monday july 30 2001    |    12:13 a.m.

yesterday, sunday, marked my dad's third week (and therefore mine) at the hospital.

but i think the worst is over. a day or two more and he should be out of the woods. and then another while doing physical therapy.

i hadn't laughed in so long. i was beginning to feel the skin below the corners of my lips beginning to sag around my chin. i'm not kidding. it felt so good to laugh with my parents today until my eyes were damp.

i quit smoking cigarettes three days ago, but i think i might put quitting on hold for a while longer. mainly because i have nothing else to do between visiting hours when i'm too sleepy to read and roberto isn't around and i've already exceeded the recommended daily allowance of cafés con leche.

fritzel: i love you & will call you as soon as i can.

today i started reading jeremy thrane by kate christensen -- one of the advance-copy books the nice assistant editor at broadway books gave me as a premature consolation prize -- because i read a tiny mixed review of it over my morning coffee today in the ny times book review. i think it comes out next week officially. i remembered my paperback copy sitting bitterly on a shelf in my room, so i grabbed it and tossed it into the straw bag of reading materials, chapstick, and wallet that i bring with me to the hospital. not bad. i read a good chunk of it and it entertained me. it's nice to be able to whiz through something fun and harmeless like that now and then while suffering (happily) through ms. woolf. (yes, i'm still reading to the lighthouse. no rush.) and there was the occasional underline-worthy passage, even.

so. off to bed. i have a lot of letters to write and things to send... just be patient with me.

ericka: sta. teresa is lying by my dad's bedside, along with two estampitas (?) of the sagrado corazón and of mary, given to us by denise's mom. looks like she's still watching over me.