I've been doing OK with Ebay- selling books there, I mean. Throughout my life, I've been the sort of person who could talk someone out of buying something they were determined to have until I came along trying to sell it. Don't ask me how that was possible, but somehow, I managed to do just that, until Ebay. In the last week I've sold, oh, maybe six or seven books? They all went for very modest prices, but still, I'm pleased about it. This is so painless I can't believe it. I have an idea that I could use a shift to another product or else more profitable books. Records are a dime a dozen here. I even saw some old 45's the other day. Wonder if they're in any sort of demand?

I bought a really cool book there this evening (yeah, yeah...I know, I can see how this is going to work...sell books, spend all the dough buying more..). I can hardly wait to get it. Nope. I'm not telling what it is, until it gets here at least. A clue: art. Think Beardsley. Klimt. Schiele. Rodin..... hehehehe....

I awoke this morning thinking of two things: goats, specifically bucks, and the breeding program; that I need to get my act together. When Sprite and Song both died, it kind of took the heart out of it for me. I'll have to see if there's another doe that I can get attached to, I guess. *sigh*...That isn't the way to go about things at all. It has all the authenticity of someone going to a bar and planning to find someone to fall in love with that same night. Which is to say, none. Whatever. Maybe a doe will be born this spring that I'll love. Until then, I need to pay more attention to them, I hardly look at them any more.

I'm working through a book, the sort you answer questions and write in. It asked me to name places where I feel safe. Upstairs, and...I used to feel that way in the barn. It used to be that when I was upset I'd go and visit with Sprite. It's not the same now. Now it's just a smelly old barn. I'm sitting here wondering what I'll do when I move. There won't be an upstairs. I'll have to make a new nest. Moving on-

The other thing running through my early morning mind: knights. As in chess. If you drew a grid, and highlighted the squares the knight travels over, with the ones it actually landed on brighter or darker, would there be some kind of a pattern possible, as in a repeating pattern that would link back up with itself seamlessly? It seem like this would be possible. I ran the mental image of the knight through series of moves and different patterns. There's probably a program that would crunch this question up in no time flat and take all the fun out of it, because I want the pattern to be *attractive*, or at least intriguing.

Started another book about Japan- The Concubines Tattoo, read about a chapter and chucked it away into the thrift store bag. This is the kind of a book that I'd expect from an occidental mind. The differences between it and Memoirs of a Geisha are glaring. There is no subtlety, the thought pattern is direct and blatant, like an American's. Bleah. I persist in thinking that at least some of the geisha book was actually dictated by a real Japanese woman. An American man couldn't have pulled it off. Anyway, back to the more recent one- not only it is culturally wrong, it also seems historically wrong, many of the details are anglicized, and on top of all trhat, it's homophobic and portrays homosexual men as effeminate, scheming predators (and of course the straight men are the honest ones). Puh-lease!!! Aren't the stereotypes well circulated enough already? For the sake of originality, would it be possible for someone to try a different portrayal? It's not that I have any personal reason to care, but the whole book is full of stupid banalities and overworn points of view. Well, the part that I read. I couldn't hack reading any more of it; my brain rebelled. Oy! It's getting late. Time to turn in.