The sun, although shining in a bright, attractive sun-like way, seems to have stopped working entirely. The wind chills are negative. I learned something new and semi-interesting. I stood in front of hte back door in my satin-y jammies (pants + long-sleeved top) and made the mistake of opening the back door. A blast of artic wind rushed in, and it turns out the satin-y material of jammies changes temperature rapidly. It was like I was warm and cozy one minute–a la fleece–then I was wearing a sheet of ice. It was instantaneous.

Amos continues to be adorable. Ruby continues to be patient and enduring.

I’m still slogging my way through The Blind Assassin. I think this is going to be a long, hard reading challenge, this Man Booker business.

Next week, I begin the epic trek to the southwest side so I’ll have probably 15 hours of reading-on-public-transportation time, so with the distractions and transfers, that’s like 2 hours of quiet reading in the living room time.

SPEAKING of The Blind Assassin, I saw that a number of people used it for their Chunkster Challenge (500+ pages). In the dim light of my bedside lamp, I checked the page count on my edition, and though it was about 210 pages. I thought, these people must be buying the smallest page sized books they can find! I was, inexplicably, a little bit upset, like people were cheating. For some reason, as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought that from now on, I should post the size of my pages, along with the actual page count so that people would know that I am reading books that are truly an appropriate length. I also briefly considered notifying the challenge host. I am ashamed to admit I considered this on multiple occasions.

I have to stop here and mention that as I am simultaneously trying to figure out a way to rat out people I don’t know, I realize how ludicrous it is. The Buddhist in me asking myself, what’s the big whoop? What’s the real whoop, that is. When did I get so insecure about my reading abilities that I need to “correct” other people’s page counts?

I picked the book back up again the other day, and for some reason thought to re-check my page count in the clear bright of day. Lo and behold, my edition is well over 500 pages. I misread the page numbers late at night, in poor lighting.

Let’s see here, got a date for this next Friday night with the guy I went to dinner at a friend’s house with. The friend of friends who I met the old-fashioned way, for those of you keeping score. We’re going to a play. Turns out the shy man is part of a theater group! So I’m looking forward to that.

I am generally feeling more upbeat, no doubt as a result of getting out of the house quite a bit more. I’ve made more of an effort to reach out to friends and suggest dinners and whatnot, and, again, lo and behold, it’s working.

Now, if the sun would just generate a little warmth . . .