A Nativity that looks like an ice sculpture seems appropriate for the weather we've been having. It's 14 degrees Farenheit out at the moment, though the high today is 44, not bad, actually. I forgot to leave taps running, but we seem to have water just fine, at least downstairs. Our upstairs pipe runs up the outside of the house, so it always freezes if we don't do anything, but as it happens, today nobody's trying to take a shower upstairs, and it should all thaw out pretty nicely.
Dora and I have been hanging about, keeping each other company. Here she is looking beautiful in response to some random noise outside:
She had been sleeping quietly next to me while I worked, but then a cat crossed the driveway or something, and she was all alert. Of course, the real event that occurs, sometimes repeatedly, in any day, is that her true hero comes home. Here she is the other day, waiting in some impatience for him to open the back door and come inside.
I tried to get a shot of her standing on her hind legs to look out the window, because that's really funny, but I wasn't fast enough.
Anyway, he'll make his next return, God willing, tomorrow morning. Right now he's on a bus for Washington, D.C., and has been since 4 this morning. They get back in the small hours of tomorrow morning, so he'll sleep again at the monastery, then make his way home. And we will be glad to see him.
Today:
*dog walks
*essays
*class planning
*Richard III
*other writing
*something for dinner
*Vera
Last night, actually, I watched the last two episodes of the latest season of Shetland, which hadn't dropped yet by the time the husband got back from Memphis, several weeks ago. It was a good season, I thought, although (and this is a spoiler, so beware) across a number of series there's a continuing trope of the killer's turning out to be the domestic woman devoted to her children and family, and the key to the whole mystery is the revelation that her husband has wronged her in some way. In fact, the episode of Vera with which I ended the evening of binge-watching turned out to be the exact same story. As soon as I saw this woman in her sunny kitchen, making lunch while her children colored idyllically at a little table, everything the picture of home-life bliss, I thought, aha, and I was right. Maybe the fact that I'd just seen the exact same thing tipped me off, I don't know.
The real motif of this season of Shetland, aside from the mystery itself, was the isolation and loneliness of the detective --- when a murder happens to someone you know, doing your job means the destruction of all your social connections, because you're compelled to suspect all your other friends of having done it. Your spouse, whose friends they also are, can't understand why you're being so hard on these good people and resents being caught in the middle of the friends and their natural anger at being not automatically above suspection (and also, in the process of investigation, their dirty secrets getting aired), and you, who are just doing your job. In the case of this series, the actual murder-mystery plot was full of holes and loose ends, but the human drama made it compelling.
There's a reason why so many fictional detectives are solitary. Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn falls in love and marries, and in fact his work and its threat (real or perceived) to his marriage is a recurring problem in the stories about him. It's only when Troy gets drawn right into a murder case that they are able to confront that problem, and he can stop trying to compartmentalize this enormous part of his waking life and who he is, and let his wife into that part of himself, which he has assumed she would find repugnant. That she's as perfectly heroic as she is, continually, is maybe a literary flaw, but the detective stories have to go on, and it's easier if she can simply find her role as sidekick and serve drinks to Inspector Fox when he has to come round the London flat, rather than fighting with her husband about why they don't have any friends. Otherwise, what you have is serious literature, not the thirty-odd books that people like to binge on for comfort.
Actually, I don't know why I binge-watch these contemporary detective series for comfort, because in fact they are not precisely comforting. They are satisfying, however, and I think that --- in the case of the most ambitious and successful ones --- part of the satisfaction is in seeing the formulaic detective tropes pushed past their comfortable boundaries, the formulaic detective characters being imagined as human beings with full and complicated lives, not merely explanatory back stories. They are people who do what they do because they care about truth and bring some intellectual imagination to the boring rounds of detail and procedure, but they don't cease to exist as characters when they go home.
This kind of extended disclosure, drama as a series of waves of epiphany (who mighta dunnit, but also who it is that's arriving at these whodunnit epiphanies) is possible in television in a way that it wasn't for, say, Shakespeare (though the evolution of his Prince Hal over three plays sets a precedent for this kind of thing), or even in cinematic film for a long time. It would be interesting to chart the cross-pollination of the serious cinematic saga (think Star Wars and the development of its mythos and the characters who develop that mythos) with the television series, as it begins to imagine its own possibilities for serious art, beyond the level of entertainment, though of course it always has to entertain. At least, it has to engage, which seems like a level beyond that of entertainment. Entertainment, per se, is pretty passive. Engagement is exactly what the word suggests: It engages something in the imagination and intellect of the viewer, so that he or she goes on thinking about it long after it's over, and having his or her own epiphanies about it.
