Nov. 30, 2015

 

Dear Hildie:

Another Thanksgiving holiday bites the dust. Now for Christmas. But I know as sure as I know anything that as we prepare to relax into the Xmas season a client will call and want something before the New Year. Always happens.

Anyway, it was good talking with you Thursday, but have mercy! Some of us like to sleep late. We aren’t all as energetic as you are! Especially after a wonderful day in the fresh air in South Vacherie.

I’ve finished all my scanning. Now I can peacefully start writing something else. Just have to work out a few details.

I may visit my sick friend today. I’ll call first. I hope the holiday and all the family didn’t wear him out. He’s so weak.

Like you keep reminding me, though, it comes to all of us.

So take care so it doesn’t come to you too soon…

Love,

M

Dear Hildie:

 

Another visit to my friend. Sad. What else is there to say? Happy Thanksgiving.
Love

M

Nov. 23, 2015

 

Dear Hildie:

 

Just went to the deathbed of my oldest friend. Like somebody said once, “Life goes on, but I don’t know why.”

 

If that didn’t make me teary enough, I put on some English Leather this morning and my eyes and nose have been running ever since.

 

Love. Take care.

M

Nov. 20, 2015

 

Dear Hildie:

 

Two damn calls in five minutes from Vitter. He’s driving people away with this kind of desperation.

 

I was thinking of turkeys for some reason, which reminds me of what I’ve been scanning: I’ve been scanning the first things I wrote, when I was in college. Talk about turkeys! I’m ashamed I was ever so portentous, adverb-laden, pompous, preach y and sentimental! My God, those things are awful! Makes me despair of my ability. How could anybody write such drivel? Dear me—Delayed adolescence.

 

Speaking of drivel, I have to get to writing some now for an archaeology report.

 

Oh, did you see the NOVA about the first humans in the New World? Terrible. They only talked about California, as if they didn’t have a budget to go anywhere else, and it was so simplistic it hurt.

 

Take care.

Love,

M

 

 

 

Nov. 19, 2015

Dear Hildie:

Our crew is in the rice fields today, slopping through mud. What fun. And one person at the local site, monitoring. I’ll go out shortly to check on her.

Nothing else happening.

 

Take care,

Love, M

Nov. 18, 2015

 

Dear Hildie:

 

I had a bowl of fruit last night as per your recommendation. Now I feel like a 25 year-old man, full of vim and vigor, with an insatiable desire for pretty girls, and a desire to run the Marathon!

 

(Just to see how gullible you are).

 

What a surprise that Jindal dropped out. He was never in and all he’s been doing is running for a cabinet post if the elephants win.

 

Had the crew in a rice field earlier this week. Nothing but slop and a very unhappy rat snake.  Rat snakes are very pretty though I wouldn’t want to cuddle up to one. Speaking of which, during the bad weather last night Pierre got on the bed between us and tried to burrow in. What a baby.

 

Take care (of the coons and possums and yourself).

 

 

Love,

 

M

Nov. 17, 2015

 

Dear Hildie:

 

Yes, yes, I should eat more fruit—like a fruit bat. I really dislike bats, you know: Nothing about vampires or any of that—It’s just that they carry rabies and if one bit you it might fly away and you’d never know whether it was infected or not. I admit it’s unlikely, but I don’t like the idea of rabies one bit. Seeing the entire U.S. Congress infected by it has turned me off.  BTW, I see the two gubernatorial candidates have had another name-calling session.  You know what I miss? They’re so deadly serious: Huey and Earl would’ve made it funny. Louisiana politics has lost all its entertainment value. Edwin was the last one who could turn a humorous phrase.

 

Take care.

 

Love,

M

November 16, 2015

Dear Hildie:

I don’t think your “stalking” dream indicated psychosis–We all have pretty weird dreams and some seem very, very real.

I’m tired out. I’ve been scanning again. I decided to scan ALL my old manuscripts, so they’d be preserved in reproducible form. Is that ego or desperation? I’m not sure which. Meanwhile, I’m letting my latest story idea germinate a bit. Damn it! I was trying to transfer a file from my thumb drive to my hard drive and it vanished from both. Fortunately, I have it backed-up elsewhere, but that’s a pain!

Don’t sweat the dreams! Take care.

Love,

M

 

Nov. 13, 2015

 

Dear Hildie:

 

I’m reading Angus Deaton’s latest book. Actually, I got it before he was awarded the Nobel, so I decided I probably ought to finish it. I’m just in the first part, but he points to a lot of problems with correlating “happiness” with wealth. I think where he’s going is to show that on the whole, and despite news reports and graphic images, the world’s a lot better off now than it was 100 years ago. He makes the wry comment that, whereas the Constitution enshrines “the pursuit of happiness” for Americans, anyone in the Calvinist Scottish village where he grew up would consider that a character flaw! An abject lesson to ethnocentric dummies like George Bush, who assume that what he feels right must be what everybody else the world over thinks is right.

 

Well, on to such work as there is.

Take care.

 

Love,

M

Nov. 12, 2015

 

 

Dear Hildie:

 

It’s turned cool. Quite pleasant, really. I’m trying to flesh out this new novel. It’s always hard and once I start I always deviate from what I’d sketched out at first, but I suppose that’s normal.

 

I was reading parts of Canterbury Tales recently and that reminded me of old Dr. Kirby. When I think of the English Department I’ll always think of him as being the chair. And, of course, that reminds me of all the dealings you had with him when you were getting your M.A. and struggling with Charles Brockton Brown. I suppose by now somebody’s written a thesis about the old fellow.

 

I’ve also been reading a book about superforecasting. Doesn’t tell me much I didn’t already know but gives a more sensible explanation of Bayes’ theorem than some I’ve read. Some guy once tried to use it to prove the existence of God. Ridiculous. Even Bayes (a Presbyterian minister) would have been surprised, I’ll bet. But maybe not.

 

Take care.

Love,

M