I swam two miles! For the first time since November 1999! Which might have been the first time ever, because I am not sure if I did it ever in college. First I thought about three kilometers, but two miles is only four laps more. Also I thought I would do 2.2 first and the last k after a break, but I know myself better than that: I wouldn't go back. Two miles!
This is possibly my favorite collection of A.S. Byatt short stories, maybe second to The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye. All the stories have a touch of the gothic or the grotesque, in a slight but satisfying way. The last one, "Pink Ribbon," made me cry, because it is clearly derived from Iris Murdoch's decline: it was therefore a fitting follow up to "Raw Material," in which a writing teacher tells his students to write what they know.
A while ago I added a bit to my list of movies with canine mortality for teddy bear abuse. The list of novels and stories with canine mortality and teddy bear abuse, including "Pink Ribbon," is too distressingly long to contemplate.