IWD

Today is International Women's Day, a Friday that I took off to use up accrued vacation time before March 31, when a new year begins for vacation purposes. So what did I do? Vacuum, clean counters, clean kitchen chairs, laundry, buy groceries, cook. Certainly an homage to the life of women.

I also took time to go for a swim, which would be a luxury except it's hard bloody work. The house cleaning was overdue--I was in London last week and too tired to do anything last weekend. During work days, Paddy gets most of my free time and all of my extra energy.

I also read a few articles in the Irish Times, which always stuns me with the quality of the content. Here's an excerpt from a young writer named Nicole Flattery: "If I've learned anything while writing this book, it's that a lot of a writing life, or an arts career in general, depends on your ability to convince people. You have to convince your editors and readers. You have to convince your funding applications, striking that perfect tone. You have to convince friends and acquaintances, exuding a mix of confidence and humility, which is its own sort of prose, its own sort of lengthy joke. Mostly, you have to convince yourself and try to act deserving."

I wonder what these artists had to convince themselves of?

I'm back to Brick Lane by the way.

March 6-8