Dear Diary: Feed Me
The list of the objects in the little photo this evening will give you an idea of my general condition this morning. Not unduly grave, but not very promising, either.
In the old days (until about three weeks ago), I’d have “taken the day off,” sitting in my reading chair with a compulsively readable book — feeling guilty, but not guilty enough to put the book down and get to work. This is the moral hazard of self-employment.
Today, however, I was too terrified by my hopper at Google Reader. Over 500 feeds! There could be no thought of leaving that avalanche on course.
And then there was Outlook — acting up on three computers! JM to the rescue — but remotely, requiring me to pay at least nominal attention. Chatting in three separate Team Viewer boxes, plus Gmail exchanges: a thoroughly modern dilly.
After I had finished working for the day, and consumed a late-night bowl of elbows al burro (Kathleen will be working late this week, I’ve been advised), and after the Nano playlist to which I’d listened all day came to an end, I had the sublime pleasure of sinking into the reading chair at last, and feeling, instead of guilty, utterly virtuous. The book, which arrived this afternoon, was Gillian Tett’s Fool’s Gold, an account of derivatives trading on Wall Street and how it metastasized into the tumor that nearly killed us all last year. Three little words: buy this book. Lucid, smart, and engaging, it will bring you up to speed despite your worst misgivings.
I even sat outside for a while. (That was before I went to collect the mail.) I was reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Mavis Gallant interview in the new Granta. It was so involving that I pulled down one of the NYRB Gallant editions and re-read her nonpareil story, “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street.”
As I expected, working hard (if not very efficiently) left me feeling much, much better at the end of the day than at the beginning.