Coffee musings

I once knew a woman who began every morning by taking a photograph of the sunrise. She lived in a building high on Twin Peaks and had a spectacular view of San Francisco. Neat ritual, I thought, and have always wanted to do something like that. Lack the vision and the skill.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday, and I didn't even remember it.

Still struggling along with Universal Identifier. Don't think I've ever felt so disconnected from something I'm writing -- probably because when I get to this point of disconnect, I generally stop writing and pick up something else. But I am determined to finish it. Frankly, it feels like solving a particularly complicated algorithmic equation.

Woke up in the middle of the night and read for a couple of hours — finished Skull Mantra which I kind of liked but which I also had a hard time losing myself in. Very opaque prose style with no cozy hooks. Well plotted. Also finished Walter Mosely's Black Betty which was badly plotted, but abounded in cozy prose hooks. Somewhere there's a middle ground. Finally, fell back to sleep and had a wonderful dream -- all I can remember is that I was hiking up a river canyon, looking over at a glacier which was somehow frozen and liquid at the same time. As I watched, a pair of blue whales came jumping over the from the frozen water down into the river. One of them winked at me.

Max has discovered aftershave and Dave Brubeck. Robin won a reading award at school yesterday. One of his classmates' mothers approached me as I stood disassembling camera equipment, and said, "You know, Robin may be the most beautiful child I've ever seen."