� Steve, in e-mail to me this morning

I am amused that he thought I�d need convincing, that the note had two paragraphs in it and that this was its conclusion. I wrote back: You had me at "go boating." So tonight Steve�s skipping soccer and I may skip laundry in favor of hanging out on a watercraft with the married Eastsiders from dinner several weeks ago and the skipper, a guy named Joe. Joe, Justin Timberlake, Stalin, whatever � as long as you are inviting me out on your boat there is an extent to which I don�t give a rat�s ass who you are. Go boating? Yes I will! This morning I got in late because I had to drop my car off at what is unfortunately its home away from home, C.L. Auto. Pharmaceutical lunch and then I have to leave early to catch a 75 to a 36 back to C.L. to put another couple hundred on the Mastercard (argh), so as this will not be a day with many hours in which my ass is in my chair in front of my computer, I must keep this entry short or I will accomplish nothing at all. The licensing board, for instance, continues to bay hungrily outside my window.

Car in shop: head gasket. Something about a leak or a crack? I love C.L. because they�re cheap, they�re fast, they�re not sleazy, they have a tank of koi, and they�re in the �hood so I am supporting local business, but sometimes the language barrier is a real problem. At the counter they keep laminated, labeled diagrams of engines and electrical systems so if they�re explaining something and failing to make themselves understood there is the option of pointing, or spelling out THERMOSTAT on a memo pad. Over the phone it�s more difficult, and as near as I can figure out the head gasket is in smalltime trouble, and replacing it would cost over a grand but there is a less invasive option that involves putting sealant into something and hoping the sealant fills the leak (or crack) � about one-quarter the price. If the sealant doesn�t take, then what I spend on the attempt they would deduct from the cost of replacing the gasket, so why not. I�m going to Portland tomorrow, though, and Kim from C.L. said he�d have to do the sealant thing and drive it around a bit before giving the 400-mile round trip his imprimatur � Kim did not use the word "imprimatur" � so I may have to borrow Steve�s car, and if mine is not cleared to drive 400 miles in one day then I am going to be afraid to drive it at all, so in my mind and on my budget I have already braced myself for the big bite. Fuck fuck fuck. If I�d thought about this at all when Kim called with the bad report, I would have told him to go ahead and do it, but I was not thinking; he had me at "250." Also, I need new front tires because one of them has a bubble on it.

At least I get to go on a boat tonight.

Mrs. Roboto is right, I am not going to like "The Lovely Bones," on the schedule for July�s Book Club. But as long as I can get it from the library so I don�t have to pay money not to like it � like I did with Sebold�s husband�s awful book, the worst piece of crap I�ve read in a year and an embarrassment to UC Irvine � I will read the thing, what�s three or four hours out of my rich full wonderful life and besides, everyone else is on board and I am not a consensus-wrecker. Some people are going to ask me, encouragingly, why I am so sure I�m not going to like it, maybe I am in for a great surprise. That�s their right, and the ways in which I reach these kinds of decisions, I have learned in my time here, are not SOP in Seattle. It�s just that in all the albeit favorable reviews I have seen of the Bones and all the articles about it, I haven�t read a single thing that makes me remotely interested, and since there is a massive backlog of books I�d like to read for which my interest has been piqued in three or four or twelve different ways, I perform a simple cost-benefit analysis and make a bet that the Sebold doesn�t have enough to offer me. Also, Vanessa hated it and advised me last week not to waste my time, and she and I usually have very similar taste in novels; I am still grateful to her for hooking me up with "Jernigan." Also, from the interviews I�ve read with her I have not come away with a favorable impression of Sebold herself, she doesn�t seem like someone I�d like and although I know it�s not PC to say this about a survivor of sexual assault and a brave former drug addict, I�m not sure I respect her as a writer. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, as a rule I do not care to read novels that have sexual assault as a theme. Also, none of the foregoing means that I don�t like you if you like Alice, and I hope that you can understand that and that we can still be friends. Hi, Book Club ladies new and returning. I am not going to like the Sebold but I do like you. Thank you very much for coming over and bringing all that tasty food, and I hope maybe we can do stuff together even outside the BC circuit. Are you busy next Wednesday night? Let me know, I�m planning something.

This morning at Steve�s I used, for the first time, the new hair dryer my sister sent, one of these ionic dealies that are supposed to make your hair extra shiny and smooth and I am thinking that there seems to be something to this, and as I was taking it out of the box, some cds fell out that I hadn�t realized she put in there. One of them is "The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever." Oh *hell* yes. In a perfect world I will listen to it as I cruise south on I-5 tomorrow morning in a skimpy top, sunroof open and leak (crack?) sealed, but even if I have to take the stereo-impaired and sunroofless Tercel, maybe I can copy it to a cassette tonight.