This morning at Mass, when I was supposed to be following the liturgy, I kept finding myself distracted by thoughts about my writing. And, more specifically, doubts about it. And while I know that God does not begrudge me my inattentive mind, and is probably happy I show up at the church at all, I still feel sheepish when, standing or sitting or kneeling in the pew, I come out of a daydream, and remember where I am.

I have days when I lose confidence in these entries. What’s the point of writing them, of keeping them, et cetera. This perhaps is one of those days. I’m sitting at the table in the apartment, in front of my laptop, looking out the windows at the sky above the horizon, instead of, I guess, at the screen onto which I’m supposed to be typing words.

The piece of fabric, which is frayed at the edges, and black and white in color, is maybe one inch wide, and a centimeter in height. If you didn’t know to whom it had belonged, or if you knew and saw no significance in the fact, you could mistake it for a scrap that someone had forgotten to throw away. But to me it is an amazing little artifact, a relic of course, a thing that has a certain holiness or sanctity merely because it came in contact with a particular saint when that saint was alive and was walking on the earth.

I prayed on that kneeler this morning, after Mass, and touched my fingers to the glass above the fabric, though of course I couldn’t touch them to the fabric itself.

At the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, on Lexington and 65th, where I usually go now to Mass each morning, there is, on the left side of the nave, beneath a statue of, I think, Our Lady of Sorrows, a kneeler that has, behind a little glass window on which you can rest your arms or your elbows while you pray, a tiny piece of fabric from a skirt or scarf, or other such garment, that belonged to Saint Jacinta Marto of Fátima, who was one of three shepherd children to whom the Virgin Mary did appear, and communicate messages, in 1917, in Portugal.

It’s a depressing movie, but very real, and for that reason I could watch only a little of it before having to turn it off and take a break from it. It also has some lighthearted moments, I should say. But somehow that makes it more depressing. A movie that wants to be absolutely bleak is never very convincing. You have to let in a little humor if you want it to be true.

Last night in bed I watched some of Sunset Boulevard, which is a black and white movie from 1950. The woman in it plays an actress who was once celebrated and beautiful, but who the film industry has largely forgotten, as it has moved on from the silent era in which she was a star. She is sad, almost insane, living alone with her butler in a mansion, detached from everyday problems by her wealth and by the memory of her fame.

Which isn’t to pass the buck. It is always, ultimately, one’s own habits of sin that are the cause of one’s own falling short, morally speaking. Even if the spirit of the age, such as it is, can influence us, and seem to bring about circumstances that are not congenial to the living of a virtuous life.

Though clearly it isn’t God who expects less of me, or even the Church, but the spirit of modernity, or postmodernity, in its malaise and moral turpitude.

And I suppose, as well, because I’m part of the laity, rather than the clergy or a religious order, less is expected of me, even if nothing less is necessarily asked of me.

I’m merely insufficiently holy, too near to what Christ, in the Book of Revelation, tells the Church at Laodicea is a “lukewarm” faith, the kind that will make him “vomit thee out of my mouth.”

Which isn’t to say there’s anything markedly ‘wrong’, or unconscionable, about the way I currently live, at least not according to the standards of the world.

Or cannot, or will not, however you want to say it. Meaning, I’m aware of the chasm that exists between the ideals of Catholicism — the almost infinite extent to which one can abandon oneself to the paths of virtue it makes plain to us — and the way I currently live.

Which fact maybe you’re wondering how I reconcile with my faith, or religion, such as I’ve professed it to be. And the answer is that I do not.

In any case, I lead an easy life.

Around midday today A. and I left the apartment and walked together to one of the grocery stores near us, to get some of the items that we consume quite quickly, or anyway quite regularly, like eggs, bread, milk, and bananas. A. has a job that permits her to work very often from home, even if she does go into the office now and then, in a building in downtown Manhattan, which is why she was able to go to the store with me today, in the middle of a weekday, when people ordinarily are working. I don’t have a job anymore, as I’ve mentioned, so almost every day you can find me at my laptop in our apartment, working on a book or on some piece of illustration. Which I do not pretend is a noble occupation, or anything very defensible for a man to be doing with his time, but that is where I am in my life, nevertheless. I am an artist, if an unknown or unsuccessful one, and I’m more or less beyond caring for my reputation. I say “more or less” because of course I still care about it a little. Because a reputation isn’t always arbitrary, or erroneous, and can sometimes tell you something true about yourself, even if it can’t tell you everything.

We drove part of the way along Queens Boulevard, which A. told me is the title of a movie that a character from the television series Entourage is working on during the early seasons of that show. I’ve never seen that series but apparently it’s about a group of friends who are actors who are trying to ‘make it’, or achieve stardom, both here in New York City and in L.A. The friends all grew up in Queens, which is why they make the movie about that particular street, which runs all the way from A.’s and my neighborhood, near the 59th Street Bridge, to Jamaica Avenue, out near Kennedy airport. The show ended almost fifteen years ago, but I remember seeing trailers for it when it was airing.

It is very cold outside this morning, I can tell already, even though I haven’t yet left the apartment. Yesterday, in the afternoon, A. and I went out and retrieved the car from the parking ramp, so that we could deliver some items of clothing, and an old folding table and chairs, to a donation center at the Salvation Army, and the weather was very cold then too, with the wind blowing in our faces as we walked the couple blocks to the place where we keep the vehicle.

Now I’ve put the book back down and am about to pick up Don Quixote, which is also on the table with me.

One of the marvels of the Comedy is the way it organizes, with uncompromising reason, one of the most fantastical landscapes in the history of art.