Ukrainian Rabbis are A LOT of Work

Shoveled another foot or so of snow that had fallen during the night from the porch, stairs, front yard, driveway and sidewalks. I'll say this for shoveling snow: It is real exercise. Have slept like a baby two nights in a row now. Sleep is good.

Would have needed an ice ax and a dog sled to make it into the office.

Did venture out to the library in the late afternoon, which was like an adventure straight out of a Jack London novel. Except for the snow routes, most of Poughkeepsie's streets remained unploughed and most of the sidewalks unshoveled even in the business district.

And the fucking library was closed.

S2 took me out to dinner at the Ice House and gave me a raspberry-colored chemise-y thing, which was more of a Valentine's gift for him than it was for me, but wotever, dude. Valentine's Day is a stoopid holiday, which I would prefer to ignore.

Also, B sent me an electronic tablet loaded with like 200 history e-books. I don't think he realized it would reach me on 2/14 making it a somewhat inappropriate gift for a woman he'd walked out on in a distinctly scoundrel-like fashion, but it did, so naturally I had to ponder that symbolism.

B and I continue to text frequently but the ether between us grows thinner. He's grown very curmudgeonly. I don't know whether that's the weather, his disease process or events going on in his personal life. Mostly we talk about the weather, and books we're reading, and TV shows or movies we've both seen, and of course, RTT. When I told him about the karma PI project, he immediately came up with a plot involving Coney Island, a murdered girl, a Ukrainian Rabbi and Nazis.

A Ukrainian Rabbi would require waaay too much research.

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I'm thinking the story takes place in Oakland. Why? Well, for one thing, I know Oakland very, very well. For another, I have a soft spot for old rustbelt cities that are trying to reinvent a relevance for themselves in the post-manufacturing economy.

I'm thinking one character is a legendary rockstar living in seclusion with his heroin habit somewhere in Montclair. I'm thinking the rockstar had a thing for underage girls.

I'm thinking the rockstar has an Evil Girlfriend who is actually the one who murdered the underage girls.

I'm thinking a corpse is found on the grounds of a dilapidated Berkeley estate that's finally selling to a Google gazillionaire after being on the market for 20 years. The estate has an indoor swimming pool modeled after the one at the Berkeley City Club. There is actually such a house in Berkeley -- I went to Erica's 50th birthday party there and swam in the pool. The house is close to the border with Kensington.



I'm thinking the hero is the real estate agent. Not sure whether the real estate agent is male or female. My pal Ren was actually a real estate agent at one time. She gave it up to become a Buddhist monk, which fits this plotline.

I suppose what I really need to do is sit down with Saints of the Shadow Bible, map it to see how the actions and reveals unfold, and then write an outline based on that map using my plot points.