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2002-02-15 | 12:08 p.m.

Wrote today and now I'm in a foul mood. Frank wanted me to explain the WHY of the thing, so I started stretching it out and explaining here and explaining there----I have no shortage of explanations----but then the thing started to feel pointless and monstrously self-evident. It didn't help that Duff showed me an account of some kids being harrassed and beaten by the S.F.P.D. for no good reason. After reading that, a meandering essay about a shopping trip looks like the piffle that it is.

Was talking yesterday to Kath about what we would do if we could do whatever we pleased workwise. She would like to make money writing. I said, "I would put my children in the care of a competent team, and leave in the morning for my office in a small, nearby cottage that I shared with 2-3 other writers, all of us working in separate rooms. We'd break for a communal lunch and head home around 3:30 or 4."

It occurred to me that this wouldn't even be all that hard to pull off. It isn't even all that different from what I have now, except that it takes away the kids (and dog) and replaces them with quiet grownups whose industry will set a good example to me and whose lunchtime company will draw me out of my fugue. Oh, if only.

I think it would also need to be an Internet-free zone. I like having the convenience of looking things up, but boy is it ever a time-suck.

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