afternoon

Lovely, soft-aired day today, with bouts of very frisky wind, but mellowly sunny, not too hot, not too too cold. I spent a fair portion of the day revising and lopping wordage from a somewhat difficult story that has been out into the world quite a few times but hasn't been getting any love. Once that's done, out it goes again; another one, that's gotten a lot of love, but no takers, also needs to go out again.

Some of that revising time I spent sitting outside the cafe under our big old tree. So nice.

Also did the usual cleaning and week-end chores.

Now, sitting in clean loft, the afternoon is golden, the wind still soft, but with coolness in it, tossing the firecracker plant on the balcony.  I can hear the slightly absurd repeating scary-carnival music of the ice cream truck that circles and circles the neighborhood, occassional dog barks, some traffic. Sula watches the firecracker plant shadows, Aristotle sleeps.

Things I have been contemplating recently: extinction; urban utopias as eco-choice; jook, which is "Chinese chicken soup," essentially just very basmati rice cooked long and slow with lots of extra water (6:1 ratio), supposedly very very good for the digestion--what I have been contemplating are things to add to it to make it good, beyond either a little salt or sweet. Like, some of the chai-infused maple syrup D sent me for Hanukkah...