January 7, 2020

Wonderful day. Lots of PR and manuscript work done. Went downtown and dropped a load of NSDL off at Malaprop’s which seemed glad to be getting them.  Someday I’ll have a REAL publisher which. . .  ah, well. Also lunch with Jason Schneider, whom I’d met at our Red Hen reading in New York. He’s teaching at Warren Wilson’s low-residency these recent weeks. What pleasure I took in his company and in his conversation! He reminds me, if I needed to be reminded, of the advantages of living, as he does, in the Center of the World. I knew none of the gossip, and delighted in hearing it, even of people I didn’t know. We walked through Malaprop’s, with him pointing out his favorite authors. I had invariably never heard of them. He bought a copy of The Glacier’s Daughters, which must be the only copy sold in the last decade. Then deal with WR, who wants me to supply the mortgage for his new real estate adventure. One might have thought practically giving him 62 would have completed my duties. I refrain from mentioning I never see him unless he wants money. Felt my spirit freezing around the syllable, “no.” We’ll see how this turns out. I asked him how much he’d saved (he’d been planning this for a long time) and I assumed his silence signified “nothing.”

Our treasonous President attacks Iran to distract from his previous treasons. Iran responds rather civilly, I think, aiming her missiles at what seems to have been essentially an empty lot.