Back

Hard, as always, to settle back into one's groove after being away, even just for a few days. I'm a creature of habit--is that a good thing or a bad in this part of the world where 'disruption' is the mantra; ie, thinking 'out of the box'? I'm quite happy with my box. Probably shouldn't admit this.

The routine: mornings spent writing and reading, legs stretched out on my (made) bed, books spread around, cups of tea or coffee or hot water with lemon, a handful of almonds. Lunch a salad and fruit, then a class and the gym and maybe the library, home to more reading. Classes at the moment are 1) The art of madness given by a psychiatrist-fiction writer, an hour and a half twice a week with slides. At the moment he is talking about delusions in psychosis and the art includes Elyn Saks' book about her (high-achieving) life with schizophrenia: The Center Cannot Hold. 

2) My other class is in Classics, a graduate seminar on Plato and Eros, texts The Symposium and Phaedrus. That's 3 hours, once a week, with a long and fascinating reading list of secondary texts and terrific discussions among the dozen or so participants, several of them auditors like me.

I'm also reading Peter Handke, lots of poets, of course, including Kenneth Koch, Douglas Dunn and Hardy--and following the political situation here much too closely, like everyone I know.