02 January 2006

Aagh,the hardware store is closed! New Year's Day or not, they do not know what they are doing to me. Will have to find somewhere else to go. I know, I'll go to the gym -- a safe bet cause that's sure to be closed too. Yeah! I was right. In NYC, they say New Year's Day at the gym is one of the busiest days of the year, with all those intense IB's and IB wannabees, and their IB-mate wannabees, pursuing their resolutions about getting into that bathing suit in six months. The Great French Paradox does not involve eating cheese and avoiding heart attacks; it involves French islanders eating cheese AND eating panninis, pasta dishes, pizzas, pain au raisins, while avoiding all unnecessary exercise, and still looking like models when they show up on the beach onNew Year's Day.

Lazy day. Short walk up ridiculously steep hill, ( there are no other kinds) till knee said stop, back down hill, ice knee, read, fix Pinks's computer, ( I turned it off, then on, does wonders for the computer and my psyche) played with Picasa ( photo software trying to organize and improve last night's pix and the ones from the dec trip to Japan, etc., lunch, a loooong nap, and now watching a magnificent sky on the verge of cloud-on-the-horizon sunset. About half the boats gone from the harbor. A prize to the first reader who identifies that very bright planet (satellite?) in the western sky about 40 degrees above the horizon.

By now you have probably figured out all the obsessive emailing is my excuse for not spending the allotted time each day writing my novel. Think of this as warm up pitching, and you are the bullpen catcher. Lifts you right up there, doesn't it? The bullpen-catcher simile comes from my almost-finished reading of "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis. Excellent, convention challenging book, whether you are a baseball fan or not, tho it helps. Sort of hate to finish it, cause the genius who packed for this trip south put all my books in cartons going via slow boat, instead of airline luggage. Yeah, and I also put the boat keys in the cartons too, and have no idea what I'm going to do when the boat arrives before the cartons do. The boxes, with lots of my stuff, will be here in two weeks. That's not to long to wear the same pair of seat socks, is it? I am already becoming very French.

It's tough having so many homes..

a bientot.