Having a very low activity day after what has felt like a very active couple of weeks. The main activity has been pushing through to the end of Lee Smith's Family Linen, which I had picked up somewhere used and I guess I started reading it because it is a rare book in the "pocket paperback" format which used to be so popular but no longer is, for whatever reason (is it because Boomers aged and their eyesight got weaker? Or is it that trade paperbacks offer booksellers higher margins?).
In any case, I took it with me when I went North to fetch Natalie the week before last because it would be less heavy in my bag, but it proved to be pretty slow going. Smith is a little too dedicated to the Rashomon trick of having many narrators tell a story from many perspectives. It is also quintessentially low on plot and long on texture, focusing as it does on intergenerational stuff in a small southern town. So no car chases. Yet it rewarded persistence, at long last, because there was a there there.
Otherwise, Graham is pulling his first shift as a Lake Forest staffer, while Natalie was out for a walk with a friend as she and Mary prepare for blast off headed west tomorrow. I know that Natalie's excited, while Mary is perhaps more apprehensive, as it will be her first cross-country drive. But they're gonna have a good time, as they've budgeted plenty of time to do it, and it will be their longest jaunt together ever. It will be all good. It had better be.
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