Extraction

 

March 16, 2021

When I sat down at the desk tremendous rain beat the roof. It’s a little slacker now, though gray through the windows. I did finish DSL last night, rounding off a rough ending this morning. Now the editing and sloppy proofing begin. These are the novels I have to market now, somehow: Jason of the Apes, The Nurseryman’s Wedding, An Age of Silver, Diving into the Moon, The Dead Shall Live, the Living Die, Knight of the Flowers, plus a book of short stories, The Prince in the Tower, and The Sun in Splendor, which I may pull out of mothballs if it pleases me the next time I look at it. The Garden of the Bears stands about 1/3 finished. 

I wonder if I’ll ever be completely warm again. I wear my outdoor coat in the house. 

Vestry last night. People sometimes take the oddest stands, stands often attributed to ethical convictions, and I wish I could see that in them rather than self-indulgence. 

Tooth yanked out of my head this afternoon. The pain now is far worse than ever the toothache was, and after three hours I’m still oozing a little blood. Not a highly successful afternoon.