Postponing French homework
Is it just me, or is everybody a lot less happy than they used to be?

I'm referring primarily to friends, and more specifically to friends here. To some extent, this may just be the bitterness that they say comes with progress through the Program. And of course the fact that we're all getting older and now instead of having problems we have Problems.

Rereading Fifth Business (aloud, with Cassandra) I'm amazed at all of the ways I understand Dunstan Ramsay. I'm sure many of these are universal elements, but it's also - perhaps the very fact of his being "fifth business", a necessary observer and catalyst without being the hero, lover, villain... Furthermore it is a world which makes sense to me: incredibly rich and somehow simultaneously dark and well-intentioned.

In contrast, I've been watching Mad Men, and finding that I really fear ending up like Don Draper. Not an irrational fear either - I can see my character flaws becoming his character flaws. (Although I don't think I'd be inclined to cheat on my wife... but then, given another twenty years, who can say? I can only hope that given another twenty years instead of gaining that flaw of his I'll have lost some of the others...)

I built another bucket bass over the weekend. Kate visited, her father gave the lecture; the lecture was excellent, and it was good to see her again. Cassandra has mono. I've been taking care of her a fair amount. I'm reading Flatland. I need to clean my room. Rachel's brought over a tenor banjo, which I'm having fun with. I've been cooking a lot, especially with Cassandra sick.