Weekend pleasures

Helena spent the weekend with her grandmother — I feel greatly refreshed, and not certain why I can't achieve or maintain this feeling of equlibrium when she's here. As if every word or glance from her is momentous enough a force to hurtle me along some new emotional spiral, whether up or down — I'm physically dizzy with her. Off balance. But I have realignment now.

I slept! Twelve hours a night, for two nights! I love sleep! God, how I miss it sometimes! (Of course, I could be napping now...)

I shopped for books! It's buy-a-friend-a-book week after all. The experience was remarkably peaceful and restorative, the way I remember it being long ago, when unhampered by toddler in tow.

I browsed magazines! While chatting with J-F about current events and deciding where to lunch, I read all of Doris Lessing's "Death of a Chair" in this month's Harper's (without buying it).

This, and all sorts of mundane things like hanging pictures and mopping floors! Such happiness!

But all this — restoration of order at home, the procurement of books, and Lessing's story — leaves me wanting a proper reading chair. I want to sit sideways in it, dangle my legs over its arm, rest my head on its back. I've been searching for the perfect chair for about 5 years now. Where are you? I need you!