Fabulous First Paragrpah - Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Early November.  It's nine o'clock.  The titmice are banging against the window.  Sometimes they fly dizzily off after the impact, other times they fall and lie struggling in the new snow until they can take off again.  I don't know what they want that I have.  I look out the window at the forest.  There is a reddish light over the trees by the lake.  It is starting to blow.  I can see the shape of the wind on the water. 



I'm looking forward to reading Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.  It has been awhile since I've read any fiction that I have fallen in love with.  Maybe this is it.

I like the cover and think it will be good to read a book that has been translated- although I don't know why that appeals to me.

My keyboard on this laptop has developed an issue.  A few weeks ago a key came off- I think it was the T.  I could type pretty well without the key on it because there is a little button under that I guess- it just feels weird but putting my finger in the same place without the key actually present produces the same result.  When I just clamped down on the T it snapped back into place and I forgot about it.  Then yesterday the semi-colon stopped working.  There is probably a crumb trapped underneath it that I have mashed in between the key and the button the key is supposed to press- or more likely- a crumb that I have flattened into a buffer between the edge of the key and the base of the keyboard so that even when I press the semi-colon the key can't quite lower down far enough to press the tiny button that the key is supposed to press.

I like the first person of the paragraph and the violence that contrasts with the nature scene.  I like the idea that the narrator posits that the birds are trying to take something from him, when I'm sure that isn't the case at all.  Going through my Mom's things or trying not to - I relate to the idea that people are coming to take away her crap that no one wants- because that is what old people think, isn't it.  Like I want twenty of the forty eight candles that were dustily lying on top of the 52 doilies, tea-towels, wash cloths, crocheted pimpernels and crotchety handtowels.  Like anyone wants them- particularly the crone who thinks they are of value to me and that's why I moved them rather than the truth- which is I washed the stupid cloths and packed up the candles to get them out of my sight and reduce some of the dust covered surfaces by one one thousandth in this catacomb of sadness of soft absorbent smelly surfaces into which I am deposited. 

There are worms too, or are they centipedes- dried up or wriggling along the ceiling or caught midway between there and the floor on the edges of the walls scrimpling up looking for what I have no idea.  So I'll just settle for the dash key or is it the hyphen key or is it some other key that I'll use instead of the semi-colon key whose grammatical use I never learned very well anyway.  No colons or semi-colons for me these days.