While my room in "the first crackhouse on the left" isn't quite this gloomy (or big) and there are no pets to welcome me home, it's just about as bare. Buster Keaton stars in this clip from Beckett's 1964 screenplay, "Film":

Last night I decided to see The Dark Knight to cheer myself up. The film makes its claim to existential despair well visually though I kept thinking if Heath Ledger hadn't died would critics have thought his performance so good? I found it irritating and naive and yearned for a more nuanced performance on the level of Hannibal Lecter or the schizophrenic in the adaptation of Patrick McGrath's novel "Spider". And seeing the above clip I would really have liked to have seen Buster Keaton take on the role.

Earlier in the day I went in search of the perfect cheap table lamp to set by my bed to read spy novels by. I thought it would be easy since I had an image in my mind of exactly the lamp I would by at Target but it wasn't there, nor was it at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It would be a black base with a black shade using a 60 watt bulb under $20. Instead I settled on a faux-Naguchi lamp with a rice paper shade and a silver base from Home Depot for $16.95. It works just as well but I'm still frustrated that I didn't find what I wanted.

I also bought a diffenbacchia, a clay pot glazed with yellow and a dish to keep the water from running out because I would be more economical than buying cut flowers from the deli. When I worked at the resort in Florida I had a little bevy of diffs in the spa that I treated with tender loving care but they tend to keel over and die within minutes if not watered on time so I had to replace them. We'll see if I can keep this one alive. Looking back I'm amazed that I managed 18 acres of indoor and outdoor tropical plants as well as I did having no prior knowledge or experience nor what anyone, especially my mother who was a champion gardener, would call a green thumb.

So I may not have pets to welcome me home, but I now have a healthy, for the time being, diffenbacchia. Next up: spaths!

diffenbacchia