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Day’s Verse:
But as for me, I will sing of Your strength; yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning, for You have been my stronghold and a refuge in my day of distress.
Psalm 59:16
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Last night Ian and I bonded over a little book BBQ. The book was called Cold Blooded, and its story and writing quality caused Ian’s eyes to bleed as he read it. In desperation for some unread book, I had tried to entertain myself with this disasterpiece but after 20 pages my large intestine were starting to move up to throttle me, so I tossed it aside in favor of The 13 Clocks.

After Ian started reading it, we began discussing the possibility of destroying it in some manner.In the great anti-book tradition we settled on burning it, because polluting the atmosphere with its smoke would be better than polluting more minds with its poisonous words. We found that catching a book on fire, however, takes more persistence than we expected. Although paper, Cold Blooded stubbornly refused to do much more than smolder until a burst of wind fanned it into lovely huge flames (top picture). After that the book alternately flamed on and smoldered until, after about half an hour, only the cover very few pages remained unburned. At that point we doused it with a bowl of water and Ian gingerly transported it into the garage, where it continues to sit sopping on a plate.

Overall we enjoyed ourselves immensely, and afterwards agreed to incorporate this as a new family tradition. The whole experience somehow made me feel alright about flying away this afternoon — Ian and I got to spend time together doing something so strange that only the two of us would really enjoy that activity. We bonded over our book BBQ, and now I can fly away feeling OK.