day off

this is my first day off school. so what am i going to do? post here, of course. my mother asked me what i wanted for christmas, and i was appropriately vague, then acutely specific. i sent her an email with a link. well, what good is technology, if you don't use it?

my computer came back on the afternoon of the day that i finished my paper. it figures. after two days camped out at my wife's office, typing the paper, my worn old beater comes back just as soon as i don't need it. why do things always happen in this way?

also, now that i have a day off perhaps i can get started on some of those long-put-off revisions. or maybe whip something into shape for my upcoming january reading. or maybe write some new stuff. or submit something and get it accepted as a way of snubbing those who rejected me previously. or maybe just sit around and cultivate my aura of professional boredom with being an artist. hmm.

really, absolutely involved with the medical community these days, what with dentist appts. and doctor visits, none of which i participate in the capacity of anything more than a bystander. well.

and anything other incidental happening to me must be connected in some way with the stunning sentences from flaubert i devoted my morning to. an example:

Every head of hair was freshly clipped, ears were sticking out, cheeks were close-shaven; some there were who had left their beds before dawn, when there was scarcely enough light to be using a razor, and now had great diagonal gashes across their upper lip, or, along the jaw, flaps of detached skin as big as a three-franc piece, inflamed by fresh air along the way, so that all those great white beaming faces were blotched with pink.

when i am writing like that i will tell you. and then you can read something and be well satisfied that the balance of work that went into it as compared with the instant it takes to perceive it is clear and shows through so neatly as to make you feel in the moment of reading that this sentence--those preceding and following be damned for now--but this sentence is one worth spending time with.

and hopefully the others will fall in place as well. let me go attend to it.