Just walked home from church with Eileen. Today went better than last week I guess. I think it’s all in my head. The phrase, “all in my head,” has a new resonance after finishing reading the Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall.

Hall’s plot hinges on the power of words and memory to shape reality. It has a bit of a Hollywood ending, but besides that I thought this was a pretty good book.

And he thanked David Mitchell who is the other new author I’ve been reading lately (Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlast).

Before church I figured out how to run my old Finale program from saved files on my exterior hard drive. This means I managed to do at least one score this morning to hand to the instrumentalists at church. I have the other one about half done and will finish it today or tomorrow.

I thought today was Mother’s day. Kind of relief that it’s not. I told Eileen it strikes me as Baby Machine day. I guess I’m just cynical. I always make sure my Mom knows I love her on this day. But I kind of resent the consumer society manipulating me in this fashion.

I just looked on Wiki and the US celebration of Mother’s Day actually has a cool origin. Julia Ward Howe, the abolotionist who wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, attempted to get a Mother’s Day for Peace going in the 1870s.

Wow. That sure wouldn’t fly in the USA right now.

Speaking of US stuff, a French voter is quoted on BBC as saying “I don’t want [centre-right leader Nicolas] Sarkozy, his social ideal is America. That doesn’t suit me. France is not a violent society like the US.”  Isn’t that nice? I have to agree with him. We are a violent society. Of course, France might have a little violence itself in the next 24 hours when Sarkozy wins.

Sarkozy is leading their polls. The New York Times quoted him in an article today saying, “Mr. Sarkozy attraced the hatred of many French Arab and black youths when he called troublemakers in the suburbs, ‘scum,’ a description he recalles these days not with regret but with pride.”