The novel I've been writing for what seems like most of my life, is finally making itself useful. Well, part of it is, anyway. I've rolled up about twenty pages, particularly vile pages (what you might call an excremental extract, if your thoughts, like my thoughts, lean that way), with which I've been squarshing flies all day. These are plump, winter flies, made lazy and confused by the sudden heat. They're slow and simple and stupid prey. I feel a guilty glee in bringing them down like this but it's given me something to do. Of course, I'd rather be selling books to anxious and grateful customers. . . Too bad there isn't a bounty on these flies. At 25 cents each I'd have enough to buy a ditch-digger's dinner for my wife and myself. After somehow getting my appetite back. The flies love my front window. I suppose they're drawn by my gently buzzing brain trying to chew through Finnegans Wake (I do my serious reading in a chair in the window). I should be using Joyce's novel to kill with. Then I could finally say that it was worth reading. But I think I'd have trouble reselling it. What with the fly gore and all.