Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. No. I wasn't - and I am not miffed at all;
and as for my "scolding" you, nothing could be further from my intent.
All I'm after is clarity, - and I acknowledge that clarity also may be
yet another rhetorical illusion.

Almost all of yesterday, I spent reading Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.
It's an assigned text for Benjamin's 11th grade English, and I considered
my reading it to be long overdue. I'm embarrassed by how much I dislike
the book: the gingerbread prose, the cartoon characters, the demonization,
the pervasive superstition, and overshadowing the contrived fairy tale,
the evil genius of its author, a traitor to transcendentalism, a proponent
of slavery and a propagandist for Franklin Pierce. I don't know much about
Pierce, but Gail Collins says he was worse even than G.W. Bush.

I find it dispiriting to talk - or write - about books, or about people,
that I don't like, so I'll try to put the Scarlet Letter out of my mind
and get back to my own writing, - and perhaps more important, putting
my house in order. I have a long list of things to do here in Belmont,
such as replacing the radiators in the old section of the house
with separately zoned baseboard heating units; replacing very drafty
windows, refinishing floors, all the while running out of energy and time.
I'm diffident about starting projects which I might not be able to complete.
I keep telling Klemens: There's nothing but trouble ahead.

My sister is recovering but slowly. Her clostridium difficile diarrhea 
is not yet cured, but is at present no immediate threat to her life.
She plans to resume her itinerant lifestyle, for which, in my judgment
she has neither the memory nor the energy. But I can't stop her and
wouldn't want to stop her, if I could. So we'll see what happens.

Stay well and give my best to Ned.
Jochen