Because it's Tom's birthday today, yesterday I bought him a midcentury Italian-made stainless-steel fruit bowl--not expensive but airy and elegant-looking. Now it sits in the dining room next to the Noguchi-designed lamp he bought me for Christmas--also not expensive, also airy and clean. Two little nice things to look at while we eat.

Later, after work, we'll go into town for dinner. In the meantime, I've got a yoga class to get to, and some dratted insurance-company phone calls to make, and then I'll turn my thoughts to Dante and to Pound's first canto, and then I'll see if I can rescue a poem draft that is falling apart and possibly ought to be euthanized. I also ought to spend some time applying for fellowships and such and maybe sending out manuscripts. I did manage to send off one application yesterday. But that chore always feels like such a waste of time.

I've finished Howards End and now I've started rereading Charlotte Bronte's Villette. I've written about Bronte before, in my book The Vagabond's Bookshelf, and I haven't changed my mind about how difficult and prickly she is, both as a writer and as a speaking persona. I love Villette and I also want to slap her central character, Lucy Snowe, which, I think, would not surprise Charlotte in the least. In fact, I suspect she's daring me to.

* * *

I reread this post and I think, Ugh, you sound like such a bore. So self-involved. So esoteric.

I want to scream, My hands are callused! I weep for the world! I'm not from this place! My husband is killing himself with physical labor!

Both also. Both also. Both also.