Today is the 29th of February. Which means it is a Leap Year. Which means — oh, never mind what it means, self! What matters is that today you are happy because:
- Apparently, you are no longer sick.
- You were able to end February by finally watching a movie in a theatre, as opposed to on the couch at home: “Definitely, Maybe.” (And the movie was even good! And Ryan Reynolds was cute!)
- You watched Tilda Swinton win an Oscar (for “Michael Clayton”).
- You were able to close out the month by consuming a Beard Papa chocolate eclair (yesterday).
- This week you mailed out an application for a fellowship (which, if you are successful, will allow you to attend a writing conference in the deep south, a place you’ve always felt the utmost affinity for, since that is the birthplace of Flannery O’Connor)
- Winter quarter at xxxx community college will be over in less than a month.
Yesterday, too, self returned to library Birth of the Chess Queen, an exceedingly interesting book that she was able to breeze through in less than a day (while cooking, gardening, chasing Gracie, watching TV, reading The Economist, grading student papers, etc etc) Now, self is reading a book called The Mapmaker’s Wife, about a real woman, Isabel Grameson, who in 1769 decided to cross the Andes (She lived in Peru) and traverse the Amazon in order to re-join her husband, a Frenchman from whom she had been separated for 20 years. Not only was this woman about to embark on a journey of more than 3,000 miles, a trip that most people estimated would take her at least six months, but she had determined to do it in style: that is, she had included in her luggage “fancy dresses, skirts, shawls, gold-buckled shoes, and lace-trimmed underwear,” all of which (in addition to food and other supplies) required the services of 31 porters and almost as many mules.
Can anyone say “Werner Herzog”? Stay tuned, dear blog reader, stay tuned.