This is Thursday's post, incidentally. Until I get used to this summer schedule thing again posting is going to be weird and hiccupy - a couple posts on a single day, and then a day without posts. Apologies in advance to the discombobulated.

Oog. I taught from 8 Wednesday morning until just about 5 that afternoon, with a break long enough to write tests for Thursday. And then I had an evening meeting starting at 6:30.

I did manage to get in a half hour of piano practice. It pleases me how I have gone from absolutely NOT being able to play the first part of "The Wild Horseman" with both hands together to being kinda sorta able to play it. That's what keeps me going back to the piano, even despite frustrations, even despite so very many people being so much better at it than I - being able to see that kind of improvement day to day is a powerful motivator and I find it very rewarding.

(And I anticipate in a few more days, I will be even better at it.)

It's really hard to explain the kind of satisfaction I feel about being able to get steadily better on a piece...it's a type of satisfaction that I don't often get (so many of the things I do, their success or the evaluation of such is contingent on someone else's opinion) and it's something I really crave.

I can't quite think of anything else I have in my life that feels the same way - not even knitting and quilting, because I've been doing them so long and am fairly expert at them, that there really isn't a learning curve any more and it's more a satisfaction of getting something done or being able to see, for example, that I've completed a sleeve. It's not the same as, "Wow, I could not play this at all last week and now I can play it almost without mistakes and close to the speed at which it's supposed to be played." It's not exactly instant gratification but it's as close to instant gratification as I get in my life.

It may be that every week as I sit down at the piano and try to play the new stuff, I go "Oh no, I've reached the limit of my ability. I can not play this. I will never get better than I am right now." And yet I persist, and yet I do get better. It's almost like beating my learned pessimism about my musical abilities every day.

I also scored a minor book win this evening. After finishing up Pickwick the other night, I was casting about for something new to start on. (I am already reading "The Guns of August" - Barbara Tuchman's account of the beginning of WWI - but that's a non-fiction book, and I want a fiction book to read too).

One of the online commentaries about Pickwick that I looked at (I like to read a few commentaries about a novel, especially a so-called* Great Book, after I've finished it) and several of them noted that Vin Reid's "Moosepath League" books were a modern sort of Pickwick tale. I had read "Cordelia Underwood" several years ago (I have four books from the series - don't know if they're just the first four, or if they are the only four; I've not checked to see if the author has written any others).

(*"So called" because supposedly Dickens' novels were the "scandalous" books of their day - some young women were actually discouraged from reading them lest they be corrupted by a, gasp, NOVEL. Makes you wonder what will be considered the "Great Books" of 2150. Makes you worry a bit. Or at least it does me.)

I decided to re-read "Cordelia Underwood" (it's a pretty light book) and them maybe read the others in order. I found the first, third, and fourth books in the place I knew I had left them, but could not find the second - Mollie Peer, which I KNEW I had had, because I had started reading it at one point. Had I given it away? Lost it? Taken it with me when visiting family and left it there?

I felt a little bereft. I went through most of my book-stacks (My books are not organized in any logical way; in some cases I have similar topics roughly together but many of my shelves are the "Oh, I have a new bookshelf - time to get this random pile of books off the floor/off being double-banked on this other shelf"). Couldn't find it.

(I do find, to my embarrassment, that I have two copies of "Glory, Passion, and Principle" - a book about eight women who played some historical role in the American Revolution. As I have a hardback and a paperback copy, I can only assume I bought the hardback when it first came out, shelved it away, forgot it, and then saw the paperback a few years later and thought, "Wow, I want this book." If someone's dying for a copy, let me know...I would be willing to swap or maybe even outright give the paperback copy (it does have a slight ding - the front cover has a minor fold in one corner. Failing that, I might donate my hardback copy to the university library if they think they could use it.)

Anyway, I thought, "I wonder how much a new copy of "Mollie Peer" from Amazon would run?" followed almost immediately by, "Oh noes, what if "Mollie Peer" is out of print?"

Well, I checked. Yes, it apparently is, but there are many used copies. But they all have high shipping and none were eligible for the free 2-day Prime shipping. (Yes, I buy a subscription to that every year. It's one of my few luxuries. But it's so wonderful and I can often get a book from Amazon faster than I can find the time to drive to the Books a Million and hope they have it.)

So I thought, Okay, time to look again.

And a second hunt - this time on the shelf full of books-saved-from-childhood (you KNEW I had those, didn't you?) turned it up. I guess I stuck it there in a fit of cleaning.

So anyway, my set is back together, and I think I will start re-reading "Cordelia Underwood" tonight, with plans to continue on some of my copious (hah) free time this weekend - maybe set up and try to knit on the stalled Cobblestone Pullover sleeve while I read, seeing as it's pretty basic stockinette.