Light and Darkness.

We've just read 'Light and Darnkess' by Natsume Soseki.
God, it's so fantastic. I must have all his other books.
Now!

O'Nobu caused a great deal of dissent here at polly HQ!

While we were all admiring of her clarity of purpose and strength of will, Trouble felt that she was treated harshly by Soseki. I've (just jo) had a similar response to Anna Karenina - the feeling that Tolstoy treated her harshly - but as I explained to Trouble - Anna comes through ~anyway~ despite/even if Tolstoy judged her harshly - it doesn't matter because Anna transcends her writer and becomes herself with or without his approval and the reader connects directly to her.

The character Kobayashi was so vivid to me, I feel I've met him a hundred times.

And Mrs Yoshikawa IS the Duchess de Guermantes (in Proust).

I'm not really here at all.

Yesterday Nadia and I took off, out of Bugsplat, feeling like we were wagging school. Nadia had her hair done and I swam laps at the Bigplat Pool. Nadia took me out to lunch and we both tried hard not to talk about work. It was very pleasant, especially the big blue solitude of swimming laps. I love how whenever I swim laps in a pool, any pool, as long as it is that blue blue blue, I am closer to all the other times in my life when I've been swimming laps, it's like a hall pass out of my current chronology into the blue space, the blue room, where nobody can talk to me or ask me stupid questions and where my body knows exactly what to do. Off I go. And you can't find me. Coz I'm not really here at all.

Now it's almost time to go to work and I'm dreading it. It's not as bad as it was 12 years ago when I would drive to work, park my car by the she-oak grove and throw up into the undergrowth. Every morning for a few weeks until I quit. So, it's not quite that bad. But it is bad.

Meanwhile, a lot of people seem to be blaming Mercury Retrograde. Trouble certainly is. It seems to help her deal with the current ordeals. To believe there is some kind of logic to it and that there's an end in sight - a date, even. (November 18th!)

I have to come with her to work today. She's a little overwhelmed by it all. I am too, but I'm less likely to show it. So, off we go. (I'm Just Jo. Hi.) I do have a nice new apple green cardigan. That helps. $6.50 at the Bigsplat Op Shop.