Last day of 2023.
I don't get sick often but something wicked laid me low this week. I've been wearing a mask and secluding in the game room so I don't get Calene sick, too. I chose the game room so I could watch football on the big screen but pretty much all I've been doing is sleeping. I've worn the same sweatshirt and sweatpants for the last three days and I have no plans to wear anything else until this is over.
Dawn Friday. Ocean Beach. I force myself out of bed and log stiff morning miles. Sports park with too many holes in the turf, straight along the bike path above the estuary. Salt air blowing in from the dog beach. White herons standing up to their knees in low tide. Tomorrow is my oldest son's wedding and I have a toast to write
My wife likes to call me Mr. Magoo. Calene claims I wander through life in a state of mild befuddlement, flirting with calamity without knowing. I blame it on the way I arrange my days, traveling from one obsession to another: predawn dreams about the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, straight out of bed to sunrise practice with my runners, then an hour with my novel before putting playtime away and turning my focus to historical research and writing.
Had a nice zoom with my editor this morning. Second Pass for Taking London is coming my way on Thursday, which is the last time I'll see the words before it gets sent to the printer, there to be bound and shipped to the four corners of the earth. I'll read it one more time, hoping there are no completely awful sentences. It's a year this week since I began writing it, but the research went on for a while before that…
