O is painting watercolor hearts with a friend at the dining room table.
G is playing x-box with a friend who brought it over-- games he doesn't have in his limited collection of Wii games.
Homemade tomato garlic soup is on the stove.
Sink is full of dishes.
House smells of quesadillas, douglas fir...
I am lying fully clothed under the covers with the computer on my lap. Taking advantage of not having too many obligations just right this second. I do feel like some exercise would do me good after grading papers for the last three weeks without (it seems) moving. Tomorrow, movement. I'll be painting tomorrow-- that'll get me moving a little. And maybe it won't be raining. And I'll be caught up with my sleep.
Finished re-reading The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I had been thinking about that book, but haven't read it since... when? College? I must have read it since then, no? It reminded me why I really like her writing, and how much her prose style has influenced mine, how much I learned about images by reading her books and short stories, even the more heavy-handed ones. The weird thing is that I remembered Offred actually being pregnant and actually having the baby in the novel... and I won't give anything away, but it is a little different than that. Strange. So maybe it has been that long since I read it. I remember I wrote an essay on it in college about cultivating a pearl-- and I focused on the image of the women being like pearls. I could have sworn that I talked about her daughter as a pearl. But that wasn't in the book! And there were only one or two mentions of pearls at all. I must have really milked that image!
Plans: I would like to write letters this week, for once, and feel like a good girl. Especially for my grandma. Maybe bake. Definitely make and eat more soup.
