Jacques is watching "Gone With the Wind" on Turner Classic Movies. You wouldn't think it would be his kind of movie -- his entertainment tastes run to tough-guy stuff, from Mitchum to Seagal -- but then again, its depiction of a world ruined by war may reverberate for him. And I think he just likes the busy, swanky, reassuring sound of an old movie, the rich sound of an era he was more at home in.
Earlier today he watched "Clear and Present Danger" on HBO On Demand while I ran out to the bank and the post office. I'm about to have to make a budget and I'm thinking, how can I justify paying for HBO On Demand? Answer: for these short trips out, it's cheaper than a home health aide. And then I think, bullshit, he could watch whatever's on basic cable. Poker tournaments, "Wife Swap," back episodes of CSI. Just like we could eat supermarket bread and drink supermarket coffee. Now that "The Sopranos" is over, I'll probably kill HBO altogether. But I won't give up real bread, which probably costs more.
While I was out I couldn't resist going into a pet shop and looking at the puppies and kittens, playing or sleeping in little plexiglass jail cells. I don't like pet shops, and we can't have a young kitten again any time soon, so I worry about them all finding good homes, yet I like knowing they're there. How to explain?
I once had an argument with Jacques -- we were staying at a dude ranch in Tucson, which I had won as the runner-up prize my second day on "Jeopardy!". I'd spend the days riding while he sat in the jacuzzi and stared at the mountains and the sky. But at night he wanted to be inside; he does not like looking at the stars. He finds infinity cold and inimical. After all, he nearly froze to death escaping from Russia in coal cars all alone in the middle of nowhere, those frigid pinpoints punctuating the universe's vast indifference to whether he lived or died. He believes fervently in human scale, big-limbed, fleshy figures around the kitchen stove, warm and life size. He who is so big knows better than most how small we are.
So he gets angry when I indulge in the luxury of loving to tip my head back at night and look deep into the universe. It relieves me of something -- responsibility? despair? It reminds me of my favorite quote, Kafka's "There is infinite hope, but not for us." I don't know who Kafka meant by "us." He may have been talking about Viennese Jews, for all I know, but to me it means human beings on this suffering planet. With billions of stars, the odds are that there are better places and more finely tuned species somewhere out there.
I feel somewhat the same way seeing new puppies and kittens. I can't have them all, I won't even be around, yet new life will keep irrepressibly bubbling up without me. The overflowing, redundant abundance is strangely reassuring. There are infinite kittens, but not for us.
I came home, and he watched most of "Terminator 2" while I tried and failed to read the paper. We were too exhausted to do much else. Last night we had old friends over -- "old" in both senses: a theatre director and his wife in their 80s whom J. has known for over 40 years. He was barely able to walk next door for dinner, and when dinner was over he almost could not get back. His knees buckled and bulged, his quads failing completely to hold him up. (The problem is actually in his brain. My understanding, or at least my fantasy of it, is that the supportive glial cells, clogged with an alien protein, are not adequately resupplying the neurons that command the muscles, and so they can't keep firing. Or something.) We came back from next door two or three sagging, staggering steps at a time, with me repeatedly shoving a chair forward under him. It took the better part of an hour to get him next to the bed, but then I could not get him on it. An old friend-built platform with lots of storage under it, it's too high, and he couldn't stand up for me to heave him up onto it as we usually do. He finally sagged to the floor. I dragged a futon over from next door, and we slept on the floor, as I've always known one day we'd have to. It was actually deliciously comfortable -- a real, cotton-stuffed futon feels exceptionally welcoming.
This morning he was able to get up with help, but neither of us was good for much all day. I have tendinitis in my forearms from pulling and hauling him. Need some of those good workout endorphins, but I've waited too long to get started, and now I'm falling asleep.
It's just the two of us now, and probably will be all weekend.
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