Weekend

In spite of a year without work, I still think of the Saturday and Sunday as time off: the weekend. Today was gray with on-and-off rain. Patrick and I went to HarMar. It's an old, down-on-its-luck mall, which still has some good stores. We drank coffee in the Barnes and Noble and I bought Nnedi Okorafor's new novel. Then we looked at shoes at Schuler's, a fine, family-owned shoe store. I bought a pair of socks. After that was Staples for paper, printer ink and paperclips. If I am going to get serious about writing I need all three. Finally we went grocery shopping.

We got home at five, and I made dinner. Pat and I both like shopping. What we are trying to do right now is limit what we buy to things we really need, such as food, and small luxuries: a cup of coffee, a book, a pair of socks. Somewhere down the line we may need to reduce further. Right now we can afford coffee and some books and good socks.