I'm just a cock-eyed pessimist

Proust is at page 176 (Sodom and Gomorrah). He's in Balbec (St. Malo) right now, moping about his grandmother being dead. Reading it makes me miss my grandmother, but I wasn't a self-absorbed jerk like he was when she died so I didn't just get hit with it a year later. I'd put in a quote from the book only as I'm at work I must be brief - just ramping up for the day and I've been distracted by getting a "your mailbox is over its size limit" email.

Also, I discovered last night that I've been toting around a copy of The Eyre Affair for a while now - a pretty, American trade paperback. That said, I'd really like to get my hands on Volume 2 as I'm in dire need of a bit of light reading to counterbalance the Proust. Does anyone out there have Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde?

Well, finding a hotel in Lisbon is proving to be a pain. The hotel I thought looked most interesting (per the Rick Steves description) is totally booked; the Britania is painfully expensive, and while the Orion Eden Apartment Hotel is certainly available, it isn't very interesting.


That said, suddenly this hotel, which shadowdaddy found on Frommers, is looking very attractive. Maybe it's just because their website plays lovely Fado - it certainly doesn't state the prices, but it seems to be much better designed than most of the other sites, despite being substantially useless. We shall call them tonight and see if can get a reservation.

I'm working late and taking short lunches this week, trying to make up for leaving early on Friday. This meant that by the time 6 rolled around ... I was brain dead. No Pilates to me, just a quick drink with shadowdaddy at Sfizio's (tried their strawberry daiquiri, yum!) then home, standing all the way, on the train from Waterloo.

It's Guy Fawkes night and, as we headed over Waterloo Bridge, fireworks were going off behind the National Theater, blue and purple and gold pinwheels behind the dark blue walls of the theater. We could still see them flashing as we got out in the little corridor between buildings that is the stop for Waterloo East. At home, we settled down on the couch and continued watching them through the windows: through the leaves of the tree across the street, behind the apartments across the river, and some kind of booming whiteout hidden by an office right next to the bridge that made it look like central London was getting blitzed again. We had bowls of beef stew made out of the leftovers from last night and peeped up and went ooh and then got back to the busy business of eating (and getting things together for our trip this weekend). Later I added some barley to the stew, and it's even better now than it was.

So now it's past 10 and I'm done for the night; I actually packed so we'll be pretty well ready to go after what's going to be a busy week (Glengarry Glen Ross tonight, dance at the Barbican Wednesday, and Aida on Thursday) without too much fuss. It's amazing to read about how I was feeling this time last year; tonight feels like it's nothing but pure relaxation.