Reading: Cynthia Voigt, It's Not Easy Being Bad. I had a bellyache. Lemme 'lone.

Moving: walked 2.7 miles

Listening: Glenn Gould play Bach. At first I thought bleeding within the audio meant the music was being adulterated with television. Then I remembered that he doodled along, like Bud Cort as God humming the Ode to Joy outside the skeeball place.

Watching: More fresh snow

14 February 2001: Snow but feeling blecchy and tired

More snow more snow more snow! Hooray! This makes up somewhat for having 90 days last year of 90+ degrees. Next summer will be better, partly because we'll be used to it and partly because the dining room windows have curtains, and the living room windows a) will open to screens and b) also will have window coverings, and we'll buy something, anything, to keep the sun out of the sunroom and kitchen windows. The brick patio just soaks up heat and reflects it into the house well after the house shades it, after 2:00 or so; I would love to build an arbor over it and plant grapes or ivy or roses or anything, except that it would have to be one vast arbor to do anything, and those plants suck up water, and such a thing would get in the way of the electricity and telephone wires, or at the very least I would electrocute myself erecting such a structure.

More snow more snow more snow! Hooray! Another five or so inches last night, contributing to much more so far than any of the five previous winters. The odd 60 degree day is nice but focuses my attention on global warming, and I like lots and lots and lots of snow.

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Yesterday RDC returned to the hand clinic for a two-week check-up. He waited for a while with other patients and they drank to each other's legs. Well, hands, but you've got to allow me my "Jaws" references. A finishing carpenter who took off the tips of his fingers a while ago now, in his retirement year, went for three entire fingers at once, using the exact table saw that's in our basement right now waiting to make window mouldings. Says Mr. Amputee: "Always use a push-tool." I asked RDC, "So will you always use a push-tool?" He nodded. A younger man had removed, I forget how, at least one joint and maybe two of his right thumb.

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I am, for no good reason, extremely tired. I went to bed at ten but stayed up late finishing Deliverance. Maybe that's why. Thrashing through snowdrifts getting to work shouldn't've tired me too much. It's still snowing, and I have to go to the 'brary by tomorrow to return Swann's Way, which I cannot renew any more since An Other Patron has requested it. I was going to go today, but the snow and the tiredness are excellent reasons not to. Problem: I have nothing to read. My big warm Icelandic wool sweater that's kept me warm for thirteen years took up so much space in my backpack that I didn't cram a book in, which I figured would be okay because I'd walk both ways so wouldn't need bus reading and would be going to the library so wouldn't need lunch reading. Indeed, by the time I got to work my left arm was numb because the strap cut off circulation--I really really really miss the L.L. Bean bookpacks I carried through high school and college and a little beyond that until Bean changed the style to a smaller, cheaper, ill-fitting monstrosity yet continued to call it Bean's Original Bookpack.

So I'm tired and want nothing more than to nap at lunch, but I have nothing to read. And no couch. I could read, say, a newspaper, but that's not something I can snuggle up with, or buy a trashy mag from the convenience store downstairs. That sounds really good.

This morning over breakfast I began The Magus, and I mean just began it. I read most of Fowles's own introduction, skipping those bits that might have had spoilers, and about two paragraphs of the text. I could persevere with Magnificent Ambersons instead or start Golden Notebook. Last week when I asked to renew everything that's on my card and found out the Proust was due, I asked that the clerk except the Tarkington. "I'm only 12 pages in, but I'm not enthused about it." "Keep going," the clerk said, "I liked it." Well, okay, even though Uberboss didn't think much of it either. Or I could give myself a break from the 2001 menu and read Horse Heaven. Except my January break lasted about six books, which shouldn't happen again. Another List break might be Fight Club, which we watched again last night and which I liked much less the second time round. Or, speaking of books apparently mauled onscreen, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, whose author I don't even know.

I could just go to Barnes & Noble, which is closer than the 'brary. But outside is outside and I don't need to buy anything, not at all and not from there. Oh, and I have to add another book to my reserved list: this year's Newbery is a sequel to last year's Honor book. Richard Peck seems to have come into his own.

I'm rambling.