thisnewday

Getting near the end of Tobias Wolff's "In Pharoah's Army," his fourth book and follow-up memoir to "This Boy's Life."

It's 4:42 AM, and I've been awake for about an hour.

It was a struggle to sit upright, to get out of bed. To walk into my office, where I've come to read, without literally falling down.

It makes me wonder about my own ending, about how many pages I have yet to turn.

And how long I'll be turning them without some help.

Or if it'll all just end in some sort of darkness which I won't even see because I'm simply part of it...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
10.25.2026

Finally arrived at a halfway decent recipe for one of my main-meal, daily smoothies. The problem has been that, every time I add something to enhance nutrition, it throws off something about the flavor or texture and renders it less palatable. 

My blender is a Ninja Pro with 24 oz. cup and I've listed ingredients in the order added. However, I also use a shaker cup with metal coil and lid to mix the first three ingredients which are then set aside and added to the blender cup later.

The shaker cup ingredients, in the order added, are 80g Lactaid Protein 2% milk, 1 scoop whey protein isolate, and 1 scoop Thorne creatine. Those are then shaken in the cup and set aside.

To the blender cup, I add in the following order, 130g frozen banana slices, 140g frozen sweet cherries, 1 tbsp. ground flax and chia seeds, 40g uncooked oatmeal, 140g Lactaid Protein 2% milk, 40g peanut butter, 40g Nutella, and 100g Greek vanilla yogurt.

I blend this for a minute, shake the blender cup, and then mix for another minute. Then open and add shaker cup ingredients.

(I then add a very small amount of milk to the empty shaker cup and shake before adding to the blender cup because the milk, whey powder and creatine tend to thicken and stick to the inside of the shaker.)

Finally, I put the drinking cap on the blender cup and shake well to mix before drinking.

And that's basically it. It's admittedly quite sweet and certainly not appropriate for anyone on a low-carb diet. But that's not me and I burn off a lot of those calories on my alternating days of 10-mile bike rides and full-body workouts.

(I may, in fact, delete the Nutella from this one because it was added back when I was using tart cherries as the main flavor ingredient. Like I said, it's an on-going process. )

Hope everyone has a great day...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
10.16.2026

It's a little past 3:30 AM, and I've just finished reading Tobias Wolff's "Desert Breakdown, 1968." It's the seventh of ten stories in his 1985 collection, "Back in the World."

(I can't do italics or underline text on my phone--to indicate a book title--so I've had to use quotation marks. Which are supposed to be used for short story titles or the titles of articles, etc. At least that's what I remember from college English 101 at 3:30 AM.)

Beyond that, my mouth is dry, my vision blurry, as I stand/ with Wolff's protagonist/ and stare/ across the desert/ at purple,/ heat-distorted/ mountains/ in the distance/ and share/ her desperation/ that his story/ has ended there...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
10.10.2026

sometimes
it's hard to know

whether to
frame this life

as homage
to the past

or to
just let go...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
9.24.2026

Today I ordered the last three of the eight Tobias Wolff books that I'm gonna read.

My plan is to read them in chronological order, i.e., the order in which they were published.

They include:

In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981), short stories

The Barracks Thief (1984), novella

Back in the World (1985), short stories

This Boy's Life (1989), memoir

In Pharoah's Army (1994), memoir

The Night In Question (1996), short stories

Old School (2003), novel

Our Story Begins (2008), short stories

And now, we wait. In the run-up to my decision on how to approach my renewed engagement with reading, I had read "This Boy's Life" and may read it again as I make my way through this list.

To be honest, I had no recollection of having read the book in the past, even though it was in my bookcase. And I feel like I'm going to want to read it again, in the context provided by these newly-acquired works. Such was my reaction to my recent reading of it. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, that's where I am with this and now just want to know, Amazon, W(here)TF are my books, lol...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
9.11.2026

I found mistakes in what I'd written.

I fixed the ones I found, but wondered if there were more.

It's not as if l'm working on a next "best seller" but, you know, I'd like to get it right.

Because things that we do sometimes live on.

At least that's what we like to think...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.2.2026

Been pondering this for a while. The idea of maybe starting to read again. Which i've always understood as an essential underpinning of a writer's life. Which i've also contemplated resuming.

But WHERE to begin or with WHAT? That's the question that I'd been struggling with.

Then, a few days ago, I began re-reading some of my own journal entries. And I came across two which talked about Tobias Wolff, Tess Gallagher, and Raymond Carver and the crossing of their paths at Syracuse University in the early-to-mid 1980s.

I had previously read Wolff's "This Boy's Life" but, when I recently looked, found nothing else by or about him on my bookshelves. That, despite my assertion, in the aforementioned journal entries, that I had previously read everything which had been published in connection with the three of them.

So, given that and my own preference for memoirs and short stories--which are Wolff's forte, maybe that's where I'll begin my own reset as both a reader and a writer.

So, I'm off to Amazon. Wish me luck...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.28.2026

Some days
I am

my own
worst enemy.

I know,
it's been

too often
said

to claim that label
as my own.

And yet,
here I am

living it
again...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.21.2026

(2) puffs
levalbuterol

@ 5 AM,
BP readings

at 9
or 10,

then coughing,
gasping,

coughing.
Glad, at times,

there are no
others

to witness
or partake

of this
degraded remnant

of a
life...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.17.26

The people
who have owned

and lived in
the house

next door
have sold it

and are leaving.
And, although

I hardly knew them,
except, perhaps,

to say,
"Hello,"

(and not
enough to

say,
"goodbye,")

nonetheless
I feel

their absence
already...

LPK 
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.11.2026

for Michele and Allie