Susan Wheeler

Of course, I should have taken morning photographs of the good stuff, but this afternoon’s photos of laundry and recommendation-drafting will have to do. My boyfriend Eddie had surgery yesterday and slept over on the couch so as not to roll on his wound. I woke up at 6:30 to him sitting, reading, and listening to Gregorian chants after he had found himself some breakfast. We talked and happened to be discussing movies about religion (he teaches religious studies) when I mentioned the film One Day about one day in the life of the monastery in which Thomas Merton had lived. We found the trailer, and that you-tubed into a talk one of Merton’s fellow monks gave about him, and that brought us to an event I’ll attend tomorrow: a film on Harold Washington, the late mayor of Chicago, who is one of my few all-time heroes. Eddie’s surgery will keep him from going, but I sent him an early “This American Life” show on Harold Washington, which I recommend to all: just search This American Life Harold Washington. I had some berries, yogurt and granola, then cleaned up. We picked up his car and I drove him home to Jenkintown along with my dog Mabel, who rode in her little carriage in the back seat, to see his dog Lola. Mabel is pint-sized and fluffy, and Lola is huge and fluffy; they’re both blonde. Lola has a new dog run, so we took them out and tried to interest them in chasing balls. Lola had no interest; she occupied herself with trying to bury a tug, and Mabel, who has never fetched a ball in her life, chased what I threw and then stood on the far side of the dog run looking at me. But the air was clear and the sun warm (it had been smoky downtown when we picked up the car) and, refreshed, I drove back to Old City with Mabel in Eddie’s car, which I’m borrowing for a few days.

Then: the scourge of email, but this morning’s political, news and product emails were broken by one from my stepdaughter who had just read in manuscript my new book and who had wonderful and helpful comments, and one from a friend about the death of a poet she knew; the obituary contained a video talk and reading my friend had done about the poet so I got to hear my friend who lives a distance away. Going through the news and emails usually takes a couple of hours for me, but today I left most sealed. Between many loads of laundry this afternoon, two recommendations for former students to graduate school and preparation for a class I will guest-teach on Friday, I have plenty on my plate.

What I’d forgotten was that I had a ticket to see Anora at the Philadelphia Film Festival late afternoon. So I got much of the class preparation done, some of the laundry, and went off to see the film which won the top award at Cannes and has been widely lauded since its release here. Because of its reviews, I expected a crowded theater (my gauge is New York, where I lived for 20 years before moving to Philadelphia two years ago) and, instead, no more than a dozen of us were sprinkled through the theater. The film was terrific despite some rough (to watch) sequences, and the acting equally good. Home by 7, I ordered up my favorite chicken & steamed vegetables from Lee How Fook, continued the laundry enterprise, checked in on Eddie, and went through the past 6 hours’ email and today’s slow mail. 

But no doubt the day’s biggest event was a replacement arrival for Mabel’s favorite toy, a small squeaky bear dressed in a giraffe suit which has gotten pretty grody. Mabel’s last walk was a quick run across the street at 9, and I turned in early.

SW has published 6 books of poetry and one novel. She is learning how to write an essay.