wandering winnies ~

yesterday i wrote notes for myself and posted them all over the house: things to do, to take care of, to address. so far this morning i have managed to ignore them all (go me!). i wish i could say i was trying harder, but clearly i am not. i should have worked on my homework this morning, but i foodled and noodled the time away, as usual.

in writing: i am playing the what-if game trying to make something work. that's all.

in reading: couple of wee books for the 50bookchallenge from W.D. Howells (who i have curiously never read before):

no. 60 ~ Evening Dress: a Farce. incredibly silly, but delightful story about an evening party to which a couple must attend for the sake of certain social graces. but the husband is dead tired, having just arrived from a long trip. the wife is in a tizzy, gives him a dozen instructions to meet her there, and of course, he promptly falls asleep. he's awakened by a friend and hilarity ensues as they try to get him ready for the party in time, unable to find his evening dress coat, and tearing apart the dressing room looking for it. lots of very silly and entertaining reversals. was very charmed by this.

no. 61 ~ A Parting and a Meeting. bizarre story of a pair of young lovers; an ardent schoolmaster and a high-strung young woman who, on their engagement, go to visit a Shaker town that the girl visited with her grandfather in previous years. insert intervening chapters of endless tedium about getting there, meeting the brothers and sisters, talking endless about nothing, and finally, when it is time to leave, the two get the proselytizing pitches to join the community. the girl laughs it off, but her affianced is quite taken with the whole affair. they quarrel on the way home and he leaves her in the middle of the road. she's kind of a ninny, so you almost understand why, but the whole thing is absurd, really. sixty years later, they meet again: she's still a ninny and he's a doddering old Shaker who scarcely remembers her. the end. er...what?

apparently Howell's farces are better than his "serious" fiction.

and that's about enough of this.

: o p