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tired, and Jane Smiley
2003-05-21 - 9:10 a.m. Uhhhh. I went home yesterday and took a nap. I didn't even really mean to -- I just lay down, and then I was asleep. Maddy called me about an hour later because she was practising the piano and there was some confusing part ... I think I must have been tired. In fact, I am still tired. Still grumpy, too. I think these two things may be related. Okay. Here are some other things: 1. I really want to go home and work on my garden. It's got to the point where I need to dig up the back yard, and I would like to do it. 2. If I were at home, I think I would like to listen to some Chopin waltzes. 3. I think I need some tea, too. 4. I finished three Junes and I still don't know what it was about. It seems to be about having children, but that may be my emphasis only. I enjoyed reading it, and was sorry when it was done. The characters were interesting and sort of perfect. Not annoyingly perfect. The man with the perfect bookstore has an unsatisfactory personal life, although he seems unsuited for any other kind. The woman with the collies has a perfect affair, and a perfect profession, but perhaps an unsatisfactory marriage and an imperfect family life. Maybe it's about how you can't have everything, but that it's still interesting? I'm not quite sure. It was a summer book, though. Full of gardens and flowers and places away -- Okay, then. More tea, and then perhaps equanimity. Bye. Oh -- I heard Jane Smiley on the radio last night. I love her -- she's extremely unpreposessing. She has a sort of high voice, and doesn't sound like anyone very special -- she gets enthusiastic about things, and seems to have no sense of herself as an Author. She just is -- she writes novels because she finds novels interesting, like puzzles or -- [other things I've forgotten.] She was very excited about Funny Cide winning the Preakness because of the way he wiggled his ears and took off. It really does seem like the essense of horse racing really is the horse. She was quoted once as saying, "There are things in my life that I've wanted, and I've gone after them, and gotten them, and generally been very happy with them." There's something wonderful about that. She wasn't smug -- she was just stating a fact. I don't think she agonizes much, or at least not publicly. Maybe that was from another radio interview -- she was discussing how she was not the creative one in 8th grade. She was the good kid who did what she was asked to do. Anyway -- maybe I'm going to have to read her new book, even though it's about real estate. Oh -- someone else called in and said that in Horse Heaven they'd had to read ahead to make sure that nothing bad would happen to one of the horses (I think the not-very-fancy horse who'd been around a lot), and she said, "Oh, I never would have let that happen," as though she cared about him as much as we did. How wonderful! I absolutely hate when writers do something bad to a character we care about, just because they can. Anyway -- then I fell asleep. --Bye.
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