November 25, 2020

Second day begun at the Toyota dealership– they installing the part they ordered yesterday. Barely opened my notebook before they were finished. As yesterday, drove to the Parkway and took as much of the Hard Times as I thought I could before the rain. It was both raining and not– like standing under a gigantic gray block of ice while it thaws slowly. The forest is bare, and one may peer deeply into its secrets; that’s how I like it best. Someone had tied apparently lost keys to a branch. Almost no traffic, except for two grim women on bicycles, close together on the way out, widely separated on the way back. The rain began in earnest just as I got back to the car. I am lucky in that way– however catastrophic the large passages of my life, in small things-- finding the parking space, getting to the plane at the exact last second, never losing my keys– I can call myself lucky. Watching the movie Genius on TV, an excellent study of Thomas Wolfe with a faultless small ensemble of actors. I thought how I would pass out dead if I were ever fussed over as an author the way he was. Am I better than Wolfe? Well, more concise. Infinitely less self-referential. And I have more than one subject matter. But someone would actually have to read me for it to make any difference. When I was a kid I thought his own Maxwell Perkins came to every author. . . .