Paul Attinello

Author: paulattinello

  • Alternative histories

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    by

    paulattinello
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    Last night's dream: a music conservatory, walking between buildings in rainy autumn weather – I am a student working on my technique, talking with others – serious, committed and reasonable, as I never actually was in school… a surprisingly detailed, and strange, setting. Like another life, one that might have happened. Today I was working,…

  • A good day

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    paulattinello
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    Despite my pathetic worries, and Kit's critique, Gay Pride in Newcastle was pleasant, and it was good to see everyone. My energy faded to nothing after about an hour and a half, but I expected that; and so went home, having greeted and hugged a number of people, picked up a few pamphlets and whistles,…

  • All summer in a day

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    paulattinello
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    The symptoms remain a bit strange, and it's strange how they come and go: why would I be so tired after a stroke? It's not as though it involved any work. Just shaved and showered; it was almost all I could manage, and I'm shaking from the effort of standing, of focusing on using my…

  • Adorno’s Dreams

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    paulattinello
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    After last night's brave and admittedly somewhat demented post – not that I discount its ideas and feelings: I think I really could crack my behavior, my limitations, open, if I had the energy and courage, which I may yet be able to find – I put myself together today to go to the pharmacy…

  • Braw

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    paulattinello
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    Fragmentary entries on Lars' blog about writing, about finishing his second book. A friendly flag from Patrick on Facebook about finishing his book. Both times I'm interested, impressed, glad for them, and then – envious – am I the jealous Iago, the Loki of these dramas? Or worse, am I merely someone more pathetic and…

  • Luck

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    paulattinello
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    It occurred to me today: what if I've actually been lucky over the past decade or so? What if I've actually been moved out of harm's way? An odd thing to imagine, of course. Especially as I've had such a long-running story about myself in terms of loss and disaster, over the past twenty-five, but…

  • Clarity

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    paulattinello
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    I wrote a long, detailed e-mail to my department at work, explaining what happened, etc. I tend to be pretty open about medical concerns (which may be one reason I don't seem to get job interviews, who knows). Then I thought I should do the same for my family, and tried to re-use parts of…

  • Sunny

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    paulattinello
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    Feeling a bit better today, less morose and apprehensive… so now I suppose I need to apologize to, and reconnect with, various people I've pushed away or ignored over the past week. It still seems a bit difficult to reconstruct my expectations, my patterns, since the stroke… I have had some of this panic around…

  • Babylon

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    paulattinello
    in

    Apparently ancient Babylon has been damaged by the war… no surprise. Yet more barbarians. I've never been much at memorizing; the only passage I ever learned by heart was from Shelley, one quoted in Eliot's The Cocktail Party. I still remember it: "… Ere Babylon was dust,The magus Zoroaster, my dead child,Saw his own image…

  • Distance

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    paulattinello
    in

    A television commercial with rather gentle falling chord sequences on orchestral instruments, in long held notes: very like the wistful Northern California minimalism of the 1980s. I wonder sometimes why it was so necessary for me to leave San Francisco, with no apparent way of getting back. I know why everyone died, of course –…