OK, well, I had all these thoughts this morning, and also I got dressed.
Wearing, more or less per last Saturday's hastily sketched outfit plan:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Smock dress (S/M) in Grape Wine, bought September 2024, last worn January 17. Wears in 2025: 2
*Thrifted Banana Republic lavender merino sweater, bought November 2024, last worn sometime before Christmas, I think. First season of wear (but I paid about $4.99 for it, so I think cost-per-wear is now well below a dollar). This is such a great sweater, fine but warm, and a soft color that will work through the spring, in and out of Lent.
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher merino cardigan coat, bought fall 2024. First year of wear. I haven't been counting wears, but I paid about $30 for this piece, so I imagine that within a calendar year, the cost-per-wear will pretty handily drop to $1. I haven't worn it that much lately, but I have worn it a good bit with many outfits, and I'll certainly continue to do that. I love this sweater.
*Snag merino tights in Red Velvet Cake, bought 2023, second season of wear.
*Xero Tari boots, bought summer 2022, third season of wear.
After Advent or Lent I have to push myself to wear purple, but once it's on my body, I'm always glad I'm wearing it. This purple is lovely and vibrant and rich --- I love the way it glows in the light. I was going to wear my Icebreaker oatmeal base-layer tee with this dress, but I hadn't worn the lavender sweater in quite some time, and it's all wool, so I figured: bring it. The temperature outside has warmed up to a balmy 21F in the last hour, and I imagine it might be as warm as freezing by the time I have to take the dog out.
In the season of big winter parkas, I haven't been wearing this cardigan coat so much, but actually I don't know why. It's cold out there. The more warm layers the better. And it's not so long that it hangs out awkwardly beneath either of my big parkas. I wore it a lot in the fall as a coat by itself, but I should be taking advantage of its 100% merino warmth right now as well.
Day 3 hair not actually any straighter or limper than it has been since the day I washed it, so half-updo it is again.
I am pleased that my whole outfit is either secondhand or items I've owned for at least a year. I have, again, made some purchases already in 2025:
*1 new purchase (my Iris Blue Wool& Sierra dress), bought at the end of 2024 but not received until January, so I'm counting it as one of my 2 new purchases for this year.
*3 secondhand purchases (of 10): Levis tapered jeans, Old Navy pink wide-leg jeans, NPL Bay tank top in Oatmeal or Natural (not sure which, but I love it).
But I'm trying strenuously to resist the siren song of dopamine-by-shopping, and to wear what I have for a while in a spirit of pleasure and rediscovery.
And so to work.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Really a lot of lassitude around here. But Dora and I did have a good substantial walk this morning. I ate an omelet with spinach and feta for lunch. I finished Richard III --- next up, Comedy of Errors. I read my friend Micah's essay on Emily Dickinson. I looked over an essay and revised another, both of which are for week after next (I still also have to write a new one for week after next). I made up the Artgirl's bed for a houseguest coming on Sunday. I made my own bed. I folded and put away some extra blankets in the linen closet.
So, for a day on which I have felt like doing eff-all, I've actually been kind of productive. I have salmon patties (made by me a few weeks ago) in the freezer, and I think I'll take those out for supper. Maybe I'll have them on a grilled sourdough sandwich, I dunno.
I was going to do some laundry, but as I had feared, the washing machine is frozen solid. Oh well, too bad, can't do that. I also need to call my mother, but am feeling very avoidant about that, because I don't want to hear about (and am certainly not going to talk about) politics. I owe her a call, and we're probably in need to confess 4th commandment violation territory, but this really seems like a bad week to connect, so I feel guilty and conflicted. Will probably continue to cultivate procrastination mechanisms, because the thought of hitting that number on my phone floods me with unregulated anxiety. How about that binge-watching? I could do some more of that. It is Friday afternoon, after all.
But really, it's been a nice day. It's not quite so cold out, and Dora is snoozing peacefully on the daybed beside me instead of pestering me, which means that I could continue to be quietly productive in a literary way. Running up and down the stairs while I was making up the guest bed must have worn her right out.
Still enjoying my linen dress/wool sweater/tights/boots ensemble today. Last week I changed out of it because my new-to-me wide-leg jeans had come, so today I'm making up for that. Yes, the jeans are fun. Yes, I still love my dresses and feel very much myself in them. No, I'm not trendy or especially concerned with "flattering my body type." Yes, I'm still happy with that.