Lonely and blue.

How's that for a hook? In fact, I am neither, not in the least, but I have just posted a response to Joe's question, pinched from Lennon and McCartney: "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" over at Compasses. And having taken questions from such a wide range of sources, from the Book of Job to King Lear to Eleanor Rigby, I decided to ask him something a little more demotic and down to earth, though not quite so peremptory as the 'Hey you, where's my lunch?' that he threw me earlier...


However, lest you think I might be dumbing down, and since form's the thing just now, I'll have you know it's a real, proper Italian sonnet, tight rhyme scheme, though it is mostly hexameter not pentameter but apparently that's OK, but NO FINAL COUPLET, oh no no! (Violence to the spirit, it would seem, though Wordsworth, no slouch with the Italian sonnet himself, was known to have been guilty of it.)

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As for blue, it is still for me the colour of deep joy. This was further confirmed by a set of nail varnishes sent me by lovely sister, who knew of my desire for same. Not just one shade of marvellous turquoise, but also a vibrant blue-biased metallic emerald-viridian, and, the other way, a fabulous blue-violet, gentian, ultramarine...

It was not possible to choose which one to apply. I rejected painting each nail a different shade, on account of how I have ten and three into ten won't go, and anyway, that was not enough of a challenge. No, it was necessary to apply all three colours to each nail, preferably in such a way that the colours melded and even merged so as to be reminiscent of paua shell... but this was really a council of perfection, and this was the best I could do, on the second attempt, the first was so thick and blobby it looked more like Hammerite. It really took an unconscionably long time...

I decided to take the picture against the background of my blue ceiling. This necessitated pointing the camera while maintaining something resembling the yoga 'V' position, not one of my stronger ones, and the resulting camera shake required the use of flash, which makes my feet look rather jaundiced and the ceiling look more like midnight blue than its actual strong turquoise.

~~~

Further instances of the colour blue which cause me disproportionate and near-delirious joy, my marbles, which arrived the other day from Toypost. I think I feel an obsession coming on. I never played much with marbles as a child, and indeed, if I had had access to such beauties as these I almost certainly wouldn't have done, for who would have wanted to risk losing them?

They have amazing names, like soap bubble, bluejay, Monet, treefrog, tidal wave and white tiger, as well as all the epithets like 'lustred', 'opal', 'electric'... If you think paint charts are fun wait till you see these. And the ones you see in the bottom left corner of the collage above are collectibles, 'Gaia' and 'moon'. I think there are some asteroids too. OK, it's all pointless stuff, but it's great pointless stuff.

I had a 35mm emerald one, but I gave it to Tom, who I could see was hankering after it, (green glass goblin...) , and because it pleased me to do so.

~~~

Accidie, acedia. Isn't it odd to have a singular noun ending in 'ie'? I find I am putting off doing not only the things I should do, because they are the things I should do, but also the things I want to do, because I feel guilty about doing them when I'm not doing the things I should... Screwtape had something to say about this I'm sure. I seem to be stalling on so many things. Even my Proust listening has foundered somewhat in the Vanity Fair of the Guermantes Way.

So I'm writing Italian sonnets (though I procrastinated plenty about that too...) and photographing marbles and painting my toenails instead of applying Cuprinol to the front fence or perusing the website of the Chambre de Commerce in pursuit of gainful employment.

Tomorrow...