Prospective

It is ironic that the only thing that gets me to do massive and thorough tidying-up at home is the prospect of an imminent departure! However certainly my apartment will be nice and orderly to return to in early February: there is always room for further improvement in the matter of books and papers, but I've gotten a lot of stuff cleared away and effected the traditional end-of-semester expurgation. (If you wait long enough, all papers ultimately can be thrown away!)

I have had a not onerous but fairly long list of things to sort out before leaving, but the mail has been put on hold, prescriptions refilled, cat supplies replenished etc. etc. Will pick up the bicycle from the store this afternoon. Have assembled a lovely pile of books to bring with me: it is my general resolution for 2013 to write less, and though I am hoping January will let me finish two revisions (the style book and an article on the particular detail in life-writing and the novel) and get some work done on a secret project (Moby-Dick is involved!), mostly I will just be exercising and reading, reading on a vast and ambitious scale. It should be glorious!

I have misplaced my real digital camera and my phone camera doesn't provide the click-to-enlarge option, so titles may be obscured, but this will give the flavor of my coming weeks:

Also: next Saturday, bioluminescence!