I’m not focussing on reading the way I should right now, which worries me a bit. Need to re-focus. In the meantime, I watched “Blink”, the latest episode of Dr Who last night. It was easily the most rivetting episode of Dr Who in a long time. The actress who played Sally Sparrow was terrific, the plot was intelligent (though not without possibly minor flaws), and I was completely engrossed. I was interested to notice that this episode had probably the least amount of screen time for David Tennant and Freema Whassername for the whole season, and was still probably the best ep. so far. Given the lack of chemistry between those two, I wondered if that was telling.

Harry Potter isn’t dead yet. That should happen when Harry Potter and the Ineluctably Awful Title is published next month. Some rumours suggest that Harry’s author will then quietly disappear. Whether or not, given that each Potter book has been worse than its predecessor, that is a good thing, from now on we will have to suffer through the search for the next big thing. We will be told that whichever book is being hyped has the same thrill etc etc, and it might. Potter sold for all sorts of reasons, very few of which are actually well-understood by anybody. But the search will be horrible, and it will fail. One day lightning struck a decent book and it’s apparently quiet pleasant author made a bundle of money. You can’t predict that happening. You can’t plan it.  I rather wish they wouldn’t try.

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It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon – well, for me at least – and so, a quiet post. Jessica and Sophie went to a party yesterday, and were delightful. It’s Jessica’s seventh(!) birthday tomorrow. I can’t believe it. I’m older, fatter, balder, and much, much tireder than I was seven years ago, but it’s been quite something.

Since I packed everyone out the door this morning at 11.30am I’ve baked some chocolate muffins, done a few loads of laundry, listened to some Van Morrison, spoken to a couple friends on the phone, done some ironing, and basically taken it fairly easy. It’s been very pleasant. I’m now listening to The Decemberists (one of the few things I’d thank rock critics for of late – along with Sufjan Stevens) . I did notice, btw, that all of the Van Morrison albums from the 70s that I was playing contained less than ten tracks apiece. He was no progrock maniac either. That’s about 35 minutes per album. Brevity can be fine.

Speaking of brevity, I’ve been reading John Klima’s Logorrhea. Put simply, there are some spectacularly good stories in this book. I figure, if you buy all of the year’s bests next year you should end up with about a third of the stories in the book. It’s just easier to buy Logorrhea. You’ll thank me if you do. The Daniel Abraham, Tim Pratt, and Dora Goss stories are well worth the price of admission alone.

Oh, and I’m just about over the flu. This week I’ve got a birthday to celebrate, a party to help run, and an anthology to, like Frankenstein’s monster, stitch together again. It should be fine. I will be at World Fantasy. Come too. We can grab a drink.

I ended my crappy day by watching a movie. As it happened, it was  a very good movie called Stranger Than Fiction. It stars Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhall and Emma Thompson, and is about…well, it’s about life and living it, but it’s the story of what happens when an author meets her character and has to reconsider everything she knows about him. You should watch it.

As to the day, well days go like that. No use whining. I am seriously – very seriously – reconsidering staying home this spring, giving Saratoga Springs a miss. Perhaps spend the time taking the kids on a holiday instead, or cleaning out the front room we’ve not occupied since we moved into the house four years ago.  Traveling to the US doesn’t have to be a thing I do every year. I could go twice next year instead. Who knows. Just, suddenly, it sounds less like fun than it did a while ago, though that may change. Who knows?