my hated paper done, two more to go. i returned a bag of books to widener, and went to borrow rikita's shopping trolley so that i can take some of my boxes to the post office. this is probably the wrong time, she says, but *producing two books.* she got me penelope fitzgerald's the afterlife (it is the only fitzgerald - other than the two biographies - that i haven't read, and i always meant to, and i don't think i've ever mentioned that to her!) and valerie paradiz's clever maids. (i hope the title of the last isn't going to irritate su-lin.) i hadn't heard about that one, and probably i'm not so keen on the feminist thrust, but it seems like something i would want to read. (perhaps now i'll have to take my complete grimm home as companion.)

and i said, looking at her johnson dickinson (mine's a franklin), can you think of one dickinson poem about domesticity? because i had been completely floored by that during a mock exam a week ago and it's been annoying me since.

me: "ken asked me that, and i just couldn't come up with one. i waffled through six or seven poems but nothing came to mind."
rikita: "yes - i can't really think of one either"
me: and i keep feeling - there's got to be something about domesticity, cos she's christabel lamotte right? but there aren't!"
rikita bursts out laughing: "that's exactly what i was thinking!"
me: and every time i do think of something i realise, wait, that's christabel."
rikita: "i know! the first poem i thought of was, dolly keeps a secret! oh but that's not dickinson!"

is it any wonder we are friends?