Something amazing: I got my reading and assignment for this Tuesday's class completed...on Sunday! This is a first for me in grad. school so far. The work has been so constant and so heavy, I really have never been "ahead" of the game before. Unbelievable.

I'm hosting my Book Club ladies here tonight, so I was very motivated to study hard and complete the quiz early. Today I just want to make the apartment look really nice (it is already pretty spiffy) and enjoy organizing the food and drink for our meeting. There should be about ten of us here, and our guest, the wonderful author Charlie Baxter, whom I also call a dear friend. We are delighted to have Charlie coming to our meeting. We're discussing his book of short stories, "A Relative Stranger," which is filled with characters and images that I'll never forget. I mean that.

I'm excited to play my Kawai baby grand for my Book Club friends and Charlie, too.

Anyway, I'm very proud of myself for being ahead in school. Of course, I could use this time to work on next week's work, but I think I will give my reading eyes a slight rest and only proofread today, no school reading. It's been hard, covering many hundreds of pages every day.

On a goofy note, I have a song stuck in my head: Neil Diamond singing "Sweet Caroline". It won't go away. eeeeeeek