Il tredicesimo. Pena di vivere cosi!!!

My bike broke today. Again. Just big fat stopped in the middle of the road. I took it to the bike shop in my neighborhood and probably should have been a little more suspicious when the man who has so few teeth gave me this wide grin as he wheeled it inside. As it turns out, the price of replacing a bike tire has doubled in the last three months. 20 euro to 40 euro. As far as I'm concerned, that tire better be made of pure gold. Or at least really expensive Swiss chocolate or watches or something.

Tomorrow I fly to Paris to spend a week wandering. Bookstore-ing, coffee-drinking, too much pastry-eating, and weather permitting a fair amount of park-sitting. I'm bringing my film camera. It's Easter break and I have Wednesday to Wednesday off. In America, we would call this a two-week spring break, wouldn't we?

Here are some pictures I promised my snowbound mother of the already-blooming garden in my cortile. I meant to tell you at some point about my neighbor who takes care of the plants. Whenever she gardens, she wears this blue vest. Blue like Snuggle fabric softener, if that makes it any clearer. With it she wears matching blue gloves and a blue beret. I've never seen anything like it.

Also, I just finished reading a Murakami novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and now I can't stop looking at people's faces.















I've also been listening to an album that this guy wrote and recorded living by himself in a cabin in the woods in Wisconsin. It's called For Emma, Forever Ago, by Bon Iver. It's also incredible.