I'm A Franzen Fiend

Sunrise this morning was spectacular. And what a surprise: Today is, I think, our fifth without rain. It’s been a wonderful break from Winter. Showers are predicted for tomorrow, but then sunshine is expected to return until Wednesday next. 

I’m terribly excited that I’ll be able to do yard work and enjoy long uplifting walks on dry land with Her Highness.

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I’ve made plans for my Spring break; it’ll be a test of my recovery for sure. I’m going to Vancouver for a few days. I’m leaving here early in the morning on March 5^th and coming back mid-day on the 8^th. It will be brutal to be away from Sheba, I’m so overwhelmingly attached to her.

I’ve been lining up things to do to test my capacity to cope and ending my visit at the Voice Clinic with Dr. Shoja. The goal is to end my outpatient status by doing well at all the tasks I set myself. 

I’ll see some friends I haven’t see in ages, and that’ll be fun. But I’ll be spending a lot of time alone taking on tasks that have, in the past, caused me great distress. A highlight will be walking the seawall alone as I used to do almost every day for years until it became too distressing for me.

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I’m almost to page two hundred of the third novel authored by Jonathan Franzen. I’ve read one right after the other. I find him to be a highly engaging writer; he has a rich vocabulary, dry humour and an astounding understanding of human motivation. His novels begin with a very simple opening scene and then we get a skillfully woven backstory of each of the characters in that scene.

I’ve read fourteen hundred pages of his writing over the past month and I could read as many more. But I’ve four new books, each by different authors, to read next. Reading is my new drug. One of my favourite books, ever, is Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, so I’m ordering a memoire he has written called The Tennis Partner and as soon as his new novel, The Maramon Convention, comes out, I’ll be getting it too.

Reading is easy in Winter. I’ve so much time and the fire to encourage me. But come summer, my first without major yard projects do undertake, I seriously am looking forward to reading in my hammock or on my deck in sunshine and heat. Yum!