Reading completed: Andre Malraux's Man's Fate.
Reading begun: Ovid Demaris' Brothers in Blood.
I don't know what track I'm on, but I seem to be staying on it.
Somewhere back inside the past decade, the novel got too long my devotions; for leisured reading, magazines sufficed. Features and news better matched the bachelor life off the dance floor, away from the computer, and apart from the love affair with my guitar.
In transition here, about 18 months after the building fire in Laurel, about a year into the move to Hagerstown, and with a girl and her cat coming aboard (I am as uncomfortable going back as I am going forward), the business of "settling down" takes on the meaning of settling back into a dream and lifestyle appropriate to the change in domestic arrangements and the partner. It feels wrenching, and it tires me, but it's happening, and suddenly the prospect of reading through whole days (as I'm not going out dancing, not socializing through town with my guitar, and seem to have a tsunami of responsibilities heading my way) seems to have taken on new sense.
I have captions to write today for the 26 chapters worth of print files mailed to Johns Hopkins University Press on Monday, and there's some singing practice to get in before heading out with Anne to play a private party this weekend, but the main thing seems to be digging into the next main thing and coming up with sufficient joy and competence in it to bring in some money. Certainly, photography has to take the lead for a practical dollar, but one wants more substantial reserves for one's 70's, and that's less than 20 years away.
She's counting on kids too.
I want to grow my income, and I want to feel good about it, and if I crawl on top of the journalism, editorial or other services for clientele, or turn to fiction, all of that makes sense of reading books again.
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