13 April 2003

I slept past 7:00 again this morning. Astonishing. What a fabulous feat. Maybe at this rate, I'll sleep until 8:00 sometime before my birthday.

Okay, so that's probably a crazy dream. But I like crazy dreams. For some reason, I've been dreaming about Heathah and Dave and their kids several nights running. So far we've had hunts for alien-induced meteorites (complete with STM in the back of Heathah's SUV) and a rather odd bit of venture capitalism. Those are crazy dreams. (I don't know why more people don't bring five-year-olds hunting for meteorites, though. It seemed like a wonderful idea in the dream.)

I worked a little more on "Wishing on Airplanes," but not a lot. Back still unpleasant, though not as bad as Friday.

Yesterday I read and thoroughly enjoyed Swordspoint and the short stories that have been reprinted in the new edition with it. It was probably a mistake to read The Fall of the Kings first, since that gave away a few things that might otherwise have been somewhat surprising, but it didn't ruin the book. And Kushner's homepage indicates that there's another novel in progress, set 15 years after Swordspoint, which makes me happy.

I had evidently not had enough of the swashing and buckling, because the next book I picked up was The Man in the Iron Mask. I have mixed feelings about reading this now: after I'm done with it, there will be no more new Musketeers for me, ever ever ever. I will have read everything there is to read about all of them. (I have a hard time deciding which is my favorite Musketeer. It depends on the day. Only it's almost never D'Artagnan. Other than that, it depends on the day.) But I do want to read it anyway, especially since Le Vicomte de Bragelonne is a three-volume novel, not three novels, so I've already read most of the story. So -- onwards. All the funniest bits have Porthos in them. Today is a Porthos day, I think. Yesterday was an Aramis day.

Yesterday it rained -- really rained, as if we lived somewhere that had weather, not the weary drizzle we get most of the time. It's supposed to rain off and on until Thursday at least. It was good yesterday to curl up here in the rocker, with Mark and Timprov in the new chairs, and make tea and cocoa for everybody and stay warm and dry and watch hockey and decorating shows. It was cozy. If I sat in the rocker and not in one of the new chairs, all I could see outside the window was rain-soaked tree, and not any of the barren suburban-industrial wasteland that is Hayward.

Erica called because "Prairie Home Companion" was at the alma mater yesterday, and she wanted to tell someone who would appreciate the weirdness, and I did. And we had the kind of exile conversation we've been having on e-mail, only on the phone.

Other than that -- well, I got spam with a subject line, "I feel terrible." I'm sorry that this person feels terrible, but...how was this supposed to get me to read the e-mail? Also one with a subject line, "I hate this." I hesitate to read too much spamomancy into these, but that's a little ominous.

I hope those of you who are most upset by the looting of the museums in Iraq consider giving a few spare pennies, when you have them, to organizations that take detailed digital records of artifacts and pieces of art. Stopping war, theft, natural disasters, and the ravages of time would be the best thing we could do, but in lieu of that, having extremely detailed records of the objects in question is a good thing for future study and appreciation. I know there are always good people to support with spare pennies, but if you feel strongly about something, there's more to do than wring your hands.

Back to Porthos. Have a good Palm Sunday.