No maps for these territories

Today I checked out the classic Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver. (Worst idea for happy leisure reading ever, but that’s another story; I only own Short Cuts and was wishing I had the entire set of stories to refer to the other day. Maybe I will follow it up with Phillip Marlowe for extra cheerfulness points. Anyway.)

Besides the binding being cracked — I’ll turn it into mending when I’m done — there is a little note in tiny, penciled handwriting on the front title page:

wives
-- women subjective to men (husband)
* --> in several stories

A note in larger writing, but the same hand, is at the end of the story “One more thing”:

* Conflict for the sake of arguing

That sort of sums it up, yes.
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I have not been very cheerful or productive (been fighting off a cold the last couple of days) myself lately, but things are ok. Things I probably should be doing instead of posting this: posting about my lovely christmas tree, the first one I’ve had in years; posting about the x-country road trip I hope to take next week (my car’s in the shop now); fixing my website so posts display where I want them to. All of that sounds like work, though, and just at the moment I have a stomachache, and some collection development to do.

She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.
– from “Why don’t you dance?” by Raymond Carver

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edited to add: have concluded that given my depression, the fact that it’s winter (which always makes me feel like the classics) and the current fiscal crisis I should take up reading Dickens instead, more precisely Our Mutual Friend which I have never tackled. Seems appropriate.
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edited once more: there are things I could say about my thoughts on the economy & the auto bailout (I am pro-Detroit labor but anti car-company; not sure where that leaves me); about what gets cut in a recession and what stays; about how are layoffs supposed to solve anything, precisely? — but I’m not sure I have enough to say to really write about it.
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and edited again to add: I find it amusing that Oprah and I are apparently approx. the same weight. It is one of our very few similarities. I note that neither of us (to my biased eye) looks especially heavy in the mirror, we both have a certain sense of resignation towards our self-image (and perhaps a shared medical condition), and we both wish we were somewhat skinnier, though both espousing the politically correct and indeed probably true view that we mostly wish we were simply more fit and stronger. I note that only one of us has any desire to go on national television to discuss her body, however, and only one of us claims to feel ashamed.