Today I cycled in to town, washed some clothes at the laundromat, and brought home a canary melon for dessert. I finished reading Lucifer's Hammer. Several trips to the thrift store have yielded a new supply of books, and I am now working through a course in Latin. I finally found a source of decent music in this town- the pawn shop! Used CD's are just $3 apiece, and at that price you can afford to experiment a little. They have a _lot_ of CD's; it says something for the economic state of the area that people here are desperate enough to pawn off all their music. Another book- The Man Who Loved Only Numbers. It's about Paul Erdos, a great mathemetician. Apparently he lived for nothing else but mathematics; was celibate his entire life, cared little about food or clothing, and was quite an eccentric.

I guess most people would pity him, but to have that sort of a driving purpose, to be consumed with passion for one thing and devote one's life to it, to be enamoured with something he could have, that nothing could take from him, and to be satiated with it...I sort of envy him. If only life were that simple for the rest of us.