Just back from a 3-day beach getaway with the wife and child, where I learned to enjoy existence without ever looking at my computer. Our days were divided between laying on the sand, dipping into the sea, eating delicious food, and being wholly absorbed by our books. I've been alternating between Simon Roy's HABITAT and Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT, which go very well together. The latter I started in Denver a couple years ago only to reluctantly abandon it when shit got real and I got a little too caught up in the everyday to-do's and stresses they involved. It felt very fitting to escape back into it with my short escape to a pretty secluded beach town, and what an escape this book is.
I'm only midway through, but it's already got me wondering how most of fiction was ever written afterwards. The bar is set so high with this one that 99% of the books adorning the shelves of bookshops seem so frivolous in comparison. A great and marvelous work that encompasses everything any creative act should set out to do.
Back in Houston reassessing how I go about my days, which I'm hoping will no longer involve my phone or computer first thing in the morning. All in all, a successful and long overdue time outside the house, despite a sea full of jellyfish and relentless assaults by mosquito.
(photo by the wife)