Day 16: It was a shitty day. I surveyed my pages and let the insecurity demon spit in my face. I regrouped. Read some poetry from a lovely book by Susan Hartung called Inclusion. One poem, “Food” poses the question:

“which would you choose,
a great meal
or great sex?”

You can plan for a great meal, but not great sex.

I printed out a copy of part one of my manuscript and stuffed it in an envelope away from my self-conscious eyes.

Day 17: Day trip to Great Barrington, MA, a town in Berkshire County. Pretty streets, hippie shops, underage kids in off-the-rack punk rock gear, a glorified cheese store, and a big yellow house with a bookstore on the first floor. All used books. And then I spotted it sitting with the first editions, a hardcover copy of Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets. Knopf, 1967. I gladly paid the asking price for it. This book was one of my old obsessions. I had a paperback copy back in high school. I read it so many times the pages fell off the binding.

A good find followed by the disappointing news that our (?) Senate rejected a series of gun law amendments, which included expanding background checks.