I’m sorry to be so quiet around here this week. I’m afraid difficult times remain the order of the day for the Litloves. About ten days ago, my son and his girlfriend split, something we knew he would take very badly. He had a great deal invested in the relationship – more than it could ever carry – and he’s only 19 so it feels a bit like his world has ended. In the kerfuffle beforehand he got so behind in his work, and couldn’t face limping through, that he decided to back out of his course for the rest of the year. He had hopes of doing some voluntary work, which I strongly support, and I think we are all aware that some sort of salvation for him lies in getting busy. But just at present he’s in the sad and confused bit. I long to be able to help him, but he’s got some tough growing up to do, and that sort of thing can only be done by him alone. Hopefully one day, we will look back on this as an interesting story. In the meantime, if you have good wishes, or optimistic thoughts, or prayers to send in his direction, I would be very grateful for them. I believe in the power of thought, and right now he needs some spiritual guidance, preferably from an external source.
I thought maybe it was the tension of the past days that made me put my back out on Tuesday. If I’d been shifting the furniture about, I’d have understood it. But I didn’t do anything, just bent forward slightly and found myself surprisingly stuck rigid. However, a sympathetic neighbor who called in last night told me it was to do with wearing heels. Just last week my favorite winter boots fell apart – the sole came away completely. I’m not someone with a lot of shoes to choose from, and the only other boots I own have quite high heels. Thinking nothing of it, I’d worn them all day on Monday, the day I spend mostly working in the secondhand book shop, and then I’d gone shopping and done some chores, so I suppose I went from not wearing heels for about a decade to a full day standing on them. This evening there’s an event with Jill Dawson at the main book shop in town that I really want to make, so I have shuffled along to the chemist this morning and bought one of those adhesive heat packs, which I may shortly be able to cook my lunch on. Here’s hoping it’s wonderfully effective.
On the good news front (and despite everything there still is some), I’ve been extremely busy lately with a new venture that I can’t tell you about just yet, but watch this space in about three weeks’ time. The other good news is that my son has decided that this is the moment for him to start reading more. Now that was a happy announcement. I put together a pile of books that included: Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere, Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors (which he read and enjoyed but had to check halfway through that it wasn’t fiction, so incredible are the events portrayed within it), Lee Child, Gone Tomorrow (which he also read and liked), Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebus, Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and The Game by Neil Strauss. If any other books come to your minds that might work, I’d love to hear about them.
