May 28

Ecru is not oatmeal, though it could very well pass for it. It has been a day of forgetting, mostly in the evening, but aside from that momentary blip in memory, everything, even my second-to-last performance at Northwestern, has felt simple and still. Bland and still are not the same thing, but I’ve yet to figure out where the distinction lies. I can’t help but wonder if all of this is frivolous, neither scientific nor creative, but tepid, impractical curiosity. Ecru is the color of unbleached linen or silk, and comes from the French word écru, meaning “raw” or “unbleached.”

An engineering friend of mine lent me her book a while back, titled Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I can’t remember all of what I read, but I recall being fascinated by the thought of engineering a life, schematizing something so often thought of as fluid and immeasurable. I’m still figuring it out.

look: Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs
listen: Nico Muhly, Mercury
read: Marilyn Robinson, Housekeeping