The other of the two L.L. Bean denim twill shirts RDC bought years ago. The yoke of the blue one ripped, so he was going to ditch it, so fastidious. It's mine now, but I'm only borrowing this green one.

Reading: Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook; Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree.

Moving: walked 2.7 miles, another mile or more after work, and weights. I need to start a chart for weights.

Watching: Magpies' sloppy nests

Listening: magpies whining

18 April 2001: Listen

Wheee! Someone at Dot Org's book group suggested The Bone People, which happened to be on my list. Today when we discussed it and chose a new book, someone suggested The Golden Notebook and I steamrollered over all over possibilities. Dunno how long I'll be able to keep this up, having book group books from that list; the one before People was Daughter of Fortune, not on the list. I loved Eva Luna and The House of the Spirits but I haven't even read The Infinite Plan yet (which had a much better cover). I didn't read Daughter.

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Going home, going home, by the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet sings to rock my soul

I'm going home,* I'm going home, I'm going home! My sister went home last weekend somewhat for Easter and mostly for her high school friend's baby shower. She wrote that Old Lyme was so pretty and I should come home early in May, because our mother would be gone and our grandmother alone for her birthday and grandmother, and we could do all the stuff I love to do--go to PGN, the beach, the lake, Hallmark's (for ice cream, not cards), stuff like that.

* (This link is not exactly my corner, but close. Congregationalist church in the middle of town, rivers through woods, lighthouses. Hopefully this June I'll take a lot of good photographs of my town.)

Addendum, 25 April 2001: this is my corner.

I go home once a year in the swimming season unless someone dies or gets married. I don't go when I can't swim, and early May is too early for good swimming. Also, I do generally see my mother when I go home. Furthermore, and this is what grated, when I do go home to Connecticut, to see my sister I have to travel additionally to Boston, which is, like Denver, a city, and has, like Denver, no lakes. She never wants to go home with me, and when we are home, she wants to shop.

Then I got email from the Cowboy Junkies--Margo and I are likethis--about their new album and summer tour dates. Which are all entirely on the coasts and nowhere near me (unless RDC and I go to California in August, which is a possibility). They're in Boston three different times, though, three. I mean, once is only at Borders and not a full show, but at least provides a lot more personal one-on-one time, for those who get to go, with my girlfriend Margo. So I told CLH if she scored tix to the 16 June show, I'd come home that weekend. September really is the best swimming, but maybe I can score another efare by then. Anyway, score them she did, and bingo, with RDC's miles I'm going home to real water.

So I called my mother and gave her her assignments: accommodations, a beach pass, and good weather. She said, well, one of the beds is already made, so that's done...and I sighed. Am I the only one who puts up guests on freshly aired sheets? Or, say, provides them with pillows? Perhaps I should add a fourth assignment: to wash the sheets with a soap that doesn't smell like mothballs and then to dry them on the line, so I can breathe at night. And to have some fruit, even just a few bananas, in the house and not to ask me if I want a hot dog. Let me ruminate again on why I want to see my mother. Rant out.

I'm going home!

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Listen: to real night noises--peepfrogs and crickets instead of traffic, to the Cowboy Junkies, to waves, to my sister's and my giddiness. Listen. In June I will listen to my favorite noises.