Wow, it's been eight days since my last entry. First I got preoccupied with yet one more revision of my novel, which took four days (when I say "revision" I mean mostly touching up, not too much complete rewriting); and then I got a bad cold with a touch of the flu, which basically laid me up.

I hope the book is basically done now. It's the ending which has given me the most problems, but I hope I've licked it.

I still don't feel so good--can't seem to get my temperature down to normal--and don't have much of an appetite. I drank my fill of tea and soup this weekend...with a little Jameson to sweat out the fever, too.

Highlight of the weekend was watching the old movie "The Scarlet Pimpernel" with Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. I had never seen it before--the 1935 chestnut about the British aristocrat rescuing French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French revolution. It's a Zorro-type story, with Howard pretending to be a near-effeminate fop to cover up his derring-do from the villains. The best scenes were when he was pretending to be totally vapid and only concerned with men's fashions. Howard was quite funny as a kind of 1792 "metrosexual." And Merle Oberon as his bewildered wife was gorgeous. A friend of mine really likes her, and now I understand why. Beautiful face, good actress, and a lot of sexy low-cut gowns in this movie! A most fetching bosom...in fact, it was interesting to see a 1935 movie that gave such prominent display to cleavage. I can't get her cleavage out of my mind...I guess I must be back on the road to health, after all!