Home again home again jiggety jig. It took longer than I expected to return and I have not yet achieved full re-entry. Too many things to do and atone for after such a long absence . First, I am happy to tell you that the boxelder bugs did not stow away in any of my papers or clothes or bags. They were getting very uppity before I left and they were giving me a - not angst exactly, but a kind of a worry? - anyway, they did not come with me. Second, the decompression chamber of the train was as valuable coming home as going away. I was tired, also hungry and enjoyed resting and being pampered. I also had the time to read my book to see how it looks and to figure out what's missing. Drop it in the meat grinder and see what churns out. Third, I'm working very hard each day, physically, what with laundry and grocery shopping and starting to cook again, I mean cook, not just for me but for other people. I feel sort of numb, though. Something is happening down there in the meat grinder and I have to see what's going on. Soon.

Hey, I'm swimming again and I'm blogging again. Let's get on with it.

I mentioned that there are lines in Elias Canetti's notebooks that sound like the log lines of a play/movie/story. I don't have enough time left in my life to turn all these ideas into finished works so I'll give some of them to you and you can play with them. Again, no quotation marks, just numbers:

1) A labyrinth made of all the paths one has taken.

2) Perhaps people are able to distinguish only among a discrete number of faces, and when that number is exceeded, perhaps after a certain age they are receptive only to the old faces they already know, and in the new see only those.

3) The bungler who always get what he does not want.

4) He deals in retroactive secrets, so to speak.

5) The man living outside the ordinary concepts of time.

6) He no longer learns anything. He only learns to forget better.

7) He goes after the past as if it could be altered.

8) The paralyzing effects of reading old notebooks - better to remember freely.

9) I am no longer irritated by the fairy tale's happy end; I need it.

10) Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true.

Now I'll stop.