I was eating breakfast after leading a workshop at the Mundekulla Music festival the other day when it suddenly felt like I’d been stabbed inside my cheek…and sure enough, I’d begun to eat an unfortunate wasp. Ow! Yum! Congratulations on the window; I also love reading these ordinary life updates :-)
Yikes, that sounds painful! :-/ Prior to this incident, my last wasp sting was on the eyelid, when one flew into my eye as I was walking down a street in Västerås, midway through a call with an old friend in Brighton. My friend, who had some history with strong allergic reactions, was put in the quandary of wondering how he should go about alerting the emergency services from another country, should I start reacting severely, but thankfully this wasn't needed.
In my childhood, we had a dog, Bracken, who was positively keen on eating wasps, one of the many things we remember about her with fondness.
It wasn't as bad as I would have thought...and like your friend in Brighton, my friends were very concerned about a possible allergic reaction, but I only had a slightly burning inner cheek for a few hours. Bracken sounds like a fun and useful doggie :-)
I've wondered, you know - as Martin Shaw says, "No animal comes by accident!" I probably needed to be stung into a sharper awareness for this stretch. (And Auden is ringing in the background now, if you'll pardon the bathos, some microcosmic riff on his line on Yeats, "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry"... "A dead wasp stung me into prose?")
Awww yay! Thanks for the shoutout Dougald! Would you say the 'attic' is a variant on the 'garret'? In any case it is nice to work in a room with a view. If you are looking for a reading-snack, might I recommend Ross Gay's Book of Delights, a spare copy of which I just posted to a friend the day before yesterday... I thought of Gay when I read this because he has a couple of piss-themed essayettes, though I couldn't say for certain whether they're in the OG Book of Delights or its sequel, but I remember two, one of which involves someone going to drink what is actually pee tea for the garden & Gay springing into action to prevent them... He's hilarious & serious at the same time & being a poet, he's constantly inventive with language, & the book is what it says on the tin, a list of delightful things.
It's got more headroom than I picture a garret having, but otherwise yeah! And the light from that big window spilling across the old wood, charred in places from a fire almost eighty years ago, is just magical.
Most of everything I remember about Joni Mitchell's Blue album is nestled somewhere between R and X rated... from thirty or more years ago, which involved lots of naked cuddling. So I will not share that news. hahaha.
Though I listened to a bunch of Joni Mitchell in the first half of the 80s (and saw her in concert with a 100,000 others), it was only in Jan. 1978 that I stumbled upon Blue, nestled in a roommate's LP collection.
One of the few times in my life I sat listening, stunned in amazement. The other being Sgt. Peppers in 1967.
Ahhhh, Joni. One of my favorite albums of all time. The way you loaded it up, it started automatically playing and caught my son’s attention immediately. (And rightly so.)
Your at-home writing retreat sounds so lovely. I need one of those, and soon!
Best wishes from across the Atlantic; we can’t wait to read the fruits of your labor over here.
I was eating breakfast after leading a workshop at the Mundekulla Music festival the other day when it suddenly felt like I’d been stabbed inside my cheek…and sure enough, I’d begun to eat an unfortunate wasp. Ow! Yum! Congratulations on the window; I also love reading these ordinary life updates :-)
Yikes, that sounds painful! :-/ Prior to this incident, my last wasp sting was on the eyelid, when one flew into my eye as I was walking down a street in Västerås, midway through a call with an old friend in Brighton. My friend, who had some history with strong allergic reactions, was put in the quandary of wondering how he should go about alerting the emergency services from another country, should I start reacting severely, but thankfully this wasn't needed.
In my childhood, we had a dog, Bracken, who was positively keen on eating wasps, one of the many things we remember about her with fondness.
It wasn't as bad as I would have thought...and like your friend in Brighton, my friends were very concerned about a possible allergic reaction, but I only had a slightly burning inner cheek for a few hours. Bracken sounds like a fun and useful doggie :-)
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wanders back into the office faintly smelling of pee after fertilising the veges !
Sounds like a very sweet time all around.
The wasp, hm - a sacrifice?
I've wondered, you know - as Martin Shaw says, "No animal comes by accident!" I probably needed to be stung into a sharper awareness for this stretch. (And Auden is ringing in the background now, if you'll pardon the bathos, some microcosmic riff on his line on Yeats, "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry"... "A dead wasp stung me into prose?")
Well done!
Now to think, with which warriors are you contending?
Awww yay! Thanks for the shoutout Dougald! Would you say the 'attic' is a variant on the 'garret'? In any case it is nice to work in a room with a view. If you are looking for a reading-snack, might I recommend Ross Gay's Book of Delights, a spare copy of which I just posted to a friend the day before yesterday... I thought of Gay when I read this because he has a couple of piss-themed essayettes, though I couldn't say for certain whether they're in the OG Book of Delights or its sequel, but I remember two, one of which involves someone going to drink what is actually pee tea for the garden & Gay springing into action to prevent them... He's hilarious & serious at the same time & being a poet, he's constantly inventive with language, & the book is what it says on the tin, a list of delightful things.
It's got more headroom than I picture a garret having, but otherwise yeah! And the light from that big window spilling across the old wood, charred in places from a fire almost eighty years ago, is just magical.
Most of everything I remember about Joni Mitchell's Blue album is nestled somewhere between R and X rated... from thirty or more years ago, which involved lots of naked cuddling. So I will not share that news. hahaha.
Though I listened to a bunch of Joni Mitchell in the first half of the 80s (and saw her in concert with a 100,000 others), it was only in Jan. 1978 that I stumbled upon Blue, nestled in a roommate's LP collection.
One of the few times in my life I sat listening, stunned in amazement. The other being Sgt. Peppers in 1967.
Ahhhh, Joni. One of my favorite albums of all time. The way you loaded it up, it started automatically playing and caught my son’s attention immediately. (And rightly so.)
Your at-home writing retreat sounds so lovely. I need one of those, and soon!
Best wishes from across the Atlantic; we can’t wait to read the fruits of your labor over here.