By day eight of vacation, the hours began to run together in that sloppy way. Carefully set plans for home organization or other projects were pushed aside for naps and wandering with the thought that there's always later. (Naps and wandering are fine on their way, mind you). Walked over to the mall, lured by thoughts of sales and good deals. The place was ransacked. My only purchases were a pine-scented candle, to keep Christmas spirit if not in the heart then in the nostrils all year round, and some scented glycerin soaps. There's a cat urine scent in the apartment that I am constantly in battle with (maybe--I might be imagining it).
Will and his fiance Katie came over for dinner later in the evening to celebrate the New Year. He disappeared to the wilds of northern New Jersey back in June with barely a good-bye, only leaving a television set as a remembrance. Katie is now teaching English literature to sophomores at a Catholic high school--she needed suggestions for some books for her students to read. My recommendations had some reservations. A Taste of Honey is a play and a novel was needed. High school students need to know where Morrissey took all his good lines. None of three novels by Denton Welch were quite right either, especially with the back cover pull quote about "reeking with homosexuality". Absolute Beginners has an awful movie to its credit so the students wouldn't be able to watch that instead of reading the book. However, my final choice was Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner because everyone loves an Angry Young Man novel. Holden Caulfield would be an absolute beast to have to deal with in real life, but in print he and his ilk are manageable and even charming.
While finishing up the dishes around 2.30 am, one of Brian's glasses from his Temporama collection slipped from my hand and shattered in the sink. 2004 begins with broken glass and a bloody finger.
