Reading: James Dickey, Deliverance

Moving: 20' and 2.0 miles on the Nordic Track, plus some weights and crunche

Listening: work-out disk

Watching: "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" with the captions on

12 February 2001: CLH's birthday

The DVD player doesn't recognize the workout disk I mixed, so I've been playing it on my computer instead and watching muted television. This actually works out well, because one thing I haven't liked about our tv setup is that you can do only one thing at once: you can't watch one show and tape another, you can't have audio input from the DVD player but video from the satellite. And today I found the tv's own remote and figured out how to turn captions on, so I listened to workout-type music while watching Jim Lehrer and catching at least the gist of what he was reporting--if I read the captions too much I couldn't even keep to 6.0 mph.

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I finished The Death of the Heart at lunch. My reading was interrupted by someone needing help compiling a table of contents in Word, which I can do with my eyes shut, and so I made her happy, and then I took a palmful of M&Ms from the basket on her desk and made me happy, a fair trade. And then the book ended and I was so sad for Portia and figured whoever wrote "The Breakfast Club" must have read this, except that it's a universal truth. "When you grow up, your heart dies. It's unavoidable; it just happens."

Homeward bound I started Deliverance, which is going to be a Boy Book in a way I doubt I'll try to stomach, a boy book in less palatable a way than The Sun Also Rises or the usual things that women hate. It's going to be about the frustrations of men not going off to hunt giraffes on these cold Chicago streets, speaking of Breakfast Club quotes. Cry me a river while I stay home, out of the trenches where I can't stay for fear of getting a monthly "infection." A river! In Deliverance! Combining Newt Gingrich and the Breakfast Club. Gee, I slay me.

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Mar asked a trivia question, of who wrote a song about Nick Drake called "Life in a Northern Town" and I said, "It's about Nick Drake? Who's that?" but couldn't remember the band's name. It's going to make me crazy. All I can think of is David & David, who wrote "Welcome to the Boomtown" and Crowded House and whatever band that was that had an album years later Man of Colors. No, it won't make me crazy. Hold on a sec. Putter putter putter. Ah yes, Dream Academy. I believe the only tape I still have from that tape-off-the-radio (to the separate tape recorder) era is the one that just answered that question. It's got David & David and Icicle Works' "Whisper to a Scream" and Crowded House "Don't Dream It's Over" and Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings."

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We did our taxes. We owe less than a tenth of the initial estimate. All together now: whew.