Swearing at Caesar

Roll out of bed, do yoga, feed cavy and dogs, down my breakfast while Duolingo-ing French and Spanish, make coffee. Retreat to office, do Rosetta Stone Latin. End with pacing around my office swearing at Caesar, as one does. Latin is fun, and it stretches the brain to wait for the absolute end of the sentence before everything else makes sense. I have to find the right bookmark for the Loeb edition I’m using to work my way through, now.

Bookmarks are important. There are some that grow into my experience of reading a book so fully that I keep them perpetually with the volume, the connection deepening each time I reread or pick up a book for reference. Others remind me of particular things in my life while reading a certain book. When one opens a paper book, one doesn’t just dive into the bare story, there’s a whole collage of inner and outer events, references, and emotions that surround one again. Or maybe it’s just me, but any ephemera in my library holds a specific meaning to me. I don’t just stick a receipt in for a marker, it has to be a receipt with some connection.

Yes, I know, I’m strange. I’ve made my peace with it.

Anyway, my swearing at Caesar isn’t because the Latin is bad. Far from. I just swear because I started out with Pliny, whose rhythm is completely different, so it’s like learning to read all over again. When I attempt Ovid there will no doubt be much swears, many angst. Plus I’m sure some of Caesar’s assumptions will be incredibly eyeroll-worthy. Not that some of Pliny’s aren’t, far from. Let’s face it, Roman records are heavily skewed towards sexist, racist asshats as a matter of course.

Speaking of Pliny, I just ran across his assertion that earthquakes are the result of air trapped in the earth, which gives flatus an entirely new dimension. This led to me in bed, giggling hysterically at the notion, imagining the ribald jests at Roman dinners. I’m absolutely certain one or two of Pliny’s friends read this and made fart jokes at him for YEARS.

Anyway, excelsior, onward, and all that. I took a semi-holiday yesterday, filled with errands and volunteering, so now I have to look at the reshuffle and see if I want to write the bakery witch story OR the vampire smut novelette next. Choices, choices.

But for now, I’ll brush my teeth, knock off another page of Caesar, and go for a run.

Over and out.