Yesterday's plans changed up in a hurry: just after I wrote to you, my friend had to cancel her visit, so I ended up with an entirely different day . . . mostly desk work, with a blip of lawn mowing, a hot walk to the library and the market, and an evening alone while Tom went out to see a show. So I lolled around in my summer nightgown, eating a big salad and a bowl of ice cream and watching Wife versus Secretary, a 1936 flick starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, and a very young Jimmy Stewart . . . supposedly a comedy, but at heart a poignant depiction of female duty and male privilege, lightened up by Loy's gorgeous outfits, undercut by Gable's seedy grin (Does anyone  think he's handsome? Ick.), and saddened by Harlow's inability to justify to her boyfriend that she actually likes her job and doesn't want to quit working when she gets married. Stewart is his usual dim-witted aw-shucks gerbil self, except that he looks like he's about 14, much younger than Harlow, whom he's supposedly engaged to. Happy ending = women settle, and men do what they want.

Today will be another scorcher. I'll probably spend most of it at my desk, finishing up this editing project and moving forward in my seminar planning. That means I'll likely be able to preserve tomorrow as a writing day, a sweet ending to the week. I'm hoping to produce a new draft, fiddle with some revisions, do some submitting, and read. But who knows what will really happen.