I did do some writing yesterday, and I did use the trigger I'd bought in Chicago: of all things, a slim copy of Rene Descartes's treatise Rules for the Direction of the Mind (written by 1628, published in 1701). I am the world's worst philosopher. Under most circumstances I am actively repelled by the anti-physicality of philosophic prose, and my mind wanders off into distraction as soon as I bump up against those sentences. But I was at a used bookstore with my son: he was buying a book of Dali paintings and The Golden Bough; I was buying a Murdoch novel and . . . wait, what's this weird title? I dug out the slim tome and we peered at the cover. Well, I thought. I might be able to use a title like that. And so I bought it.

Rules is broken into 20-something sections, each of which opens with an abstract of the rule under consideration and then proceeds to horse around with not only/but alsos, ergos, and therefores. Yesterday I started copying out each rule, deleting the abstract nouns and adjectives and filling them in with gaudier talk. And after an hour or so, I found myself outlining a list of instructions titled "Rules for the Direction of the Chambermaid," most of which involve (1) how to figure out if your mistress is having an adulterous affair and (2) to whom you should be loyal (mistress, master, visiting lothario). Of course this is a silly project, and it will likely go nowhere, but inventing it is fun.