The semi-productive weekend

I thwarted a bamboo plant.

I sat down to finish In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, in which the narrator leaves his mother behind for a seaside holiday that becomes a rhapsodic meditation on adolescent girls. I found it much slower than Swann’s Way, which was gorgeous and even revelatory. 

Wore my monocle in honor. 

So now I’m free to decide whether to go on to volume III of In Search of Lost Time. Leaning towards yes, but perhaps not. First I am reading Monsieur Proust, a memoir by Proust’s housekeeper. I’m a quarter of the way through and feeling like a satisfied voyeur. Proust liked to eat sole, when he ate at all. He did not use soap. It is down to earth.

Also, they say you shouldn’t feel restricted by your age, gender or situation in choosing what to put on, but I don’t buy that brand of soap. Most of the time I feel like a 14-year old boy embarrassed by a propensity for nosebleeds, but that doesn’t mean I want to go about shirtless in shorts and flip-flops. So after many a tortuous I-hate-myself shopping excursion, I was happy to find two shirts that are comfortable and ok for the office. A bigger victory than it seems.  

I wrote a poem that I was happy with. So far. 

Also did a tiny bit of exercise, which is more than I can say for most days - week or weekend.