June 2. The coordinate system of Bellatrix, my robomop, seems to be rotated twenty degrees relative to the apartment. She does all the work in this skew, driving back and forth between the farthest points of the apartment several times, leaving a wet lane behind. She hadn’t been doing that, she must have gotten a software update.
June 1. It was almost thirty degrees cooler today than yesterday, and I ran half of the long seven and a half mile course in pouring rain. It gave me this feeling of bouncing, tumbling along the way without the slightest resistance, and the raindrops on my skin were pure bliss, enhanced by the wet fabric that tightened so perfectly around my body that it felt like I was wearing nothing at all, except for the fact that I had turned black and shiny.
May 31. For the first time the full two and a half octaves in bass clef and treble clef. Toddling around in it as if just landed on a foreign planet.
May 30. First, seek a discussion, and, second, do not fall into silence when counter-arguments are raised, even if they are being raised in a hostile way, even if you get yourself a bloody nose. You do not think fast enough. But the point is to practice talking, especially when you’re worse at it than you should expect.
May 29. People in the park, music. Unexpectedly sad.
May 28. One hour with the philosophers in Stuttgart, Newton and Hume. We drive from Manhattan to Newburgh, late breakfast at the Jackson Hole Diner in Englewood. One of the guests proclaims loudly that neither all whites, nor all Blacks, nor all Chinese are bad, and if the whites don’t kill the Blacks in Africa, the Blacks themselves do, and in China the Chinese also kill other Chinese. Everybody could be good or bad, and that would be the only thing that counts, whether somebody is a good or a bad person. The woman in the corner (he points to J) is a good person, and so is the man sitting opposite her. After a long, detailed, loud explanation of the world, he leaves the diner. J and I don’t talk about it until later in the car. – Searched for two geocaches in the immediate area. J, of course, knows in principle what geocaching is, but has never done it, and if anything ever grabs her, she goes all in. I’ve never known a bigger nerd than her. – Mini-Barbecue in the evening. We have yet to learn the minimum amount of charcoal required and how long it needs to burn before the grill reaches the necessary heat to actually cook anything on it.
May 27. I wonder if I can make it back to where my VO2max is the same number as my age. The highest I’ve ever been was 57 milliliters per minute per kilogram, and I was 50 then. Next week I’ll be 53, and I’m at 47. Many hill repeats that will cost, many times not believing I can go on for a single second. I’m here for it.
May 26. I say: I’ll sit down for a moment to write something down. – Sure, says J. – It’s not that I have a thought, and want to sit down to write that thought down. I sit down both to find a thought and to write it down.
May 25. It is noticeable that I like to play the notes from the random generator more than the practice pieces from the piano app. I learn the bass clef and the treble clef, note by note, play with a metronome, play to the first, to the second ledger line, practice hand spreading and switching fingers on a depressed key. When I can reliably play an exercise at seventy bpm, I move on to the next exercise, the next note. It’s kind of like running, where I always do exactly the same thing, exactly the same distance, the same music, to feel the differences all the more clearly. The exercise pieces, on the other hand, are primitive – they may be challenging to me, but the arrangement is primitive, and they sound primitive. I continue with it, too, every week, but the random notes, and how my hands learn to play them, fascinate me.
May 24. The first quarter marathon after the enforced break. The water fountain at the West Harlem Piers is on, I can stand on it and continue running soaking wet, as normally only in the height of summer.