home for the holidays?

sigh. i'd meant to get an early day in to get some of the novel done, but holidays inspire lassitude. it's 10 a.m. now and i've just managed to peel myself off the bed.

it's Deepavali, which suggests to my mind--erroneously or not--that 1) the Indian population of Spore City must be predominantly South Indian, 2) it would probably be a good idea to avoid places dominated by Indians today, unless I feel like soaking up some culture--which--as sociopathic as all this suggests--i don't. i just want to find someplace i can write. and 3), to put it briefly and inaccurately, time is a social contract. happy new year.

the landlord's grandson has me worried; i should know better but really i don't. it's probably nothing. the boy was born about a week before i arrived, which makes him a good eight-plus-probably-nine months now, and his most common verbalization is a high-pitched shriek. what worries me about it is how monotonous it is; it doesn't vary at all, almost like the singular call of some flightless bird. but it's probably nothing. there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with his hearing, and he seems to interact appropriately with his surroundings, he's already started walking a bit, smiles adorably--er, socially--and he does babble every now and then. it's probably nothing, although learning last night that my friend Klur's five month old Sophia now says 'mama', and has been saying 'papa' for quite some time now, had me wondering even more. but it's all probably nothing.

good God, i'm going to be one of those paranoid dads, aren't i?

still listening to Iron & Wine and Devendra Banhart, and i've just piled library copies of M. John Harrison's Signs of Life, P.G. Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters and the Pocket Penguin Jeeves and the Impending Doom, and Anton Chekhov's The Kiss (also Pocket Penguin) on top of the stack of books i'd planned on getting through before making another trip to the bookstore--or the library. oops.

i'd mistakenly indicated that i'd gotten through two-thirds of the first series of Jeeves & Wooster, when in fact i was four-fifths of the way through the series because there are only five episodes in the series, not six as i'd initially thought. so i'm done with the first series, and look forward to the second. most certainly, sir.

10:29. right. time i tried to get something done.