Wednesday 19th January 2022
Breakfast
Yesterday's dry croissant broken into two and eaten in bed, after I hoover the collateral flakes up off my chest, mouth puckered to form a round seal with my t-shirt. It's the first day of Aquarius season! Scrolling through the butter sculptures and langoustine shells on this chef's beautiful page where apples and radicchio are plump candleholders for soft linen'd long tables. Andre Leon Talley died today. Throughout the day people are sharing this still of him from 'The September Issue': 'It's a famine of beauty, honey! My eyes are starving for beauty.'
Raisins
I've been listening to Sheila Heti's ongoing occasional, Podcast with raisins for the past week. The podcast image is a shiny challah blossoming with raisins. What are the aural raisins? I listen to episode 4 on the way to work and then re-listen to it with my phone balanced on my shoulder later in bed, little tiny Sheila voice in my ear. She berates the bad critic's lust to conquer and remove of the essence of art, and how over-summarising mutes its salient parts: 'it's like trying to say why you love someone.' She must have been getting some badly written maybe just plain bad reviews.
Lunch
For lunch dessert, donut perfection from Gregg's. I've really had donuts on the brain this week. Glorious oh, the simple glaze crackling off the surface in sweet shards. An image of Tom and Jerry playing basketball on my little coffee cup.
A Moist Fog
I make up a cold blackberry shrub that I concocted a couple of weeks ago with a big ice cube made from a silicon cupcake mould. It's getting a bit old and I didn't strain it so it looks like a pink pond full of pink frog spawn. This to accompany, a slice of the lemon olive oil cake in the bath. I dip my greasy fingers into the not-hot-enough-water once I've finished the slice, holding my hand straight up out of the water to dry. I use my arm to turn the page of The Hour of the Star which I've just started, having partially given up on Malina last year, instead leaving a damp mottled print. Swelling on yesterday's topic of 'smokescreen', Clarice Lispector's narrator offers the description of his writing as 'a moist fog'. It sounds quite refreshing to me, a perfect balance of obscure and fertile, lest we forget this savage interview.
Some other good bath snacks
hula hoops, olives, a whole orange (skin on and segmented), peanuts, kikos (corns), i once ate a McIntosh oven mac and cheese in the bath because, inside tip: you can float the plastic container on the surface of the water; plus a nice fruity beer like the embarrassingly named William's Brothers' Che Guava or a nice icy negroni or sometimes if I'm anticipating that the bath won't be hot enough I'll have a tea.
Caitlin is a programmer and writer based in Glasgow. (@caitlinmerrettking)