Just back from lunch; I went downtown and got the avacado&ginger maki that I've been craving, and an order of spicy tuna to fill it out. Before this I went to the funky new age bookstore and went over their entire selection of blank books before picking up two. One's a Cachet gemstone book, hardbound with lined paper, the cover close-up bands of malachite, swirling greens in every shade. The Cachet gemstone books have sentimental value for me, as my first real journal was a sodalite (blue) one that a friend named Matt gave me for Christmas when I was thirteen. I bought myself a second one a few years ago, on a shopping trip with Marith, the dark-red jasper one. So now I have my third, and when I fill up the jasper one (a few more months -- I write only sporadically on paper, and much more slowly because, well, handwriting. I type at like 120 words per minute; handwriting doesn't compare.

The other blank book is spiral-bound with a cover of black paper so soft it feels almost furry. The paper inside is off-white, with tiny occasional flecks of pastel colour, and unlined. For some reason buying a book with unlined paper seems very daring, maybe because it doesn't limit me to writing. I'm not sure. Anyway, it's a beautiful book.

Now I'm back at work, polishing yet more documentation and talking to Jen, who's having a rough evening. She pointed out earlier that my mention of her yesterday is the first time I've talked about her here, which seems really strange to me. She's this wonderful woman I've known for years and years online, and in the last nine months we've gotten very close. It's been great getting to know her better and better; she's creative and insightful and a lot of fun to talk to, as well as being really helpful and supportive when I have a bad day. I've been thinking a lot about why I've never mentioned her before, and the best answer I can come up with is that I've quit compartmentalising my life in the last month or so. It used to be that everything was in separate boxes and the journal box and the rest of online box never touched, but now all the boxes are going into one much bigger box and suddenly there's so much more to write about.

Or something like that. I'll likely have different answers later.

I've been spending most of my reading time lately on books by Mazo de la Roche, a Canadian author who wrote a lot during the 30's and 40's. The genre she wrote in is perhaps best described as 'pulp family sagas', I think. She did a long (16 books!) series about a family living in Canada, starting with the (rich, beautiful, horribly prejudiced) couple who emigrated from England in 1850, and by now (book four, set in 1919) it's focusing on the grandchildren of the original couple. I'm not sure how she's going to manage twelve more books, given how fast time is going by; it'll be interesting to see. They're really great mind candy and also sort of comfort fiction; the worst thing that ever happens is a horse dies or the matriarch yells at someone. Even the Really Bad Event of book three -- someone is revealed to have fathered a child out of wedlock, thus ending his engagement to the Nice Young Girl whose heart is then broken -- is treatred with so much self-consciousness by the characters themselves as to the genre conventions about heartbreak that it's impossible to take it seriously. I really need to go to the library and get more of these, but first I must diminish the huge stack of unread library books I still have.

The other long-running thread of background reading right now is Chinese literature. I've got a history of Chinese literature from the library, as well as two anthologies -- one that's only poetry, the other of which (Anthology of Chinese Literature from Early Times to the Fourteenth Century) includes plays, essays, short stories, and a novel excerpt as well. It's slow going -- I read a chapter of the history, then appropriate pieces from the anthologies -- but I'm really enjoying seeing how all the poets I already love fit into the bigger picture. Plus China just has so much history. It hits me really hard when I see something cited as 'The New History of the Han', and it's from 800 something (instead of the old outdated history from 600 something).

Another nice thing about reading all this stuff is that it makes for amusing perspective. Even fifteen hundred years ago people were lamenting the loss of the old days in which rulers were just, children were obedient, and one could travel the roads without fear.