Man, What a Day

I sit, here in my father's solarium (which is really a glassed-in balcony in a 12 storey building full of old people), staring out at the snow, which is coming down to beat the band. I am at a point in the preparation of a new canvas that requires a good bit of sitting around, so I sit, here in my father's solarium, reading Cakes and Ale and listening to the Fifth. Life is good, up to a factor of about 80%, and all traces of the bitterness previously reported have been brushed away by the snow.

The German translation of "it is snowing" is, I believe, es gibt schnee. Which I have always found to be the case. Snow always feels like a gift. I can't see the Potomac, but I can see through the trees the fog that enshrouds it. Life is good.

Truth be told, I've not yet decided whether to paint Robert E. Lee or J.E.B. Stuart--both of whom provide compelling visuals and a tastey back-story. I will know before the day is out. Maria Bartiromo, just off the CitiGroup jet, lurks in the shadows.

In the meantime, Maugham writes:

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device (by which he means peppering conversation with meaningless phrases and jargon) to such a height of perfection, and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.

This made me stop and laugh.

Back to grey-clad men on horses, this from Churchill:

... (The American Civil War) must upon the whole be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass conflicts of which till then there was a record.

Man, What a day.