No one who has any vestige of sanity left in their heads could possibly think of being thankful for having their home painted. There is the dust, the mess, the chaos, the dirt, the fumes…you have heard this litany for a few days now. But there is one aspect of the whole big job that I can occasionally muster up some positive feeling for. It is the fact that since the television is now shrouded in plastic that cannot easily be removed, I am perforce well away from the tube and all its idiotic offerings. You may say that I don’t really need to watch if I don’t want to. True. But somehow, as you sit there, your muscles slowly twitching their way into restfulness, the fatigue of the too-long day slowly fading into a pleasant quietude that you know you deserve, you cannot concentrate enough to do much else but point the remote in the general direction of the box and look for more amusement than you have found through the day at work or on the endless commute to home.
So I have rediscovered old friends of mine that I have been ignoring for way too long: books. While many of my favourites are also shut away from my access, I have managed to find others that I can actually say I am starting to enjoy. One of these is a slim volume that a friend sent me not too long ago. It is called Ex Libris and is by Anne Fadiman, a literary critic and columnist in the US. She writes typically American – friendly, chatty, mixing personal with professional, adding small and delightful touches from the way her husband and she met and married to her methods of sorting books. When the red volume first arrived, the name was rather off-putting. But then, I read the back cover and the author profile and decided it would be well worth the effort. But then time, work and the painters took over my life and it was only when I was stuck in my room, unable to open the door since it was being painted, and I had perforce to stay inside, find a book and start reading. Fadiman it was. And I am so glad it was indeed!
Another book I re-found was Larousse Gastronomique. It has always been one of my favourites, always been something I read bits of to help me relax, give me something apart from websites and newspaper editorials to think about, something apart from small cats and pain fumes to be distracted by. Yesterday I made myself the most amazingly delicious Confit au Canard - in my head, of course - with careful instruction from Larousse and a little memory that was mixed up with a trip along the Seine on the bateau mouche and a Frenchman with the most delightful smile…
But with this I needed a little diversion, something that was not in any way serious or even intellectual. So I grabbed myself a romance novel, a good old Mills and Boon, something that I would probably have blushed at when I was at the age when I first read one of those. And I found that while I did not blush, I was rather startled at the way things progressed between hero and heroine. Instead of the expected flirtation and gradual development of a relationship punctuated by arguments and animosity, with a vamp and a villain thrown in for good measure, a few passionate clinches, blossoming emotions and more, they hopped straight into bed for a lusty night – or afternoon, as the case was in that particular novel – of steam and sensuality. Which made me wonder: do people actually live like that?
Maybe they do. For now, I am enjoying being shut out from the inanity of Indian and cable television. How long my serenity will last, I am not sure. But I intend to make the most of it while it lasts.
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