Reading: John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Listening: KBCO

Viewing: Mountains. Cold air. Earlier sunsets than Florida but later than when we left. My filthy apartment.

Moving: Some abs. No Nordic Track.

Learning: about printers.

7 January 2000: Still Home

Today at work, looking at an alleged street address, I had to call to confirm it.

XXXX South XXXX East, Dusty, Utah. I must have omitted the street name.

I called. I hadn't left off the street name. Those are just what they look like, coordinates.

Utah. Blueberry pancakes. Eagles on the highway. Not much else. And I bet they're really happy I think so because that means people like me don't move there and mess it up. Let them have it.

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PLT and I debated l last month, the extra l people put in (or leave in, depending on your point of view) traveled and canceled and journaler. I told him my theory, which is that you double the final consonant of syllables that are stressed: differ, differed; but defer, deferred. Also when he wrote his dictionary of American English Noah Webster took out all those spare, extraneous, limey letters like that l plus the u in color and labor. PLT said, in classic PLT style, "Here, have a baloon."

And that was that until a couple of days ago (when, coincidentally, I returned to my regular internet access) when he sent me the OED's paragraphs on travel/led. The OED backed me up that one l is U.S. and two are British, and also quoted Lewis Carroll as its historical precedent. (It quoted not Carroll's spelling but his discussion of that spelling in Sylvie and Bruno, which is an odd place for it.) So anyway it seems PLT will stop harassing me on this point. He also said he's reading Speaking Confidentially more these days. Hi, PLT.

But anyway this somehow led us to a discussion of books (as, frankly, almost anything can) and sf v. mainstream fiction and ya ya ya until this morning, when he confused Madeleine L'Engle and Ursula LeGuin. L'Engle didn't write The Left Hand of Darkness, sorry. He responded to my thorough correction, "Luh-engle, Luh-gwin. Let's call the whole thing off."

This was a great lead-in to one of my favorite of RDC's jokes. He was singing, "You say tomato, and I say tomato, let's call the whole thing off." He stopped suddenly and said, "You know the tune is kind of catchy but those lyrics don't make any sense."

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RDC brought home the dry-cleaning, including my beloved gown. The proprietor told RDC how lovely she thought it was (and I asked him if he told her how lovely I looked in it; he had) and what a pleasure it was to press. This is going a little too far. Also, do I have to keep the cardboard thingie on the hanger? I was going to use one of my own plastic hangers with the dress hooks and hang it by those loops. Besides, that cardboard thing has a bigger bust than mine. And I didn't put up lights just to set off the dress. I bought Christmas lights on white cords that would glare from a tree but that add needed light to that corner.

Anyway, the champagne and lipstick all came out. I'm glad that dress is as long as it is--DMB said one of the disposables she provided is full of nothing but photographs taken up women's dresses. What is this, "Animal House"?

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Another catalog from A Common Reader was in Wednesday's stack o' mail. I haven't even typed up the list of books from the first several months' worth, let alone added them to my list of books to read, let alone read any of them. A pleasurable, anticipatory discomfort.