I can't believe I didn't wear a coat.

All last winter that is. I was paying the AIR CONDITIONING bill yesterday and my fingers were FREEZING. On the news the other night, they were interviewing a young boy who was snow boarding. He said that the previous week, he was WATERSKIING. I guess I shouldn't complain as the conditions were much worse (colder) in the interior of our country. I love fall, don't get me wrong, it is the touch of WINTER in the air that has really got me down. Also the realization that, now that I am retired, I will be paying for my own heat during the daylight hours.

Have been finishing up books like crazy. Soon, I will have so few books by the bed that it will be time for an ANXIETY attack. Any less than five and I start to feel deprived. I will write down some thoughts before I return these books to the library. The two books of essays BOTH had an essay about CRYONICS!?!?
- The mansion of happiness : a history of life and death, by Jill Lepore, included topics such as parenting, aging, and when does life begin and end. My favorite essay was called The children's room and discussed children's literature authors, such as E.B.White, and the beginning of separate juvenile collections in libraries. And the conception of librarians battling over Stuart Little and other books! This book wasn't really such an EASY read, but it brought forth a lot of interesting tidbits of facts. Jill Lepore is a columnist for the New Yorker, which is why I made my librarian buy her book.
- Don't get too comfortable, by David Rakoff. Ever since I heard a bit on NPR about the death of David Rakoff, I have been obsessed with reading his work. I "discovered" him after his death. He is "that guy who sounds like David Sedaris but isn't". He is Canadian and has been on NPR and written for various magazines in a humerous fashion. He also appeared in a Broadway show with Amy and David Sedaris. He's Jewish, gay, prematurely balding and died too young of cancer. My favorite part is in an essay called J.D.V., M.I.A. (Joie de vivre, Missing in action) about a late-night scavenger hunt played in the streets of lower manhattan called Midnight madness. "I am not fun at all. In fact, I am anti-fun. Not as in anti-violence, but as in anti-matter. I am not so much against fun -- although I suppose I kind of am -- as I am the direct opposite of fun. I suck the fun out of a room. Or perhaps I'm just a different kind of fun : the kind that leaves one bereft of hope; the kind of fun that ends in tears."