I am within 100 pages of the end of Gravity's Rainbow. You think I'd be happy about that.

“100 pages? What's the big deal?” Yeah, I know, I hear you, but I'm so over this book, so ready to cast it aside, that the final 100 93 pages are going to be something that's tough — canvas. The last 93 pages are going to be canvas. Ugh.

“You're in The Counterforce?” Monstro asks, nearly rubbing his hands together. “It completely makes no sense anymore. Once you lose Slothrop…” And I Know he loves the book and that it's His book but I can't imagine why. It's best read through a modified Bibliomancy — ask a question in your head, shut thy eyes, open book, point, and interpret.

For a man who writes epic-in-size novels, Pynchon's really stingy as an author. You get catalogs of information but very little heart and soul about the characters. I knew more about Ortho “The Darkness” Stice after 400 pages of Infinite Jest than I do about Slothrop.

I'll tell you though, I'm damn glad to have Monstro guiding me — mostly through questions about things that haven't happened yet, followed by what he intends as a tantalizing tidbit but I interpret as 20 more pounds of bricks on my shoulders.

Gravity's Rainbow is wearing me down, man.

So far the best question I've been able to ask about it is whether anyone has mentioned that the title itself is an oxymoron: Gravity is the law that holds things to earth, while rainbows are the promise that arc above it.

Will Divide? Patrick, sfmike? Monstro hadn't seen that before; what about you?

I performed music in church yesterday — something I've only done once before, and only then because one of my favorite parishoners was leaving to do mission work in Costa Rica. Yesterday we worshipped outdoors, which seemed a good venue for my acoustic guitar and my 'ukulele.

I had planned to play/sing “Morning Has Broken” on the guitar as the opening song but apparently that didn't get passed to the secretary, who had me listed (and misspelled) on the Order of Worship as performing the Offeratory on the guitar.

“How about if I play the guitar for the offeratory and the 'uke for the benediction?” I asked the organist.

“Fine by me,” she said. “Does he know?” She motioned to the pastor. I shrugged.

Monstro and the kid were across the street at the playground so I sang as loudly as I could, hoping they'd hear. I was most concerned about the guitar piece but it went very well — probably the best I've played it to date.

I had hidden the ukulele, a gift customized for me by Avram, and when I pulled it out as the pastor made his way down the aisle (we were in an outdoor tabernacle, complete with stage and altar) the whole place started laughing at me. Many remained standing for my song, “I Can See Clearly Now,” and some even sang along. I was met with applause at the end. The organist was visibly flummoxed.

“I can't follow that. What can I play to follow that?” she asked me. She put her fingers on the keys but took them off again as quickly. “Nope. I'm not doin' it.”

Then, after church we had a picnic, and the kid busied himself by taking a chicken nugget off one woman's plate and then grubbed down on a cookie he'd grabbed from the buffet.

I guess what I'm saying is, a good time was had by all.

Happy birthday to My Favorite Mother (aka MFM), and happy Friday the 13th to the rest of y'all.

Naah, do it yourself.

If anyone knows anyone at The New England Quarterly, please put in a good word for Monstro, who sent a paper titled “Chillingworth's A: Cultural Castigation in The Scarlet Letter” to its editor today. Thanks!

I've been thinking a lot about the number “a billion” recently. Someone once blogged an interesting tidbit about it:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no-one walked on two feet on earth.

How much is the U.S. government spending in Iraq every month? Ten Billion Dollars. Monthly.

When we moved in, our kitchen left a lot to be desired. There was a carpenter-ant swarm in one of the cupboards, and a hole in our sink housing where a squirter hose was supposed to go. They took care of the carpenter ants (killing our cat in the process), but the hole remained squirter-less until eight months ago. The faucet died and our landlord's handyman inspected the adjacent emptiness.

“Want me to get a squirter, too?”

I didn't know what he meant at first but said, “sure.”

He came back with a new faucet and a silver tube with a squirt-shower attachment, which worked that day and then never again… until today, 7/7/07, when I put a clean cutting board behind the faucet, pushing in the handle of the squirter, and spraying myself in the boob.

So ain't it just my lucky day? Time to change my shirt! Oh Monstrooooooo…

• watched my kid
• listened to two episodes of Sesame Street
• made Monstro the perfect ham-and-cheese omelette
• danced a little
• …and re-read The Last Picture Show cover-to-cover.

  See, the nice thing about reading Gravity's Rainbow (I'm in The Counterforce, within 140 pages of the end of it all) is that after six-hundred-plus pages of Pynchon, McMurtry gives you so much more in so fewer pages that you can knock it out in a few hours and squeeze out some genuine tears at the end, to boot.

  TLPS characters not only feel desolate, but the novel's omniscient narrator evokes desolation at every turn: Coach Popper's treatment of Joe Bob, the night the boys take Billy out, every naked swimming party, usw.

  Strangely enough, though, in many ways, GR and TLPS features film as its primary medium (yeah, I know they're both books, but the picture show is a rite of passage that unites its characters, and GR is a movie, so sayeth my husband, the brilliant Future Doctor Monstro, and from what I've read, I believe it — that's the ONLY way it makes sense, and of course it's supposed to make sense — even Finnegans Wake is supposed to make sense at some level, but I won't be able to tell you that for certain 'til December.

The three of us went to a b-b-q yesterday, and of course it was raining (because MA sucks and there's a reason that the hardier pilgrims beat feet out of here), so baby amused himself by playing with our hostess's phone.

“Don't worry, it's fine,” she assured us. And it was fine, until the cop showed up at her front door. Turns out, baby had called 911. Swell.

We left soon after and I'm still somewhat mortified, although reading this calmed me a bit.

Another study I wasn't invited to…