Vacation stats.

Reading: aforementioned Kiki Strike. Finished The Yiddish Policemen's Union, as well as Come Up and See Me Sometime (Erika Krouse, short stories). Read in Notarikon (Catharine Bowman, poems); Mortal Everlasting and Rumor of Cortez (Jeffrey Levine, poems); Grave of Light (Alice Notley, poems); Walking to Martha's Vineyard (Franz Wright, poems); Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism (Rosemary Hennessy, literary/cultural theory). Started Falling Man, and it is gorgeous.

Excellent vacation innovation: iPod loaded with 8000 songs. Thrilling!

Deep thoughts: I have had several. In fact, quite a few.

Quality of the light and air: splendid, restorative, chimerical, both still and moving.

Natural observations: several seals lying on a rock in Noyo Harbor (by Ft. Bragg); numerous hummingbirds in the garden; several fat and communicative chickens; blackberries growing everywhere; poison oak (no actual encounters).

Excellent purchase: a variety of French notebook that is, for me, kind of like that one kind of cookie in Proust (is a madeleine a cookie or a cake?).

Overheard at breakfast this a.m.: People talking about the concert last night at the Mendocino Music Festival--about whether they were familiar with "the Mahler" and/or "the Brahms." Funny, at least a little. "The Mahler." (Sort of like "the Todd" in Scrubs?)

Guilty fact: I still like to watch a little television at night, even when I'm in a location such as this. Is that bad?

Still to do: another tramp or two in the headlands around Mendocino; a little more desultory shopping, including little presents for people back home; more deep thoughts and note-taking in the French notebook; more reading. We have been cooking in (it's our favorite kind of vacation, where we can buy good food and cook at home--it's playing house in a different locale, I guess), so two more dinners. (also, a little television to watch.)