This isn't the entry I wanted to write today, but that entry requires a photo that I don't have with me as I write this. So, I'll make this a catch-up entry, addressing a few more of the matters (well, not matters, but items -- a difference of gravity, I suppose, but by now no one is seriously expecting me to behave in a grave manner here, unless I'm obviously taking myself too seriously, which happens all too often, but which I can permit myself here) that I mentioned in the entry for Sunday, January 16. If that last sentence says anything about me, it says that I go straight ahead with great difficulty, preferring to move sideways so that I might see what might be lying about where I stand. I knew that already. It might be news to you. Maybe not.

When we returned from Topeka on Saturday, and after the younger boys were caged in their rooms, I needed some air. I took a drive to Hastings, our poor man's Barnes & Noble, for a browse. I looked up the new Francis Mayes, and the recent Peter Mayle, because I enjoy armchair travel for a good winter read. Both books were still priced too near their retail prices and were available only in hardback, so I headed for the remainder tables instead, where I picked up four books that I've wanted to own. Owning a book, as you might already know, can be nearly as important as reading it. Book ownership offers a kind of security and a kind of tactile experience that neither a library copy nor an electronic text offers. Did I digress again?

One of the books, Nothing but You: Love Stories from the New Yorker, holds two of my favorite short stories,"How to Give the Wrong Impression" by Katherine Heiny, and "In the Gloaming" by Alice Elliot Dark.

Heiny writes a witty and engaging story framed as a set of instructions on how to fall in love. Everytime I've read it, I have found myself whispering the words aloud.

HBO filmed "In the Gloaming," a story about a young AIDS patient, who returns to his parents' home to die. But I had the story in my head long before HBO filmed it, and I prefer the text version with my own visualization and pacing of the story, both of which build to a line spoken by the father near the end of the story that reveals the extent of his loss and regret after his son's death. Again, I find myself reading parts of this story aloud.

I also picked up Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers, Robert Fulghum's True Love, and Camus' American Journals, returning home with four books for under twenty bucks, and feeling smug that I had not only resisted the Mayes and the Mayle at near-retail prices, but had also replaced them with another half foot of books. I remember the wonderful line from Anna Quindlen, which I must paraphrase because I might not remember her phrasing precisely:

I hope that my children grow up to be the kind of people whose idea of redecorating is to buy more book shelves.

I share her hope. So far so good in this household. Was that another digression?

While at Hastings, I ran into Darrell Z., a former student, who is now studying hotel & restaurant management at KSU. No digression here, except to mention that he was with his wife, whom I hadn't met before.

One last holdover item: A few weeks ago when I put the journal in a public directory, I also signed up for Tripod's premium service so that I could eliminate the advertising. Late last month they sent word out that a new program would be unveiled, and it looks like I'll have to place their ad here, or move the pages to another site. I wrote to them, receiving a courteous reply and more complete information than their original letter had provided, but I suspect the upshot will be the same -- at the expiration of my current subscription (about four months away now) I'll be relocating the main pages. I'm on the lookout for a new service, and have been checking the ad-free spaces used by other journalers. So far, Dreamhost is looking like a popular choice.

This morning when I looked out the window and saw that the thermometer was above freezing, I thought to write here that I don't remember scraping ice from the windshield more than twice so far this season, which indicates a truly mild winter for us. Then, this afternoon, the winds came to blow away the insulating cloud cover, the temperatures plummeted to below 20 degrees and the wind continued to howl until long after sunset. The third week of January is the week that I remember as reliably our coldest week. I haven't documented it over the years, of course. I just recall it that way. Our comeuppance might be at hand.

And my half hour is up. Adios.

A reminder: Update the journal links page tomorrow.