End of year celebrations continue – Not only did I blow all my recent earnings from lectures and appearances on Lancome today, but I think I’ve already blown my entire monthly pension this month on restaurants.   Tonight was particularly celebratory – with birthdays and grandchildren and graduations – at a restaurant where nothing familiar was on the menu and everyone had to figure out what to order from scratch.  For example, I usually like to order familiar foods – say – kebab – and then I know what I’m getting.  But at Pastel, everything is local but put together in a new and strange way – sweet and bitter and sour and sharp.  And the kids actually liked it!

So even though I’ve been depressed all day that I can’t get things together at the English Writers’ Association, and I had to cancel the event I’d planned on the 27th, I began to think that mixing things up might be a good idea – that things may work out even better that way.

The idea that ‘this too shall pass’ made me think that the depression of an old friend and the complete discombobulation of some of my ex-students and younger friends are not the same thing.  My old friend may or may not be over the hill,  but those younger people will continue on to have much better lives than what we’re having now.