After playing the library lottery

I've got a game I play sometimes when my thoughts have been revolving around the same dull subjects with tedious regularity. I call it the library lottery. The rules are simple:

1. Use a computer to generate some random numbers between 0 and 1000, preferably carrying the numbers out to 2 places beyond the decimal point.

2. Go to a library organized by the Dewey Decimal System.

3. Find books which have call numbers as close as possible to the numbers your computer picked, and check them out.

This comes from one of the books checked out this week:

Like cats from Lombardy and other places
Stagnant and stale, I've grown a goitre here;
Under my chin my belly will appear,
Each the other's rightful stance displaces.

My beard turns heavenward, my mind seems shut
Into a casket. With my breast I make
A shield. My brush moves quickly, colours break
Everywhere, like a street mosaic-cut.

My loins are thrust into my belly and
I use my bottom now to bear the weight
Of back and side. My feet move dumb and blind.
In front my skin is loose and yet behind
It stretches taut and smooth, is tight and straight.

I am a Syrian bow strained for the pull--
A hard position whence my art may grow.
Little, it seems, that's strong and beautiful

Can come from all the pains I undergo.
Giovanni, let my dying art defend
Your honour, in this place where I am left
Helpless, unhappy, even of art bereft.

--Michelangelo, To Giovanni Da Pistoja on the Painting of the Sistine Chapel
(trans. Elizabeth Jennings)

(no subject)

A little while ago I wrote a journal entry which read something like this:

"They say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But what if you have loved yet never had anything to lose? What if all your loves have been of either the unrequited or the 'this will never work so let's not even try' variety? Where does that fit in the scheme of things?"

I immediately deleted the entry because I didn't like the ugly look of self-pity. It seemed a sort of open wound I should disinfect and wrap in sterile bandages before going out in public so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of any strangers passing by.

But hey, this is my journal. I've got the right to exhibit a little self-pity here if anywhere. You love someone who likes the way you look but doesn't give a damn about the rest of you. You're with somebody who loves you but you can't find within yourself any enthusiasm for being in their company. You love someone who loves you but each of you knows a dozen reasons or more why you don't belong together. You never really understand what all the romantics around you are talking about because you've only observed their world from the outside.

Does anyone reading this entry remember what this felt like? It's been a long time for most of you, I know. If you have loved, if you've had something to lose and you've lost it, was it better or worse than this?


I know too much about losing. I know too little about love.