1. My new carpet is too big for my room, proportionally. It leaves very little space for the hard wood. Its colors involve a pale blue, a deep dark blue, red orange, orange red, a little yellow or gold, some brown, and maybe a teal of sorts, although that may just be the blues mixing with the yellows. It feels softer than it looks. It feels like it could be part of a much larger animal, something sheep-like. I refuse to taste this object––I imagine it’s dusty and fairly tasteless and leaves little tiny rug threads or whathaveyou in your mouth, which is extremely unflattering to the senses. It feels comforting. Even though it takes up the entire room. Cricket likes it, I know that, because he no longer is skittering along wood with his furry little feet. Ice skating. Now he gets to strongly and robustly hop about, confident that he’s not going to slip around like a cartoon character at the end of a cliff. The rug is not think enough to prevent my elbows from hurting when I’m lying on my stomach, legs bent at ninety degrees and feet in the air, my mitts placking around on the laptop keys. For this reason, I am feeling slight pain in my wrists and forearms, and elbows too, and while we’re at it, my entire body feels unwell and my head is in pain too. So it goes. I’m sitting on this carpet, I do care about it, I feel ashamed that I’ve shamed it so, but really, I may as well no longer have hard wood on the ground. But it is nice. And Cricket likes it. It feels like a million short little threads have all stood themselves up very tightly in a clump, and each one is doing its little part to keep the softness and the bulk and the thready texture. It is doing its own work. I do care about this rug, and I might even kiss it. My body is in pain on the rug, though, and it is difficult to ignore this organic aspect. The comfort of the texture can only do so much when you’re in physical discomfort that goes deeper than the epidermis, the site from which I enjoy the rug’s texture, and its size even, maybe.
2. I’m writing about a framed portrait I have in my room, it’s a copy of a penciled drawing that Picasso made. I always have considered it important that he knew realism before adventuring out into cubism and the more eccentric things. It seems only respectful. The drawing features a woman, a mother, a young mother, looking down at the baby she is carrying in her arms. The baby may be breastfeeding, but we can’t tell. Her hands are extremely elegant and evoke care and precision––maybe “careful” is the most pleasant thing to be. It used to be my mother’s and live in my parents’ bedroom when I was a child, and I’ve kept it through college because I find it quite special. My parents’ bedroom does not bring good memories. But this is one of the surviving bits that still gets to take on new life in new places. The young mother’s look is of close examination, concern, attentive love. The baby is such a simple line drawing, but really brings to my mind the soft feeling of holding a spongy little darling human. Around the image of madonna and child are a few hand studies, four sketches of the right hand in naturally elegant poses. If this object had a smell, it would possibly be a warm vanilla, or something like that. Bergamot. Maybe. It is the sort of image that softens a person. Looking at it, my heart rate seems to drop slowly, unnoticeably, a sense of safety returns to an ancient part of my brain. The kind that can’t be fooled by rationale. That’s that part that needs to trust, the part that needs a careful and touching mother for its limp little tiny fat body. A baby yearns. The sound I associate with this is Tomorrow’s Song, a beautiful instrumental piano piece. It seems that in the background are slight creaks (the rocking chair) and the baby’s slight cooing noises. Maybe an old novel’s page is turned at some point. And there is almost always a fire burning in the fireplace. I do love this old thing, with its old wooden frame and its comforting and consistent stillness.
https://www.pablopicasso.net/mother-and-child-study-1904/
3. This object is my printer. It’s a black HP Envy 5660. I’m not sure why they call printers things like this, it’s really not a very attractive name in any regard. Envy isn’t even a positive thing. It’s odd. The printer makes these humming and whirring noises, it sometimes has to “realign the printhead,” whatever that means, and while doing so it vrums and muhrs and ch chs. The paper produced is covered in various ink marks: squares, lines, mostly squares and lines. It determines the accuracy of the print thing, somehow, it’s a test. The printer feels like a frenemy. I fear what might happen if it somehow refuses to work, or is unable to, because I don’t think that I have the ability to fix it. Maybe I do, but it doesn’t seem that way, so it’s mysterious and has control over me in that regard. Also, ink is pretty expensive, and definitely a commodity that runs out and is replenished, which is precarious as a long term situation. My printer is mine, though, that’s nice to remember––not even in a possessive sense, more like a team building sense. It works with me, it’s a colleague. Recently I’ve been printing poems on newsprint paper for some little books I’m making. The printer is black, has a little blue light as well. It tells me when it’s out of paper. How does it know it’s out? How does it tell me, that’s something I’d both like to know and not like to know. Those things are magic, you don’t speak of the tactic of the trick. My printer also scans documents, it sees them almost, and it copies the image. I do not understand how this happens. It is a miracle every time I use my powerful printer. I feed it paper, often plain white, and it dispenses that same paper right back to me, just with new ink. It’s a pen pal. It’s a lovely and remarkable friend. Although, of course, if it were to fail in some way, it would be as if a person is being washed away by a current you can’t fight. That’s probably a bit more intense, perhaps. My printer can sometimes smell like paper, or warm ink. There is a warmth in it, it warms the page, the page has been processed, changed by this interaction. It’s always exciting to anticipate what will emerge. The paper experiences its first lesson. My printer’s name, Envy, somehow already creates a divide between us––I can’t help but feel a bit thrown by that name, that implication of jealous pride. It’s a little odd. I can, however, bypass that odd feeling and simply let it chchuch chuch out the paper I feed it. Reciprocal. I am running low on colored ink––
4. Another choice to write on a useful sort of tool, how utilitarian of me! Or perhaps I think of it as an extension of my body, how aesthetically delightful! Truthfully, I have a strong headache. This pen I’ve just recently bought at the CVS, after looking at all of them and having a strong conversation with myself about what I want and what I need and what is best. I had to decide between a Bic Atlantis and a PaperMate Ink Joy––I eventually decided on the Ink Joy, and I’m quite pleased with it at the moment. It writes very smoothly, which makes up for the minutely longer drying time. I don’t mind smears. There are many pens that are higher quality (although not at the CVS), and, as a person who writes often, I might have learned a little more about the fantastic pens that are out there. All in good time. My pen is .7, a pretty pleasing size for the thread of ink. Writing with it is quite a release, and in fact it’s making the digitized version of this journal seem like a poor idea now indeed. ALAS, for consistency’s sake, I will continue in this virtual ink format. The pen is superior to the pencil. There, I said it. Oh god, No, I don’t really believe it, I can’t. The ink smells like nothing but I imagine if it smelt stronger it’d be a sort of rich, mechanical scent. It clicks satisfyingly: chi-pit, chi-pet. Inky wonder! My body from the waist up is a source of mild to moderate pain, not having to do with the pen, of course. I imagine if the pen could do anything to ease it it would. Holding it in the hand is nice, it’s thick enough to feel substantial but not so large that your fingers feel like a child intimidated by holding his first gigantic crayon. I’ve always held my pen in a “wrong” way, when I show people how I write they’re always a little bit shocked by it, how do you write like that?? It is really the most comfortable and controllable way for me. This Ink Joy has a twin, one who I’ll use at its untimely but inevitable death. All deaths are inevitable and untimely, especially that potential one of my rabbit. I hope he lives forever.