David > Recent Status Updates

The deceptions Don is trying to pull off make me anxious, and I'm not the "different" type that he is (I don't think), so it's hard to imagine how he would actually manage.
The men's group seems to be going well, but it also seems that Gene just played Don to try to reconnect with his son.

While the tone of this book is definitely similar to that of its predecessor, I don't find it nearly so charming. Not ready to give it up, at least not yet, but thinking about it.
Don's got much to account for before becoming a father, and he's got a lot of hurdles that he consistently fails to recognize as such.

Ch. 1 catching us up with Don and Rosie since the end of the first book -- they're in NY now, and have been married for a little over 10 months, with Don teaching at Columbia and Rosie working on her PhD thesis.

Now our intrepid tailors have been rounded up from their entryway sleeping arrangement with a truckload of beggars and carted off to a remote place to work, missing their workday completely. Manek helps Dina with trying to finish as much sewing in 2 days as they can while telling her the tragic story of these 2 tailors, starting to open her eyes to their plight.

Dina finally relented and agreed to keep the tailors' trunk so they don't have to tire themselves hauling it back and forth from her place to the apothecary entrance where they've managed to find a cheap but busy place to try to sleep.

More bad luck - their shabby hut and all those of their neighbors have been leveled by "the government," led by their landlord, of all people. Now they're back to trying to find a place to sleep, which must be very close to free or they can't afford it. Dina is not very sympathetic and is irritated by Maneck's concerns for them.

The flag's occupants are all getting to know each other better. The young men get along, sometimes a little too playfully well. The country's emergency status seems an ominous presence in multiple ways, such as the forced busing to a remote field for speeches with the promised rewards inadequately delivered.

Poor Maneck, away at school, with a government state of emergency declared and his one friend caught up in trying to improve things. Then he gets bullied himself, writes home to try to get out of school, but ends up at Dina's.

Country people Ishvar, Om, and Maneck coming to the big city, thinking of their rural homes at opposite ends of the country, finding they are heading to the same women's flat - one as a new living space with a friend of his mother's from 20 years prior, the ubcleband nephew to be tailors working for her. It seems the stage is set.

Pointing out that Republican tax cut orthodoxy continues even while time proves the idea that tax cuts lead to greater tax revenue is a lie. Also points out a few of the colossally silly reasons Newt et al shut down the government. It never seemed to be really about substance, but more about personal grievances or maybe a thought there would be cheap political points to score.

It's enjoyable but depressing in a way to read all the ways a long-time Republican strategist can shred the morals and qualifications of former guy and realize that he was still close to getting enough electoral votes to claim actual victory, not just the false claims of victory he made anyway.

This was our choice for audiobook in the car on the way to the lake cabin. Had to pause for a while to avoid sensory overload in Mpls traffic, but otherwise enjoying it AFTER getting through the forward and other early text, which had me wondering if it was going to be a big mistake of self-involved whining. Thankfully, it got better...

Now we're filling in some of twin Stella's story, her life married to a rich heir, yale grad lawyer, living in an exclusive CA neighborhood, worried about the dark people buying the house across the street because they might see through her ruse and call her out for what she is not.

Jude and Reese. We get some filling in of Reese's background in LA, and some of the story of issues with his family. She wants to help him with expenses for the operation(s) to make trans life better, so is working for a caterer. Seems she's discovered something unnerving just as this chapter ends, dropping a wine bottle upon seeing the wife enter. "Hmm, I wonder who it might be?" @@

Judge's off to run track at UCLA, falling for Reese who used to be Therese Anne, becoming friendly with his group of drag queen friends. There are flashbacks to Mallard mistreatment. "It's complicated" might have to cover it.

The PI Desiree's husband hired to look for her after she took Jude and left turns out to have been a boy she flirted with when they were young. Now he's going to help her look for Stella, who it seems must have passed herself off as white in a time when that was a potentially dangerous thing to do. At least she and Early have a new lead, and they're kindling some new feelings, too.

It's tough to return home years after running away with a child that's different and needing a job when racism puts strikes against you.

Several years have passed. Celia and Marco can't be together much because of their relative stations with the circus being so separate and different. Marco's teacher shows up to express disapproval of their fraternization, but Marco says he loves her, storms out, and kisses Celia in the partying room. But it seems everyone is made to forget they saw it happen.