The new Ian McEwan is quite good. The English Patient was not. Michael Ondaatje seems not to let his sense of humour get involved in his novels, and I think that's unfortunate. It worked alright in Anil's Ghost, but it's a touchy business this gossamer prose light as swan farts.

What next? Either Ian Rankin (the new one or Fleshmarket Close) or Vendela Vida's new book. Or one of the 3 Cormac McCarthy novels I have lying around unread.

What else? My Morning Jacket's live album, Okonokos is wonderful.

Read Remainder by Tom McCarthy after being unexpectedly hooked by the first page. It was alright but a bit rigid in its form. Entertaining enough.

Now reading Falling Man by Don DeLillo. A third of the way and finding it classic DeLillo in every sense. If on September 11, 2001 you felt like you were living in a Don DeLillo novel, you will not be disappointed with this book. You can get yourself a copy in June.

McEwan's The Child in Time was good, not great. Feels like the type of book that appeals only to writers, and even then only on limited terms. Slightly overbearing structure and not much sense of wonder in the unfolding. Wondering if McEwan's not all I had him cracked up to be. Still, the first 30 pages was highly engaging. I should bug Random House for the rest of his oeuvre and set about making up my mind sometime later this year.

Will read The English Patient next, satisfied that enough time has elapsed since the movie's aneurysmic rise and fall and the book's universal lauding in the wake of the Booker win.

Enjoying the new Arcade Fire album. It's earnest and anthemic as expected, but departs from Coldplay territory with frequent danceability and indulgences in harmonies and timbres ill-suited for FM stadium rock. Comparing it to their first album, which isn't quite as second-by-second brilliant as people who haven't listened to it in a while recall it being, is stupid.

Dog caught a squirrel yesterday but didn't know that the game doesn't end when you get your mouth around one (nor, I imagine, was she quite prepared for the texture of frantically squirming fur). Squirrel and dog live to fight another day. As the forest and its 4 months of rotting things thaws and is nimbly trodden upon by sundry species of urban vermin dog will lose her coonhounding mind and possibly her nose when it pivots right off her face.

Reading What is the What by Dave Eggers. It is in all ways excellent. It's being called a novel, though it's really a freely fictionalized autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of Sudan's Lost Boys and a friend of Eggers. Not sure why Deng isn't credited as at least co-author, but I have to assume the reason's acceptable to both parties as it's Deng's likeness on the cover and all proceeds are going to his foundation for helping the Sudanese in America. [March 4: Just noticed inside the book that the full title is What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, which I think is a pretty clever thing to call a novel like this.]

A couple nights ago I read an advance copy of The Reluctant Fundamentalist at my boss' behest. It was disturbing. Not deeply troubling, but something in it is still gnawing at me. I think it was the form: a 180-page conversation in which the second person doesn't speak at all but is assaulted with politeness and hospitality at a little restaurant in Lahore. I won't spoil it for you; you should read it.

After this it's going to be Ondaatje or McEwan; both would be regarded in work circles as job-related as each has a new book coming out, but the truth is I've got stuff by both that's sat uncracked far too long.

Watched Primer this afternoon. Perhaps a touch too obtuse, but they landed all the emotional points and the story makes a kind of sense even if you can't map out exactly what's gone down. Wonderful feeling of being overwhelmed by the pace and wanting to go back just a bit, and then feeling a kind of guilt for doing so blithely what these characters are struggling with.

Also watched the last X Men movie. Awful, awful, awful. I can imagine the hostile reaction it must have been met with in theatres on opening weekend. I never did figure out why I should be sympathetic to the cause of the "good guys" in this one. They were like the Jewish Warsaw police force of occupied Poland. But maybe that wasn't the storyline I was supposed to be following. What a mess.

Looking forward to writing for a friend's sitcom. Not yet sold to anyone (or finished editing) but pregnant with possibility. The way I feel about the work, I don't care if the pilot doesn't go anywhere (though for Claudio's sake I hope it does). I just want to get back to writing, and it seems the only thing that drags me back to it is collaboration.

Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Remind me not to eat ever again, alright?

Came home from work and couldn't stop thinking about work. About the 3 days' worth of work I need to get done tomorrow morning. About the possibility of not taking Friday as a vacation day and working through it (though I've still got 8 vacation days to eat before April 1). About not failing. About being set up to fail. About being responsible for the whole mess, and yet not, and what it is to be for the first time or maybe to be aware for the first time of being one of the many who half-ass their way through. About the cramps in my neck and shoulders.

Walked dog to relax. Melted snow re-froze in evening cold; hard to relax when you're trying not to crack your head on the ground. Came home. Poured generous glass of wine.

Drunk now, and happy.

It's come to this at last. My unborn children, know that there was a reason, and it was as good a reason as there is for anything people do.