Lisa Davis

            On Sunday morning I memorized the sixth verse of "J'ai pas d'regret" (I Have No Regrets) by Boris Vian. There are four verses left to learn. 

            On my Christian's Translations blog I published "Crack in the Mirror", my translation of "Rupture au miroir" by Serge Gainsbourg. I memorized the first two verses of his song "Les dessous chics" (Lingerie Chic). 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I swept the bedroom, the living room and part of the kitchen. 

            I finished reading excerpts from The Book of Margery Kempe that are in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. I hand-wrote a page of stream of consciousness notes to serve as the foundation of my essay. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It had snowed earlier and so I wasn't sure how clear the roads would be but they were more wet than snowy, and so I went all the way downtown. On the way back I was waiting at the light at Queen and Augusta when a woman standing with a man at the streetcar stop and holding a phone to her ear said, "Hi". She said "hi" a few times and I thought she was talking on her phone but when I turned my head towards her I saw that she was looking at me and saying "hi". She said she used to draw me at Earl Hague Secondary School and later at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. I chatted with her until the light changed and we said, nice to see you" before I left. 

            I weighed 84 kilos at 17:15. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:07. 

            I transcribed my handwritten essay notes into a document and started expanding them into a larger argument. My research paper needs to be at least six pages long and so far I've got one: 

                                                       Visions are Wishes 

         I had been … waiting for this vision. It hovered over the great quarrel - Leonard Cohen 

            The visions made manifest or appearing so of Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and the Gawain poet's knights all come from wishes. The forms they take are drawn from the viewers' experiences while in content they are hopes that appear to be fulfilled by forces that come from outside of the viewer's experience. 

            Near the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur will not partake of the New Years feast until he hears a wondrous tale of adventure that is both marvellous and real (91-95). What transpires is the beginning of a fantastic story come to life as the Green Knight arrives. As Arthur's subjects all hope for their king's wishes to be granted the Green Knight can be seen as a collective vision. As the religious women have visions of Jesus, warrior knights logically have a vision of the most awesome knight of all. Julian expresses the desire to experience the suffering of Christ, and then she has a vision of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns, with red blood dripping down. Later after she writes of wanting to feel the happiness of heaven she sees the revelation of a blissful Jesus. When Margery is frightened of damnation she sees demons with open mouths waiting to devour her. When she confesses that she had been lustful and obsessed with fashion, her accompanying vision of Jesus takes the form of the most attractive young man in a fine purple robe, sitting beside her on her bed. After thinking of the persecution she experiences from others as a type of penance to lead her to heaven, she hears Jesus confirming her own thoughts on this subject as being right. Visions from outside bring us our fulfilled wishes. The Green Knight was the largest, the most handsome, and the ugliest in a combination of wishes and fears fulfilled for Gawain. 

            I made pizza on naan with basilica sauce, a cut up beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the second season finale of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Jethro is finally graduating from the sixth grade. Jed takes him downtown to buy him his first watch as a graduation present. Out of 200 watches, Jethro picks a Mickey Mouse watch although he has never heard of Mickey Mouse. Jane gives him a book and begins to wax on the value of books and education while Jethro is busy looking at and listening to his new watch. Jed interrupts her and says she's dropping her bucket down a dry well. Jed says that Jethro is the only member of the family who has made it through school. Jane tells him that there are six more years of school and then college. Jethro says, "College? But all I wanna be is a brain surgeon!" She informs him that it would take four years of college, four years of medical school, a year of internship and two to five years of residency to become a brain surgeon. He decides that he'd like to be a streetcar conductor instead because they wear fancy change making machines on their belts. 

            Jethro goes to the graduation dress rehearsal and tells Miss Potts that the suit he bought for graduation is dark green with yellow squares and the tie has a picture of a hula dancer that lights up in the dark. She almost faints. She has her assistant Diana call Drysdale. She tells Drysdale that the multi-millionaire philanthropist Theodore Switzer will be handing out the certificates and if he is impressed he may donate a large some of money to her school. Because there is money involved Drysdale agrees to help Potts keep Jethro from attending the graduation ceremony. They go to the Clampett mansion where Potts flirts with Jed while turning his pocket watch back 45 minutes and Diana does the same with Jethro. 

           But Granny tells time by the sun and she knows it is later than the time pieces are saying. So Granny, Elly and Skipper the chimpanzee drive over to the Potts school and find the ceremony is about to begin. Since Jethro has not arrived Jethro's classmates suggest that Skipper take his place. Meanwhile Mr. Switzer is looking at the grades of the graduates and is alarmed by how low Jethro's marks are. But when the procession begins and Switzer sees Skipper, thinking he is Jethro, he is extremely impressed with Jethro's grades and says he will double the Potts school's endowment. 

            Diana was played by Lisa Davis, whose father was a big band leader and her sister Beryl Davis was a big band singer. Lisa's first film role was at the age of 13 in The Man From Yesterday. She co-starred in The Dalton Girls and was the voice of Anita Radcliffe in One Hundred and One Dalmatians. 

            

            

            I searched for bedbugs and didn't find any.