June 23, 2006

Old Sport

I finished The Great Gatsby, and I’m not going to go into it because everything worth saying about it has been said, but it was a really great book and I think Fitzgerald is terribly underrated. Must admit to cheating a bit. The last two reads have been picked due to their brevity, because I’m a bit behind. Now reading The Turn of the Screw, inspired by this recent article. It is good. Like Gatsby, I read it for school and can’t remember much about it. It will be nice to have it fresh in my mind.

Everything’s been a bit buzzy the last twenty four hours, with good things. My birthday is on Saturday and already, fun has begun. Last night Curtis surprised me with a cake and an amazon gift cert, which were respectively eaten and exercised quite promptly. What a wonderful surprise! I was able to get two Hilary Mantels, the new PEN Book I mentioned yesteday, and Grace Paley’s Collected Stories, which I believe are an absolutely treasure and will be a pleasure to own. So that was brilliant. Moreoever, stuff has been popping up in the post all week and I have a not-unsubstantial pile of prez and cards. And so today, I woke up forty minutes early, thinking of my story, and so I got up and wrote, which was nice first thing. And when I walked to work this morning, men were planting trees in the park and everyone I passed looked beautiful. Midway through today, I got news about my advisor for next year, and it made me very very happy. Lovely surprise from Stuart tonight. And an old friend called, just because he was happy and needed someone to tell about it. Which is an honour as far as I’m concerned. Tomorrow is my birthday lunch at work and we’re going out for Chinese food.

This is my first birthday in Canada since 2001. Since then, I’ve birthdayed in Switzerland, England, Japan and England again, and it’s good to be home proper. (Though last year’s birthday did occur on my honeymoon and resulted in fab red wellington boots from my fab muminlaw, so it’s almost untoppable). We’re spending Saturday afternoon on Toronto Island, and by all accounts, the day promises great fun.