Sleeping with Mahler

I lie awake late into the night and fall asleep only after I find Mahler on my iPod.  Sleep is getting closer, I know, when suddenly I notice that the music is too loud. So I turn the volume down gradually, lower and lower still until finally, the iPod is powered off. This is  not a bad way to be an insomniac.

There is nothing to report about Thanksgiving.  It was not a joyous occasion or a disaster--I had feared both.

I am reading Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, trying to read slowly because I hate for these things to end. It's actually quite a lovely book.

Christmas promises to be a big soiree this year.  My mother tells me that my Aunt Lydia's youngest daughter and her family will be there.  So will Aunt Lydia's son but he and my mom have always had a freakishly close relationship (and I do not mean of the incestuous sort).

So these cousins are actually also aunts and uncle.  I have been thinking about that a lot since I had that conversation with my sister.

I sent Professor Dick the go away email today and he responded quite graciously. I hope this means he will not contact me anymore.

JV called this afternoon to discuss her love life.  She slept with her ex and her current in the same day. Two women and she loves them both, she said.  I don't know what she's talking about -- I think loving one person is hard enough. 

JV and I did not communicate with each other for at least 8 years and now it is as if no time at all has passed. She has always been my one Filipino friend even though I think there were times when we've hated each other for reasons neither of us will remember now.  

Her brother killed himself in January.   Last week, I thought about that again and again and I could not sleep.  If JV were to read this, she might be angry with me but it should be clear that no one knows this address.   I wanted to say that maybe this desire for sex has something to do with death.  

That happened to me after the abortion.  I wanted to have sex even though I couldn't feel much of anything. Will yourself back to life, little girl is what I seemed to be begging of myself. Life will keep on going. Maybe that is what JV is doing. 

This weekend, I'm going to Brooklyn to see Scenes from a Marriage.  Hopefully this Bergman flick does not cause my mental health to deteriorate. Tonight, I hope to sleep long and to sleep well.  I think I'm a little sad.