…she was seesawing on the elder-bough, lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.
I’m certain that when George Eliot wrote this little piece of The Mill on the Floss, she was not instructing her readers to “Eat pastry like nobody’s watching.” But you know, it’s not bad advice, taken either metaphorically or literally…
Not that I’m trying to give you advice; Jam and Idleness is not an advice column; but we should all acknowledge that baked goods are part of what makes life more than merely survivable.
Books are, of course, more important than sugar. I used to be a book reviewer and given that they are one of the loves of my life, I now and then wonder what it would look like to return to writing about books—more than a decade after completing my PhD in English and I’m not sure how many years since I wrote a real book review. I would like to do so in a way that is smart and rigorous but doesn’t make me lose the shear joy of just tearing through a great read. I continue to noodle on this in a lazy sort of way; we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, I’ll write about my life when possible. And hopefully that will very soon not be focused only on losing my fur babies. Until then, stay safe! And love the ever-living hell out of everyone around you.
Jam and Idleness 
Ah,I’ve found you again …I hadn’t realised the background to Bookphilia. Sounds a bit likely daughter, at Wayfaring Chocolate, though she decided to defer her PhD, 15 mths ago, and I don’t think she’ll go back. She’s way happier in her life now … Albeit she still has stressful times cos she hasn’t quite got onto her truly desired path. Anyhow, so pleased to see you blogging again.
Damme, you wrote this comment 2.5 years ago and I don’t seem to have responded. I am horribly out of the loop. I’m hoping I’ll be better this year.
Haha Colleen! Nice to hear from you again! I’m still hear and will look out for your posts!
Not sure where else to put this comment/request, so: I won’t be blogging anymore but would still like to keep in touch. Via Facebook, maybe? Please e-mail me at HotchpotCafe@gmail.com if you are interested, or to tell me this request is just plain creepy. 🙂
Not creepy! But as I lost the last year to corporate productiveness and had forgotten your comment was here in the first place, you probably wouldn’t know who I was if I did write. Well, I’ll try to write; I’ll just include a screen shot of this exchange. 🙂