Winter Storm Reading

This week's "historic winter storm/freeze" has been over since Friday, but some effects remain: It's now Saturday, and I haven't had water since Tuesday! I stink! I did fill up multiple water bottles before the freeze, and bought a couple of quart-bottles from the now-open corner store on Friday. But that's been for my/pet drinking and occasional teeth-brushing and some basic hand-splashing every now and then.

Here's what's been off the past week:

No electricity/gas: Feb. 15, 16

No Internet/TV: Feb. 16, 19

Heater broken: Feb. 17, 18, 19
No water: Feb. 16 to present

 

Flushing toilets: Me and my apartment compadres have been hauling jugs-n-bowls of water from the apartment swimming pool. At first, I thought it was mildly interesting---"like in the olden days, when people had to go to the local well or river!" But after three trips of hauling very heavy water containers to barely flush one toilet, the process got very tedious very quickly and I stopped thinking nostalgically of Olden Tymes.

 

These long days with nothing to do did allow me plenty of time to read the latest massive Sylvia Plath books: The 2-volume Letters and the Heather Clark bio. I'm still on the first volume of the letters, so it's still primarily a long, tedious series of "good girl" letters to Mother and impassioned declarations of love to various boyfriends. Don't know how truly "complete" the letters are going to be once the actually interesting "time of trouble" starts with Ted... The new bio, I just finished: It is well-researched but also mildly tedious: I'd already read probably 90% of the material in other books. Author Clark clearly uses the recent Letters volumes as sources---and since I'm simultaneously reading said letters, the repetition is a bit annoying. (Several new, interesting things, though: Info about Otto Plath's early days and the fact that his mother died in a psychiatric institution, color photos of some of Sylvia Plath's paintings, and more-specific accounts of her last days.)

One thing in particular that struck me: This past week, as I read these books, has been the coldest in the past 50+ years of Austin's history, with the many accompanying inconveniences. Similarly, the January 1962 and February 1963 of Plath's last days were at the time the coldest in London's history. But, while I only had to deal with no water/heat/electricity for one week, she had to deal with ongoing electric and water outages (and no phone) for week after week---while suffering from sinus problems AND depression AND having to care for two small children. While my current circumstances are much less serious, they nonetheless gave me an indication of some of the external problems she was having to deal with, in addition to her internal torment.