Texture of calico

I was disgusted and ashamed when I got up at 12.30, only minutes before Dad. Watermouth sent my course choices for terms one and two.

I went into Easterby with Dad and visited the library while he went to the pet store to get a new tank for the Marsh froglets. I wanted Thoreau’s Walden but I couldn’t find a copy so I got out 50 American Poets, Kaddish and Other Poems by Ginsberg, Psychedelic Prayers by Timothy Leary, Ted Hughes's Selected Poems and Rimbaud's Complete Works.

I read the first two verses of Rimbaud's “The Sitters” to Dad which he called “sick poetry” and “unfair” in his usual infuriating, absolutist way. Later, at the tea-table, he read some Ginsberg and dismissed it as “gibberish.” Mum scolded him for being “cruel and nasty.” It’s not so much the things he says as the way he says them, in an assertive way that dismisses in an instant without really looking, while I consent to sit through numerous showings and readings of poetry/books without declaring it “sentimental crap” or “old-fashioned,” etc.

The Brazil-Italy game was exciting. Italy won 3-2 and I was disappointed Brazil were out.