Reading: I finished Family by Pa Chin. This is a classic, unknown to most westerners. It's set in China and is partly autobiographal. It was a good book, but to be honest, if you're feeling depressed you probably shouldn't read it. Now I'm started on Lucifer's Hammer, and still reading about art- The Flow of Art, essays and criticisms by Henry McBride

I'm still culling through our excess of personal belongings. I've got this idea that it'd be a lot easier to keep things clean and organized if there were fewer of them. I sent a bunch of clothes to the thrift store; among them a blue dress. I found that dress in a dumpster as a teen, and I never wear it. So why did I have it at all? It was the dress I was wearing when my first love asked for my hand. He was 35, I was 17. It didn't work out; my parents forbade the match and he got bored with waiting and moved on to other conquests, then died of cancer. It took me a long time to get over him- 12 years. 12 years of missing him and remembering all sorts of minutea, like his birthday (4-29-54). Now, I wonder. Because really, what responsible 35 year old man would court a 17 year old girl and then ditch her for no good reason? So, goodbye, Daniel Haugen. You were a nice guy, but the truth of the matter it that it probably wasn't worth crying over for twelve years in the first place.