Why Must Weekends End?
April 30
Where does a boy begin?
So, on Saturday, I had a visit from M'ris. It was just exactly the sort of thing I needed. We had lunch at Saturn, and went to the bookstore and the bread store and the coffee shop. We talked about Norse mythology (I'm pretty ignorant of that whole pantheon, and M'ris filled some of the gaps in my knowledge). M'ris found lots of books, as you might have read in her journal. I found lots of books I wanted to buy, but I restrained myself, and only bought William Spencer's Irrational Fears.
Oh, I never gave my verdict on Margaret and I: It's good. It's my favorite of Wilhelm's books that I've read (having also read Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang and Juniper Time). It's a cool book, about big ideas, and while I don't think it's perfect, it had an effect on me. A curiously cumulative effect-- my reaction to it built up, and I went from being mildly interested at the beginning to being genuinely moved by the time I finished it. I think the prose rather plods along, for the most part, and when it becomes more than workmanlike it tends to get vague... but that's just Wilhelm's writing style. I can accept that it doesn't work for me.
Oh, I read one of her lawyer/crime novels, too, a couple of years ago. I'm not really familiar enough with the genre to say if it was a good example of the field or not... I thought it was okay. Can't remember which one it was, though. Certainly it didn't attempt to tackle the larger emotional and social issues that Wilhelm takes on/used to take on in her science fiction.
After M'ris departed on Saturday, I hopped in the car and drove to Oakland to visit Heather (she's hardly sick a bit anymore, for those following along-- still getting over the trailing ends of her cold, but she definitely seems to be on an upswing). She made asparagus soup (I helped, in that I chopped some things). Quite yummy. We drank wine and talked and argued about books and writing and subjectivity. Faulkner vs. Hemingway. Symbolism. "Greatness." Nice, English-majory and writerly stuff.
She verbally, informally critiqued some of my stories that she's read-- and she's a good critic. Extremely good. Articulate, demanding, supportive. She would've been a holy terror at Clarion West, really pushing people to push themselves. I don't doubt she'll get into Clarion another year. In the meantime, I'm pleased to say that she's agreed to become one of my first readers. Yay! Another respected viewpoint!
I crashed, and the next morning Heather and I walked around Oakland and went to Mama's Royal Café for breafast/brunch. I had some amazingly good hashbrowns and some weird lemon chicken sausage. Good, but weird. The afternoon went by in a sort of pleasant haze-- I washed dishes from the night before and sang along with the Indigo Girls, and we read poetry to one another and talked about performances and such. David came over to have dinner with us, providing pasta and sauce, while Heather made garlic bread, and I sat and smiled and looked cute and appreciatively ate lots when they were finished preparing the food. We watched the Simpsons.
I stayed in Oakland about as late as I possibly could, because we kept having such good conversation, I didn't want to leave. I got home around 12:30, prepared to fall over into bed... and found myself wide-awake. So I stayed up until 2 a.m., reading journals and writing e-mail. Tra la. I fall back into my usual patterns with such ease.
Good weekend. Extraordinarily good. They've been like that, lately. It's joyful-making.
Oh, mad props to Jenn for her recent acceptance from Speculon! Whee! And for (maybe) settling on a cool name for her new company. And for just generally being Jenn, and really cool.
