I write this somewhat awkwardly, using Jeremy's laptop, as I sit in their (Jeremy 'n' Jess's) living room in Herndon, Virginia. The sun shines bright outside and soon we plan to take a brisk walk through the municipal park across the road (which is set up as a big farm with horses, sheep, farmer's fields, the whole bit).

Last night I awoke and decided to finish the great, fat, thick Maeve Binchy novel I've been reading called Firefly Summer. The cover, which has a pastel-colored, purply, yellowy representation of a guy and girl talking on a bridge or something, made me a bit uneasy when I'd pull the book our while riding public transit. I'd have to kind of hold it so people didn't see the cover, etc.

Be that as it may, in my personal opinion it's the best of the Binchy novels I've read. Perhaps part of my enjoyment was that it included a number of characters who were Americans, living in Ireland. It was fun seeing what Binchy made of them. (My conclusion about her view of Americans: there are good elements--our optimism, our social grace and ease, our "can do" attitude--but we can also be shallow, phoney, and "users" of other people. Actually I relate to that, I really do, since that was in many ways me when I imagine myself thirty or forty years ago. Since then, I hope I've changed, gotten sanctified a bit, mellowed, matured, gotten the living daylights beaten out of me numerous times to the point that I smartened up, etc., etc.)

Well, this is a thoroughly random, flighty entry due to my having to keep fooling with the laptop, making it do what I want it to do--backtracking, erasing, etc. Anyhow things are happening now and it's time for us to take a brisk walk through that public farm across the road...