The days tick away with little writing to show for them, for I am without deadline. My brain percolates with the upcoming first drafts and with the future re-writes, while I consume, consume, consume. All of the Big Bang Theory on DVD, loads of Daria, the last bit of House, the newest of the new Doctor Who, half a dozen books on the Middle Ages (which I delve into and out of like a drinking bird), and whatever "sample!" floats across my Kindle, disappoints, and gets deleted... or excites and gets bought, but not read.

I have been semi-social, even. Though I owe splash_the_cat a night on the town to see A-Team, and mebbe an evening's coze. Having one's best bud give birth leads one to think nostalgically of Anne of Green Gables--or well, it makes me think of it. I feel compelled to bring her raspberry cordials and whatnot. Of course, she hates anything raspberry flavored except raspberries themselves, so it's not going to be that. But my point is, I feel the necessity of The Visit. Maybe it's because she's scarce on the internet and not working in the building next door? But I feel like old-fashioned social conventions that surpass mere Hanging Out are in play. I wish I could explain it better, but that would require thinking about it more, and really, I have stuff to do, and when I run out of stuff, I have Visits to make.

Anyway, semi-sociality involved journeying off to Eastern Market and John King Books (s'posedly, the largest used bookstore in the midwest) with sunnydecho. Eastern Market is a farmer's market in Detroit that's been held on the same location since 1891 (though the progenitor market dates from fifty years or more prior to that). One forgets, sometimes, how long Detroit has been settled by Europeans. Again, "one" means "me." In any case, in all the years I've lived in Southeastern Michigan, I never made it to Eastern Market, and didn't even know what it was, exactly. I tell you though--when you go to it, you have a hard time believing Detroit is bleeding. Well. Driving there and back, you can believe it...

The bookstore is four stories, and, well. Powell's in Portland is certainly bigger, or seems it, but it isn't more curious. King Books is located in an old glove factory, and when one goes down the aisles, one must pull the cord to turn the lights on and off oneself. It reeks of books. It is generally unheated (no problem on the sweltering day we were there), and contains "warming stations" in the stairwells for chilled shoppers in the winter. And it has--well, not everything, but a lot. I found the Childcraft Encyclopedia I grew up reading at my cousin's house--not a complete set, so I didn't feel bad taking only the "Fables and Legends" volume (vol. 2) that I read over and over as a kid. I was shocked to open it up and see some terribly racist drawings inside--I'd blanked those out completely--so it'll be... an experience... to read through the stories I only half remember. I know there was another volume I re-read often, and I think it was volume 1, but that was gone.

Work has been slower, but veered into anxiety-producing nightmare territory for a little bit, before veering back. We are in the process of replacing our furnace. We are learning how to live with a cleaning service (it's not as easy as it looks). I bought a new computer, and after a failed attempt to install my wireless card myself (I figured out the mechanical bits rather handily, but my card was so old as to be entirely decrepit, though I swear I've only had the card a couple years), let Dann figure it out. (He figured it out by installing a different wireless device altogether. Oh.) Anyway, the file moving cha-cha slowed things down a bit, and I haven't yet managed to install Office. Mom is coming tomorrow; a friend of ours from North Carolina whose mother lives in Grosse Pointe is coming into town to spend some time with us Friday, and then it's off to the lake with diabetic cat and super-perky guinea pigs in tow.

In other words, life. Busytimes.