus menacing a screaming, swimsuited babe) sports a banner reading "MORE PAGES!!"
What else? Clothes. Luggage. Two VCRs and a big pile of VHS tapes. Far too many electronics cables and lengths of speaker wire. Books. Books. More books. The process of going through all the books has just begun, will continue through the summer and beyond. Likewise for accumulated cassette tapes and CDs. And lots of miscellaneous frufru, currently hiding in corners, trying not to be noticed.
Some things will be recycled (have already made two drop-offs at the local Salvation Army, which employs some of the most truculent humans I've encountered in a while -- in fairness, though, if I worked there I might experience a fast transformation from charming, witty bon vivant to grumbling, resentful low-wage slave), more will follow. Some things will get tossed. Corners of rooms once buried in detritus will be freed up, the living space will slowly morph into something airier, uncluttered. That's the plan anyway. We'll see how deeply I can cut into the accumulated mass.
Meanwhile, I'm making calls to friends now scattered all over the map, most seem to be off having lives. Most, I imagine, are in the middle of actual summer, out cavorting amid sunshine and butterflies. I have hopes that someday this part of the planet will re-experience that sweet state.
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In Hope Cemetary, Barre, Vermont:
España, te echo de menos.
rws 1:17 PM [+]
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