Ah, the post-turkey languor sets in...

I'm munching on stuffing and sipping pumpkin-spice coffee; there's turkey soup on the stove, and John and Elain left the Maker's Mark here when they left--oops--so I'm looking forward to a pleasant day of relaxed dining. The only thing on my agenda until Tuesday morning is finishing up my students' exams, calculating their grades, and writing my teacher comments. I'll try to get some editing done on my basketball essay at some point, too, but I foresee for today nothing more imposing than a lengthy session of reading of Terry Pratchett's new novel, Night Watch, and a little time spent playing Animal Crossing on the kids' GameCube.

Hey, I deserve the day off. I spent Wednesday on the phone with my publisher, hammering out the last few details of the manuscript before it's typeset. These last few details occupied about three hours, which is more time than I've spent on the phone in the last year--all calls combined. I don't like the phone. It offers all the disadvantages of writing (You can't get facial cues, make gestures, or quickly detect subtle nuances in tone) with all the disadvantages of conversation (You can't carefully prepare what you want to say, organize your thoughts, or delete your mistakes). And of course, when the topic of conversation is a book you've been revising nearly nonstop for the past seven years, it's hard not to hang up. Even when you recognize that the changes being made are useful and valuable, part of you is screaming "We've DONE that bit already! Put down the phone and go help with the kitchen prep!"

(As it happens, I did nothing whatsoever to prep the kitchen. Kelly took charge of it completely. I restricted myself to cleanup and a little light shopping.)

Yesterday, alas, we violated the spirit of Buy Nothing Day because the friends with whom we wished to shop were leaving today. (If it'll help, I'm not buying anything today...) We went to the Green Valley Book Fair outside Harrisonburg, which is something akin to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for bibliophiles. There are a full two and a half warehouses of marked down and/or remaindered books, and the selection is simply outstanding. I saw (and in some cases purchased) works by many of my favorite contemporary writers--Jim Crace, Charles Johnson, Neal Stephenson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Tim McLaurin, Ralph Wiley, and even Pratchett--and spotted plenty of old favorites to boot: Shakespeare, Twain, Woolf, Yeats, Hopkins, you name it. My friend John snagged one thing I wish I'd seen, a copy of the Everyman Library's Mabinogion, but I was otherwise extremely pleased with everything I grabbed and felt as though I'd done as good a scouring of the place as possible in 90 minutes. Mind you, I barely tapped the history section, and didn't even look at the children's books, the gardening books, the mysteries, the religion books, etc., so perhaps a really good scouring takes a wee bit longer.

I'm very thankful for friends, family, books, and the plenty we enjoy.

And tomorrow Kelly's making waffles.

Pretty much the perfect holiday.
11:40 AM

.................................