Potpourri

 

I am trying to finish reading Karl Ove Knausgaard’s book Morning Star.

In the Bible, Lucifer was the Morning Star. Lightbringer.

In the book, the big mystery is this star that hangs over Sweden, where the book is set. It’s new. No one has seen it before. People marvel.  It’s the biggest thing in the sky.

The world is hot, hotter than it has ever been. People know this — they recognize this is new too — but they don’t feel climate change poses any serious risk. Not really. It doesn’t feel immediate so nothing is done.  I think the idea in the book is that the star itself is causing climate change — Lucifer is coming, and the oceans will boil.  This isn’t explicitly stated but I remember parts of Revelations.

People get hurt — they suffer conditions that should kill people — but they don’t pass. Their hearts still beat, blood still flows, they breathe. Basic body functions continue. Death never comes — there is no release.  We are meant to believe that the Morning Star has put a stop to death as well, then.  Judgement Day and all of that.

I wonder if this book is the author Karl’s way of trying to come to terms with his own death.  He’s nearing sixty now and probably thinking:  I have maybe ten more good years left.  I am 45.  It’s coming for me too.  It comes for us all.

I skim large sections. Karl can spend pages having characters order and slurp beer. Talk about what kind of liquor they need. Karl was a big fucking drunk at times in his own life so I suppose these conversations have worn tracks in his mind that are easily traveled. Shall we get some Cognac? Yes, mmm. What about a dry sherry? And don’t forget the lager.  My eyes move over these parts like a gold prospector over dirt in a colander looking for little nuggets that might be of use.  I don’t want to read these sections but I also don’t want to miss a major plot point.

I have another twenty pages and I’m doubtful it’s going to end in any satisfactory way.

One of the kids in the book, Viktor, is eight or nine and a giant pain in the ass — not socialized correctly, perhaps autism, perhaps just angry. At one point there is a quiet moment, he is on the bed and his father is on the floor waiting for Viktor to fall asleep. Instead of falling asleep Viktor says: Dad. I’m scared to die.

He’s looking for reassurance. Prior to this comment he hasn’t said a word about death. His interactions with the father are more along the lines of: I hate you. Mum says you are a sad alkie. Yes I will eat the crisps, no I do not want a fizzy drink. You suck at darts.

The dad has nothing to say other than there’s nothing to be afraid of and besides it’s a long ways off.
Then the dad adds, to himself only: Death is one of the few things I don’t fear. It’s an end to this life. All of the uncertainties, the struggles. Not wishing for it to come prematurely of course, but I don’t fear not existing.

But Lightbringer is here now and people are no longer allowed to die. You can see it’s a prison then, to be stuck on Earth forever, not allowed to transition into nothing.

These ideas are not new.  Man has often speculated that to live forever would be a special kind of torture — this subject has been explored for centuries.

So I’m left wondering why I read this book at all — wondering if I even got anything out of it.

—

I lay in bed last night trying to sleep. I’d been reading all of this before bed instead of spending time with my wife Jennie.

I feel bad, I didn’t give Jennie a good night. She got home from work around 6 and I was trying to sleep, my 2nd nap of the day. I barely slept the night before because I had to wake up at 5 to do some technical work for my company and when I have to wake up early to work I tend to not sleep the night before, I’m anxious and restless.   The sound of her car being parked at night woke me up. She seemed disappointed and irritated I’d been sleeping and besides she needed the master bedroom for teletherapy. She did therapy and I agreed to make pizza while she spoke to her person so I slugged some espresso, drove to stop and shop, bought unfrozen dough and picked up milk while I was there. I made the pizza in a daze. Spinach, mushrooms, cheese. I put away dishes and cleaned the countertops as well. We ate pizza and watched an episode of the Golden Girls that she likes and I kept seeing her peek over at me to see if I was laughing but I didn’t have laughs in me.  I was stewing over everything — her brother, my exhaustion, even the fact that I made pizza and did the dishes for her.  The world felt painted black.

I went up to bed to read after that. She seemed disappointed, and kind of incredulous that I would leave. It’s not even eight she said. You can’t just go to bed.

I am going to go read I said.  You are watching TV, I can’t read with the TV on.

I tried to read, then I put the book down and stared at the walls for a while. I might have dozed. Then I was up again. I could feel her downstairs. I wondered if she missed me, wondered if she was disappointed that I wasn’t spending time with her. Still I couldn’t imagine going downstairs so I didn’t. I kept reading the book Karl wrote, about stupid things, about ordering beer, about the Greek ideas around death as compared to the Romans, about Jesus, about how if you look for miracles you see miracles and if you think miracles don’t exist anymore than you won’t see miracles.

I can’t even keep the characters straight in this book, they all have Swedish names like Elgil.  Is he the drunk or the doctor?

Jennie finally came to bed at 10:45. She tried to read for just a few minutes and by 11:10 or so we were trying to go to sleep. She barely said a word to me. When the lights were out and she turned I asked if I could touch her and she said yes so I touched her shoulder and the back of her neck for as long as I could. Probably ten or fifteen minutes. It wasn’t enough for her to fall asleep — it still took another twenty minutes after that for me to hear her breathing finally become regular. I wondered what she was thinking about. Probably what a terrible person I am.

I wrote my old friend Brett an email yesterday asking if he wanted to get together. He wrote me last November, literally 2021 November, and asked  how I was doing and I never bothered to respond.

I am a bad friend, I thought. It stayed with me for the rest of the day. I wonder if he won’t answer me. I often feel everyone hates me. Maybe I hurt him enough such that he won’t bother getting back to me.

I am terrible I am bad bad bad

—

This morning a little better. We talk. I tell Jennie I love her. I make oatmeal and coffee and we sit a few minutes. I tell her I will be better today, I slept some. This is the truth: I had trouble sleeping again last night but yes I do feel better today as compared to yesterday.

The eye surgery was OK, I had three little growths removed from my left eyelid.  They put needles in to numb the areas then lanced and sucked them out with a tiny vacuum and cauterized the area.  I could smell my own burning eyelid flesh.  I’m putting Vaseline over the wounds.  The doctor said it’d be fully healed in 5 days and there would be no marks — eyelids heal very, very well.  My eyelid is slightly swollen today but not bad.  It hurt yesterday but today it’s fine, there is no pain.

Jennie didn’t ask about my eye.  Not once.  Not today nor yesterday.  She’s so involved with her parents she has trouble looking outward and seeing how I’m doing.

If she were to ask how I am doing the answer is:  Just OK.  I am probably OK.

I am going to try to do a work thing for my coworker Dave.  Then I will go to the gym. I have therapy at 1 and the solar meeting at 2.  If I have energy left after that I will work on Jennie’s present.

Let’s start the day shall we.