Daisy Miller

            On Friday after midnight I did my tedious usual search for bedbugs and found none. The one that I found the day before was the first in five days, so I'm resetting the count. 

            The wifi was still off in the morning and so I couldn't work on memorizing “Le vieux rocker” (The Old Rocker) by Serge Gainsbourg because I needed the YouTube video to sing along with. Instead I jumped ahead to the 1981 Gainsbourg album “Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles” (Bad News From The Stars) because I have that on file. I memorized the first verse of his reggae song “Overseas Telegram” and adjusted my translation a bit. 

            After song practice the wifi was still off but I figured it was still too early to knock on Shankar's door and ask him to try restarting his router. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I knocked on Shankar's door and asked him to reset his router. He said it was on but I suggested that it might not be working at full capacity and maybe if it was restarted it would include the other devices in the network. He grunted something non verbal that might have meant something affirmative but nothing happened. I was able to get online briefly by tethering my computer to my phone but not long enough to post anything. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. 

            I copied all of the parts of The Winter's Tale in which Augtolycus appears, including the ends of the scenes beforehand and the beginnings of the scenes afterwards, and pasted them for reference into the document in which I'll be writing my essay. 

            I read chapter 2 of Daisy Miller by Henry James. Winterbourne pursues Daisy, much to his Aunt's disapproval. Daisy is referred to as common several times and also uncultivated. Also ways one would describe an actual daisy. She is wild. His aunt admits that Daisy has good taste in clothing but is incredulous as to where someone of her class could have gotten it. The suggestion seems to be that her taste had to have come from outside and not been innate. Daisy wants to enter European society as she already has entered New York society but cannot find a way in. She seems to have hoped Winterbourne's aunt might have been a doorway but when she finds she doesn't want to know her she laughs it off. She looks everyone in the eye in a manner that ladies are not supposed to do. They go on a date to a famous castle but Daisy is more interested in Winterbourne's interest in her. She pretends she is angry when he says he is going away but they arrange to meet later in Rome. Daisy is hard to read and could go either way like the game one plays with daisies, “She loves me, she loves me not.” Daisies are common among daisies but a human daisy is very unique. 

            I started trying to organize Autolycus's parts from The Winter's Tale and made notes on his first appearance. He enters alone and undisguised, singing to welcome the flowers of spring and against the red blood of and white sheets of death of winter. Although he is a master of disguise he is himself when he enters while at the end of the previous scene and at the beginning of the next there are other characters in disguise. 

            The wifi was still off when I got up from my siesta and so for the second day in a row I couldn't post my blog. 

            I left a little early for my bike ride, intending on going to Yonge and Bloor as usual, but it started splattering rain at Ossington and so I headed south and home. It didn't rain very hard and I might have made it downtown and back without getting wet, but that wasn't a certainty. I got some exercise anyway. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos at 17:00. 

            The wifi was still off well over 24 hours since I could get online and do anything. If I tethered my phone it only worked for a few minutes but not long enough to get very far. I made it onto Facebook once for a minute or so. 

            Later on I tried tethering again and it lasted long enough to post something. The connection usually held on for about five or ten minutes at a time and after continuously re-tethering over the next couple of hours I managed to get caught up on my posts. 

            I had a potato with gravy and the last two pieces of the whole chicken I'd roasted a few days ago. I ate while watching an episode of Gomer Pyle. 

            This story begins with foreign movie star Pola Prevost needing to get married in order to stay in the US. She just needs a temporary husband and so he has to be naive enough to fall for it. Just then Gomer comes up and asks her for an autograph. He shows himself to be such a huge fan that she starts to think she's found what she's looking for. Later Sergeant Carter is trying to get a chance to stand outside of a Hollywood premier so he can watch the stars. Meanwhile Gomer gets a call from Pola Prevost asking him to escort her to a Hollywood premier. Carter learns that he has to be outside the premier three hours ahead of time and so he leaves before Gomer can tell him about Pola. Carter is very surprised when he sees Gomer walking down the red carpet with Pola Prevost. When they leave Carter follows their limousine in a cab to a fancy restaurant. Before he gets there Pola proposes to Gomer. He's surprised and flattered but tells her he already has a girlfriend. Then Gomer sees Carter and calls him over. When Pola learns what a fan Carter is she focuses her attention on him. Carter comes back to the hotel room telling Gomer that he's engaged to Pola. Gomer asks, “What about Bunny?” But Carter just shrugs it off. When Duke hears that Paula proposed to Gomer first he tells Gomer that Pola must be looking for a temporary marriage for some reason. Gomer decides to have a talk with Pola and to tell her that Sergeant Carter is a “till death do we part” type person. Pola doesn't like that idea and instead elopes with her interior decorator. Gomer makes sure Carter connects with Bunny to remind him of his real relationship, but it's pretty creepy how he was willing to blow Bunny off for Pola and then just continue with Bunny as if nothing had happened. 

            Paula was played by the great Nita Talbot, who I've featured in my blog before. She played Marya the Russian spy on seven episodes of Hogan's heroes, a role for which she won an Emmy. She played a love starved switchboard operator in “A Very Special Favour”, Madame Esther in “Buck and the Preacher”, and she also co-starred in “Who's Got The Action.”