Short & Sweet – week beginning October 10, 2011

Small comforts: humble breakfast and Maggie Alderson's new book, Evangeline

This week's agenda: recover from influenza, deliver lecture, read mammoth book in time for author interview, make notes for book launch emceeing gig, compose answers to interview questions, compose blog content, bid husband farewell before he flies off to Thailand, plan clothes swap party, catch up on emails. After a morning involving one dead car battery and one volatile internet connection, one has no alternative but to submit to the throes, steady-as-she-goes.
The Word for the Week: "Pleasant words are...healing to the body." Proverbs 16:24
Quote of the Week: "Man is capable of as much atrocity as he has imagination." - Parcher, A Beautiful Mind 
Dictionary.com Word of the Week: milquetoast \MILK-tohst\, noun:
A very timid, unassertive, spineless person, especially one who is easily dominated or intimidated. 
"Under the generic 'anonymous' pseudonym, the most obsequious milquetoast can transform into a zealous, vigilant, hateful detractor with little thought given over to the repercussions for one's words and actions." 
Reading: 'The moral ambiguity of free speech' at Eureka Street. 
The Breakfast Club: Lacking culinary enthusiasm and wary of a weakened stomach, all I feel like consuming when I am ill is toast, tea and lemonade. Last night, I tried to convince myself that I was up to normal consumptive fare. Wrong. Note to self: give your body what it really wants. Hence, today's breakfast fare – a rather uninspiring return to toast, jam and tea – petit dejeuner de ja vous? Oui.

Girl With a Satchel