Monday, July 4:The Fourth of July.

Monday, July 4:The Fourth of July.

There were five of us at meditation this morning. It was delightful to sit with other kindred souls in silence before breakfast.

After breakfast, I sat in the lodge lobby and used the Wildacres connection to update my blog. But it was so slow that I couldn’t successfully down load and upload photos from my camera to the blog. I think there is a way to send a picture from the camera to the blog, but I haven’t figured that one out yet. Will and I rode in his pickup truck into the Wal-Mart, about 15 miles away. I got some Diet Mountain Dew—so much for my resolution to stop drinking that awful stuff. It’s a pretty strong addiction.

At lunch, two retreat groups intersect. They interact, but not much. There are writers and potters. Some of the writers have T-shirts with sayings printed on them. Yesterday I saw, “I’m silently correcting your grammar.” Also, a strictly Wildacres witticism, “What happens on the balcony stays on the balcony.” Today one of the potters had a T-shirt reading “The Dark and Stormy Night Potters Guild.” Seems like that phrase should stay in the writers’ territory.

What am I doing here? The book:

My book—Happy, or I Just Want to Be Happy, or Happiness—is ready. I just need a good beginning and ending, and some paring down of redundancies. Guess I should pick a title—or maybe that doesn’t matter. Let me think this out. Here’s the story. I used to be very unhappy. Then I figured out why. Then I figured out some ways to overcome those reasons. The more I follow these guidelines, the happier I am. Now I am happy

Worked all afternoon on my Happiness book. Good organizational breakthrough…

In the evening we had readings in the lobby. I read my “Pee and Politics in North Carolina, and it was well received.