Howdy folks:
Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 299. This one’s subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.
This one’s also longer than usual, so I just dove right in. It’s something I wrote for the Italians. About the Packers. You’ll see.
There’s always next year. Although Joan Didion would warn you about that.
Mike
MARGINALIA
(Annotations from books Mike is reading, or annotations related to the episode)
And finally, I was sitting at home watching the Packers game one day when this photo popped up on my phone. It was my buddy, texting me from Lambeau to let me know he was reppin’ the brand. You will be perhaps not surprised to learn that his nickname is “Boozy.”
This week I finished Blue Nights.
Mostly this one caused me to reflect more than underline. These sections in particular caught me:
I feel good, but time ticks on, and I have had a couple of minor (truly) health things lately, and it always feels like a surprise when things don’t work right, and what Didion really got me to thinking about is how we accept that we will age and die, but not today. Actually, I am much more open to the idea that I could die at any minute. But aging? That always seems like it’s around the corner. I’m definitely at the point—and these and other passages in Blue Nights reinforced this—where I need to begin work not so much on slowing down or giving up but rather thinking about how I’ll handle it when these things inevitably descend.
I don’t feel grim about, and don’t intend to sound as if I am. It’s just one more thing to engage, and to be engaged is to be alive.
Blue Nights is available at BookShop.org and Amazon. Those are affiliate links, we get a couple cents.
The Sneezing Cow store is always open.
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