Reading: Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel

Not yet given up on: John Milton, Paradise Lost

In the midst of: A.S. Byatt, Biographer's Tale; Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter

On deck: Suburban Nation; Invisible Man; Don Quijote

Moving: walked about five miles

Watching: "Happiness"

6 March 2002:

RDC and I strolled out to the Cherry Tomato for supper, which turned out to be a shared dish of frutta del mar. After the hostess seated us and walked away, I asked RDC, "Was it something we said?" meaning, "Why are we back here by the kitchen?" though he thought I meant her attitude. Attitude in hostesses doesn't surprise me. The bus was rude too, and I happened to have swallowed some water the wrong way just before the waiter arrived to deliver his specials spiel (mostly read, not recited), and how rude of me to cough throughout. Really. Inexcusable.

But the clams and mussels and shrimp and squid were good.

Knowing that I'm going home, if not immediately, has given me new eyes on Denver. Also I've been walking home (can't quite get up early enough to walk to work), and it's not just the exercise that's making me feel better. I like living somewhere I can walk 2.5 miles to work. I like the neighborhood and the houses and the magpies. I really like bungalows and Denver Squares (four up, four down). I'm not as fond of the Depression-era mock Tudors, but that's okay because the neighborhoods I walk through predate the Depression.

I like being able to walk a mile or so to a neighborhood restaurant. It's a nice couple of blocks, too, with a bookshop and a small grocer and a guitar shop. That wouldn't happen in rural New England. And I'm pretty sure we'd get a second car. I suppose when I'm a distance from museums and restaurants and shops and downtown I'll miss those, but I miss fireflies and the Milky Way and trees and peepfrogs and running water and the smell of salt water. And I know which gratify my soul and soothe my spirit more.