sunday

So anyway, it was a really wet start to the day, and that is all the excuse I needed to stay inside and finish the book I was reading, Find Me by Andre Aciman. I don't do that as often as I'd like, sit and read all morning, but I'm glad that I did, and I decided to feel no guilt about it. The only downside is that I now have to choose another book to read, and I've decided on a re-read, so it's either going to be Howards End by E.M. Forster, or The History of Mr Polly by H.G. Wells. I've read both of these twice each before and I love them equally. I've been trying to decide between them all day, and I can't, so I think the best way to solve this crisis is to read the first line of each and let my gut decide on that evidence alone. I've only just noticed that both writers use two initials instead of a first name. Do I even know their first names?

After I finished reading, I picked up a drawing (of fishes) that I had started a month, or more, ago and just never got around to finishing. I'm using a limited palette of coloured pencils because a) I'm not an artist, and b) I have no fancy art supplies, only a tube of pencils that someone gifted me at Christmas. The picture is for my bathroom wall. I couldn't find an image that I liked, to buy, and a friend said to me 'Why not draw a picture of something you do like?' So that's how this is happening. Also, fish is when you have several fish of the same species, fishes is when you have several fish but of different species. My picture is definitely of fishes, not necessarily intentionally.

As I was drawing I was listening to Joni Mitchell, the Blue album, because I wanted to hear Both Sides Now. When it finished, the track and the album, Apple Music (like the shady dealer it is) pushed some Nick Drake onto me, and his voice really cut through.

I've been working on a John Mann short story, I'm sure I've mentioned this before, or at least the desire to write such a story. It's going really slowly. I'm sure I wrote at least one of the full length stories more quickly than I'm writing this short one. Anyway, it needed something... it was missing 'something' and I've been struggling to find it, and then today I think I did. It might be a metaphor, and mis-direction, and foreshadowing. It might be all three. Holy hell.

And then it stopped raining and the sun came out, so I got to go for a walk after all. And I noticed that the lilac tree is in flower, but it's white. We have white lilac.