I spent last week sleeping on a worn-out bench in the Grand Funk Railroad. Seriously, I could barely get out of bed. I was bored; I was lonely. The weather oppressed. I didn't have a thought in my head. My brain, it seemed, was stuffed with cotton.
But with every little depression comes a stiff wind, knocking over trees and powerlines and bringing me back to my senses. I feel good now. I had a good weekend. I'm ready to work.
Saturday was the public library's semi-annual book sale. This is what I bought, as far as I can remember: a tiny book on Gauguin with lots of color prints, a Golden Book Guide to North American trees, a weird faux leather edition of Darwin'sVoyage of the Beagle, a cloth-bound 1941 edition of Great Letters of History (from Cicero's correspondence with Ceasar to Virginia Woolf's suicide note), an abridged copy of Virginia Woolf's diaries, True Grit by Charles Portis, Abbott'sFlatland, two nice Modern Library paperbacks - Conrad'sHeart of Darkness and Stendhal'sThe Charterhouse of Parma, two little Penguin editions of Icelandic and Norse sagas, a retelling of Malory'sLe Morte Darthur, seven cheap-o cassettes (three old U2 tapes, one old Springsteen, one Cure, one Steeleye Span, and one homemade tape of Rosemary Clooney b/w Lord Buckley).
I bought all of this for $16.75, not counting something I may have forgotten. Pretty good.