December.

Today was one of those days when I could not get out of my own way.  I was reading in Anne Carson's new translations of Euripides; in one of her essays either introducing or concluding the book, she mentioned Renato Rosaldo's essay "Grief and a Headhunter's Rage," which has been kicking around in my brain ever since.  So this morning, after having made a note yesterday--about grief, willingness, rage, all of which are, I think, bound together in this poem I'm working on, and maybe the whole manuscript--I couldn't let the idea of finding a copy of this essay go.  Is it online? you ask.  No!  It isn't.  The whole project of being pissed off about that fact took a good hour of my morning.  So much so that I started to think Bruiser was trying to be the boss of me again, and I had to kick my own butt out the door, where I opened my eyes and saw this:

This afternoon, downtown to catch Slumdog Millionaire with Dr. Write, I saw this while I was waiting out in front of the Broadway:

Last Friday, when I was downtown because our car was being worked on, I saw this:

and this:

Something about the short days, the lessening by degrees of the light, the end of the year--it adds up to something I have to grapple with, something unwilling in me, resistant.  I don't love this about myself.  I think this is why it's so important to remember: go outside and breathe, take in some air, open my eyes.