ART CAN BE GODDAMNED HARD

Yes, it is plenty easy to complain. Hot hot hot. Muggy muggy muggy. Stupid stupid stupid. Lethargic lethargic lethargic. 

The pets and I spent a fair amount of time on the screened-in porch today, me editing Monsterwood and making progress in The Brothers Karamazov, them sleeping and looking at me accusatorially. We needed a fan out there as there is no air moving at all.

As it turns out, a cold beer tastes hella-good on a hot evening. I had kind of forgotten, but as Anna and her friend Brianna made a fabulous summer pasta dinner (basil, tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella, olive oil YUM!), I broke my alcohol fast. Then again, I don't like how rapidly one gets tipsy in this hot weather.

I barely left the house today, so I will need to get out early tomorrow before I become incapacitated with heat again. 

I finally finished my edit of Monsterwood and am feeling quite accomplished in that regard. I had plenty of other, distracting options such as the summer clothes hunt, washing the woodwork on the screened-in porch and hanging the new white lights, cleaning the refrigerator (always an option), etc. But I told myself that I needed to get this edit done so that Jason and Louise and the world were not waiting for me.

I had too much sugar today, but I can be better tomorrow.

And I finished Crazy in the Kitchen, thus getting up to date on my 52 book reading challenge for the year! I do need to make better headway in The Brothers K as the group meets next Thursday. 

"On this day, preoccupied with a piece of writing that has not been very much fun in the making, I am cranky. I think, This is one message—that music is fun—but not the most important message. The arts, I think, aren't just fun. They're essential. They're bone, flesh, blood, sinew, should, spirit. And art can be hard, goddamned hard. To make, to witness."
—Louise DeSalvo, Crazy in the Kitchen