I just finished the strangest novel: The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. I was smitten by the book- such good writing, such fully developed and believable characters, and I cared so much for the young girl who was the protagonist. I stayed up late all week reading it, even during this busy week. What made the novel strange was how it ended - or rather, didn't end. Is this post-modernism? to leave a reader hanging at the end, with no arc of completion, no ray of hope that things are now changed as a result of the story's exciting action? Of course, in real life, we don't often have the perspective that allows us to see why things have turned out for the better after all.. but when we are examining it through literature, don't we deserve that luxury? (In a review by the NY Times: "The Little Friend seems destined to become a special kind of classic. . . It grips you like a fairy tale, but denies you the consoling assurance that it's all just make-believe.")

We had a lovely week. Brad & John came up from L.A. and got married on Wednesday, just before the courts put the weddings on hold (on Thursday). I took an offsite software class on Thursday over in Emeryville, and then turned around an taught the class on Friday. Friday afternoon through Saturday evening, the quartet and the chorus got coached by Jim Arns. Finally having arrived on the other side of that busy schedule, I am at last free to do some things at home. Today, we are going to, at long last, grout the tile murals that we made last summer.

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