I have somehow become infected with the Creeping Plague. I itch from neck to thigh, which is in fact where I am covered with good-sized itchy bumps. Currently they are being treated with cortizone & skin astringent; the latter seems to help more, as it dries out the itchy oils. The current culprit is theorised to be lavender, which is a perfectly lovely plant whose oil makes my skin do just this thing. I'm not sure when I would have come into contact with it, but the cat did escape for a while on Sunday, so it's not implausible.

Anyway, this means my mood is random at best. I'm getting a lot of work done, though. Well, sort of. Right now I am waiting for some really huge files to finish compressing. This is very, very slow. Waiting for water to evaporate is more fulfilling. I ought to be using this time to try to make Frontpage 98 work (again), but instead I'm reading through an exceptional book review site and scribbling down the names of books I might want to read. These aren't genre books, I quickly note; I'm trying to Broaden My Horizons, and that means reading some mainstream fiction to figure out why I dislike it so much.

My files continue to compress. And you thought the life of a sysadmin was an exciting one. I suppose I should start fussing with Frontpage now.

I'm still working on Java, albeit slowly. Instead of doing so last night, however, I played Final Fantasy VII for several hours -- partially at Earl's behest, as he was in the mood to lie around & comment while I played video games. Not that I didn't have a good time, but I might have managed to be virtuous without him serving as a source of temptation. Ah, well, I'll try to make up for it tonight -- although I'm not sure when. I'm going to Borders once I leave work to pick up Juniper, Genetian, and Rosemary, which is the new Pamela Dean novel. (Pamela Dean being one of the few authors whose books I pick up as soon as possible -- Lois McMaster Bujold and Doris Egan/Jane Emerson being the only others I can think of right now.) Plus being at Borders will give me the excuse to acquire the book of Virginia Woolf's essays that Earl saw lurking there the other night, plus if I am feeling wealthy (I'm not!) I can buy some of the books that the reviews pointed me too. When am I going to read all of this stuff?

Having too much to read is a blessing. I'm sure of it.

I read the first three Katharine Mansfield stories last night, and am not sure what to think. The third (Two Daughters of a Former Colonel) was readable, funny, sad, and a little surprising. The first two (At the Bay and The Garden Party) were readable and somewhat funny, but didn't seem to have much point to them. Lovely descriptions in all three, however.

Then, getting online today, I described them to Marith, which led to searching for criticism sites (I'm curious as to what other people might have thought about her stories, and perhaps there's some deep subtextual level that I'm not getting, which might give the first two stories more of a point?), which led to saying online that I wanted to take English classes so that I'd have people to talk to about books -- which inevitably led to a resurrection of the 'let us form a book group' discussion. Except this time it seems to have gone somewhere, luckily enough, and there's a mailing list which is going to be created soon, and once that happens we'll get organised, pick a book from the hat each month, read it, talk on the list, then meet monthly to discuss it in person. At least this is the plan so far. To my happiness Ambar and Kirby are both interested, which I find delightfully surprising -- they're both such unique people, and tend to have strong opinions, which will make for much better discussions.

I have been reading too much of Virginia Woolf's letters, haven't I? My paragraphs are truly monstrous in size lately.

Hmn. It's 1830. My files are still compressing. I think I'll call Jim and gossip a bit, and then go to Borders at 1900 whether or not the files are done. Tomorrow will be more Frontpage hell (although I may have gotten it working on one machine), plus upgrading an SGI (if we can find a cd drive -- a constant trouble) and finishing with these files if they don't finish tonight. Then Earl will get home (being up in the Bay working today & tomorrow) and that should be nice.

A plan. I go to it.

One last thing: did the title make you think Camus?