Saturday Light

It's Saturday morning, Shabbat, and I'm up early, sitting on the front porch drinking coffee and reading Patricia Highsmith's THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY. When I came outside, Blackie was sitting on an orange rug on the porch, but she dashed off as soon as she saw me. Now Harry's sitting there looking furtive. By the way, the book I bought on writing suspense fiction--the one by Highsmith--is just okay. It doesn't really go anywhere, but there are a few interesting, helpful bits in it. I had a funny conversation about Highsmith on Thursday with my friend Elizabeth. We were talking about how mean-looking/ugly Highsmith was as an old woman.

ELIZABETH: Did you see that picture of her on the cover of the suspense-writing book?
ME: Yeah! She looks like a mean Linda Hunt!
ELIZABETH: Well, that awful haircut and ascot would make anyone look bad.

Who, I ask, wears ascots anymore? I actually worked once with a guy who wore ascots. Back when I lived in Wisconsin. It creeped everyone out.

This week I've had some major epiphanies, mostly about how I want to live my life and how I don't want to live my life. I need to shape up in some respects, and I'm making quite a bit of progress--especially on the work front. I don't want to constantly be behind. I want to be reliable. I'm almost finished patching everything up. I'm almost all caught up workwise.

It's 59 degrees. Cloudy and just getting light outside yet. It's supposed to rain today. Today feels really good.