The Morning Philip Roth Didn't Win the Nobel Prize Plus Nature! and Maternal Dithering

We had a one-day respite from the oppressive heat, which I mostly spent doing remunerative work.

Remuneration makes the world go round, right?

And then, in the afternoon, I went for a long, long tromp through the Vanderbilt Park where I hadn’t been in several weeks. I borrowed a page from signorinakatina’s book, did not distract myself with playlists or podcasts, but instead listened to the birds, to the sounds of running water, to the wind.

We’re in Phase 3 of Spring. The chestnuts are blooming:



And also, this tree whose flat white flowers I can’t identify:



But mostly, the trees are masses of green leaves now.

They gave the Goddess of the Cell Phone back her fountain:



And Dame’s Rocket has become a permanent resident of these parts. You never would have seen Dame’s Rocket this far east and this far south five years ago:



The woods are lovely, dark, though not quite deep this time of year:



And the captive flowers locked away in the cultivated gardens of the Vanderbilt ghosts are as mute with longing to escape as Calegyptian slave girls:



On Instagram, RTT has been doing the two-years-ago-today-my-Dad-was-diagnosed countdown.

I’m finding it annoying.

Petty of me, I know.

I guess I’m finding it annoying because I’m pretty sure that had I been the one to get sick and die, RTT would never have remembered any of the relevant dates.

Ben went to great pains to sell himself not as a father but as an RTT bro. And RTT is very loyal to his bros.

Less loyal to his actual blood relations.

Can’t really fault RTT for that: I’m not crazy about my blood relations either except for my two offspring.

But my feeling had always been that Ben and RTT had a horribly codependent relationship, which Ben deliberately fostered and manipulated every step of the way because Ben liked having that kind of control over people.

I couldn’t say anything about this to RTT because that would have made me seem jealous of their closeness. And, of course, I was jealous of their closeness. I love RTT, and I have no doubt he loves me, but I’m not sure he likes me very much. (Or possibly I don’t like him very much and am projecting?) Our back and forth usually feels strained to me, as if while for now the communication is making it over the dam, it would be very, very easy for that dam to mysteriously expand and block the flow.

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What else?

I’ve been rereading Alice Munro so I can say intelligent things to Lola about the stories I’m assigning her.

In my mind, I keep replaying a scene in which Philip Roth discovers once again that he has not won a Nobel Prize.

But this time he has lost the Nobel Prize to Alice Munro.

Fucking Alice Munro!

Roth rises at his customary time of 6:30am. Waddles down to the kitchen where his morning coffee is waiting for him, prepared by a factotum who has been lectured sternly on the necessity of absolute silence before, say, noon.

Sits at the kitchen table. Lines up the pills he pops every morning.

How many pills? Oh, let’s say 13.

Sips his coffee. Tries to think up metaphors for 13 pills.

Thinks about death.

Thinks about extinction.

Wonders: Why doesn’t the verb “extinguish” have a noun?

Thinks about his bowels. Grins sardonically at the thought that he has reached the age where he’d rather have a satisfying bowel movement than an erection. Reaches for a piece of paper, so he can scribble this thought down.

Slides his eyes to the phone. Thinks, If I’m glancing at it sideways, I’m not really looking at it—

But when the phone finally rings, it’s his agent saying in a somewhat apologetic voice, like it was a mistake he personally had made, “It’s Alice Munro. Those fuckin’ lutfisk eaters went with Alice Munro—”

As you can tell, I loathe Philip Roth. And I ❤️LUV❤️ Alice Munro.