What Happened to Saturday Night? And Sunday for that Matter, Too?

 I started writing up my research Saturday morning around 7. The neck stiffened up too much around 11, so I laid down until noon. Then it was out to The Downtown Farmstand for lunch and then laundry.

The Downtown Farmstand has transformed itself into a bistro Thursday through Saturday from 10 AM to 2 PM. They offered braised short ribs for $20 which were excellent and filling. Check them out.

I came back here after 4:30. That the number 2 bus only runs on the hour Saturdays, and it was raining, had me riding the #1 out to the west side. Well, it did give me a chance to see Muncie - in all its gray, wet gloom.

CC called me Saturday night. Her COPD (it was TB before) was acting up. She has sold her car, so I doubt I will be seeing her. Not that I am so keen on it. She seems to have gotten worse since she left the last rehab. That she knows she has to stay clean around me will also keep her away - which is why I think I have not seen her since November. I think she is in a death spiral and there is nothing I can do for her. At least, I can say I did not help her.

Then it was back to writing. I knocked off before midnight.

Sunday morning I slept in a little - 7:30. That gave me 2 hours before I would leave for church. Liturgy was good. The priest joined the little group I was sitting with. Serbian-born, he is quite a good man.

The rest of the day was spent finishing up my writing, rearranging the work area, warming up my pork stew, and finishing the night off on Netflix with The Mother. My eyes were burnt out, and my brain needed a rest, so a lightweight action movie with Jennifer Lopez seemed like a good idea. It has a major plot hole that gets covered by a mother-daughter issue. 

All in all, I spent the last two days ingesting too much nicotine and caffeine, but I think the work is some of my best.

Of course, the emails were neglected, so I am doing some reading this morning - I woke before the alarm and decided to get moving (with the aid of caffeine and nicotine, of course).

Like book reviews from The Brisbane Times that came in last Thursday.

Was it a series of bad decisions that brought down the Romanovs?

Nicholas’s character was his fate, argues Hasegawa, and it was the fundamental absence of a higher purpose at its heart, allowing him to be dominated by his German-born wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, that led to the Tsar’s disastrous decisions.

Most influential of these was his action of September 1915 in naming himself commander-in-chief (amazing to learn he wasn’t until that point) over a thoroughly demoralised body of soldiers battered and bruised by a year of humiliating losses on the battlefield.

Then there is their page of short reviews, which I think do what go reviews should do - make the books interesting enough to read. With Japanese fantasy, espionage and colonial adventure: Eight new books I cannot think of one that does not tempt me - even those that might be considered outside my wheelhouse.

I read one of McCarthy's books while in prison - my memory is not up to the ask of retrieving the title right now and I am too strained for time to go looking for a referesher - but it was not The Group. I was think McCarthy was getting obscure until one of the LitHub newsletters came through with What Elites Got Wrong About Mary McCarthy’s The Group (LitHub) 

I am weak-minded, so I could not resist LitHub's 25 Legendary Literary Feuds, Ranked.

Ted Gioia's How to Achieve Immortality; Let's look at the options is one of the most brilliant things I have read in ages. Great advice for living. What good is immortality if one does not aspire to creating a better world?

I read two reviews that I suggest reading together - the second shows the first one the real magic of Elvis.

Occult Elvis: was Presley a telepathic demigod who could heal the sick and change the weather? (The Guardian)

The Young Dead (Los Angeles Review of Books)

Tom Robbins died. More on that later.

I need to leave for work, this is where I leave you.

sch