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December 05, 2001: Nice foggy drapes

My cat Mimi is happiest when she's in a box.

We had that shoebox on the living room floor for a day or two, and she kept returning to it, over and over. Sometimes she sat up in it, sometimes she lay down in it, but every few minutes, there she'd be. Cat in a box.

This is what I saw when I looked out the window yesterday morning:

It was the first fog we've had since we moved to our tenth floor condo, and when it was even thicker than in that picture, you could barely see the ground at all. We could have been on the third floor, or the hundredth.

On foggy days I always wonder why I have to go to work. I don't even know whether work is still there. Better to curl up at home with a hot chocolate until I have proof that the world still exists.

The living room seemed very cozy and intimate in the fog. I guess that's what happens when you aren't sharing your space with all of North Toronto. The Christmas tree made sense, too, against a soft white background rather than the usual obstinately non-snow-covered urban vista.

The living room was so nice when it was foggy that I'm thinking of getting some nice foggy drapes for the windows. Perching in an aerie in the sky surveying your whole neighbourhood, your whole city up to the suburbs, in fact, is all very well when you're in the mood for it, but it would be nice to cocoon once in a while, too. Especially in winter. Which hasn't come yet.

I was browsing Salon yesterday, which is a great way to kill some hours when you're not getting any calls and you can't telnet into your home box because your home internet connection is down and you can't be bothered working on documentation because it's so dry, and I came across an article written by a woman who teaches a writing class at a juvenile hall. She writes about one of the children asking her why he should write:

I could have told Frank that writing can help sort through the chaos of your own mind. It can bring order to a world that so often feels like it is whirling out of control. I could have told him that in writing, you can be as angry as you want, full of hatred that goes inward and outward. It's better not to hate so much, but if you have to hate, go ahead and hate on paper. Paper doesn't bleed.

I could have told him that writing is a way to say to the world: I exist. And everything I feel, you have felt to some degree at some time in your life. I could have said writing makes you not so alone.

Good, eh? Especially the last paragraph. That's as good a reason to write a journal as any I've read.

We had the second-last practice before the concert last night. It sounds good; the only piece I don't know well enough is the last movement from Messiah: Worthy is the lamb. More Handel crack-smokin'. Part of it goes:

To receive power,
and riches,
and wisdom,
and strength,
and honour,
and glory,
and blessing!

Really compelling text, there, George Frederick. Or Charles Jennens. Or the dudes who wrote the bible. Whoever's responsible, it sounds goofy in song, like a shopping list. Or a little kid reciting what she did today;

I went to the park,
and the zoo,
and the store,
and the library,
and my friend's house!

At any rate, I don't know it well enough, and there's a killer "amen" fugue (fugue?) at the end of it which has me frantically sight-reading. Bad. So bad.