This afternoon I did go down to the pool after work and swim a few laps. I loved the feeling of being back in the water. I have to thank the gauntly lovely Hilarie at handstil for chivvying me into going down to the pool. No bikini girls or groups of partying twentysomethings--- just me in the pool there at 1730 hours. Though I did speak to a few people who walked by. It's a start--- being able to go back into some kind of social setting. I may make it a point to start swimming a few laps in the evening.

After I climbed out, I sat poolside at one of the tables and started reading Jonathan Lethem's "You Don't Love Me Yet". It's a recommendation from Umi at ivich, and one I'll thank her for. Fun book, actually. It's charming enough to recommend to both Lissy at emigree and Alessandra at bel_ebat. I wish I could still offer up recommendations to soft_melodies. And I will tell Deserie at eyelines about it.

I even sat poolside and called the most pettable little K-dot at citydress on my keitai and talked with her about Tom Waits and about Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" and about why she should watch "Short Cuts". However complex some things may be, the little K-dot is someone I want to keep in my life. The K-dot understands that I am a vur' lonely little long-eared desert hedgehog sometimes, and she's an excellent Small Sea Otter.

Instant Asian Noodles tonight--- Szechuan hot 'n' sour soup with noodles. I need the spices and the heat of the broth to keep my sinuses open. Any food that I really like--- Thai red curry, lamb vindaloo, hot 'n' sour soup, kung pao chicken, black pepper chicken and shrimp, chili con carne ---should leave me gasping for water, with eyes and nose streaming. That's food that gets me through the summer. General Tso's chef knew that back in the days of the Xinjiang campaigns, of course--- and the officers of the Raj knew that back in the days of British India.

I reminded Lisa-Marie at Facebook that I met her at Diaryland six years ago, back in the summer of the Year Two. Lisa-Marie called herself Glitterscars in those days. She was studying law in Scotland, and she was one of the vur' first people to befriend me at D-Land. I've always been grateful to her for that, for being kind and helpful and fun. She listed me among her favourites with the comment that "I think all the girls here are a little in love with him". I was majorly thrilled to find that, and I made the Happy *Wuff!* Noise. She did make me feel welcome and valued. She'll always have my thanks and my best wishes for her own career in legal journalism.

I watched the finale of "The Tudors" last night. It was sad and well-done and oddly understated--- understated always works best. The writers had mined Alison Weir's books on Henry VIII; that much was easy to see. Again--- a good choice. They'd ended the penultimate episode with Thos. Wyatt writing poetry in the Tower:

These bloody days have broken my heart.
My lust, my youth did them depart,
And blind desire of estate.
Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.
Of truth, circa Regna tonat.

Around the throne the thunder rolls... Not maybe the best Latin translation, but acceptable--- and one I think Weir used...

The execution of Anne Boleyn was done with dignity--- I have to give the producers that. I've never seen "Anne of the Thousand Days", so I don't know how the young Genevieve Bujold played Anne. But Natalie Dormer played Anne with reserve and dignity. Anne Boleyn was highly educated and a committed Reformer. Dormer played her as that--- as a woman aware of her rank and role all the way to the end, a woman firm in Reformed faith and able to discuss theology with men like Cranmer. The Queen's execution was on Tower Green, and done in private--- the London public would not have been there, just Tower staff, courtiers and their families, and a few officials. The Constable of the Tower wrote of her final days that

This morning she sent for me, that I might be with her at such time as she received the good Lord, to the intent I should hear her speak as touching her innocency alway to be clear. And in the writing of this she sent for me, and at my coming she said, 'Mr. Kingston, I hear I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time and past my pain.' I told her it should be no pain, it was so little. And then she said, 'I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have but a little neck,' and then put her hands about it, laughing heartily.

I have seen many men and also women executed, and that they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has much joy in death. Sir, her almoner is continually with her, and had been since two o'clock after midnight.

The execution was with a sword rather than an axe, and done in the French style, with the Queen kneeling upright rather than kneeling with her neck on the block. One swift blow--- the actual strike wasn't shown, nor the severed head. Just the Queen looking up at birds leaving the Tower and the movement of the executioner behind her. The executioner had called out for his servant to hand him his sword just before the stroke--- a way to keep the Queen from knowing when the blow was coming.

The Russians used to do something similar up through the 1990s-- a condemned prisoner would be led out to what he assumed would be a new cell or a meeting with the warden and shot in the back of the head without warning. The Russians said that it was kinder if the prisoner never knew that he had a firm date with death, and it did keep prisoners malleable and quiet.

When the Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay in 1587, the executioner had a bad day. It took two strikes with the axe to have Mary Stuart's head off, and when he held up her head to cry "God save the Queen!" in honour of Elizabeth I, her famous red hair came away--- by 1587 her real hair was grey and cropped short, and she came down to her execution in a wig. The head rolled out into the horrified audience of seated officials. Mary Stuart always did know how to steal a scene.

The vur' clever Jill at dehumidifier noted at her Facebook profile that she wanted to open a West Egg Omelet Shop--- breakfast always served face down in a swimming pool. That's brilliant--- it's been a vur' long time since anyone has done a good Gatsby joke.

It's important that Emily at iminhell tell me about skydiving...and about flirtations at the Jade Bar and sex in the Gramercy Park Hotel.

I do wonder about Siobhan in Adelaide. I must ask Ms. Halo about Tokyo and Shanghai and London hotels where she's taken her young ladies...

Melissa at kraftig_bewegt tells me that she's been installed in a Brooklyn apartment by a "very generous" Older Admirer. I don't know if that's true, but it is a lovely image. Wicked beautiful girls should always stay panty-free and always sleep naked--- and they should always have at least one Very Generous Older Admirer to offer them gifts and apartment keys. I do hope that Alexandra at grapefruit87 and the charming Jess at bella_sumision each find an Older, Moneyed Admirer...and have the offer of at the very least an apartment or the keys to an Audi A-4...

I do want to thank Hilarie at handstil again--- I did go to the pool today, and I may be back in the pool tomorrow. I do need a tan--- and I enjoy doing laps... The bikini girls really should be skinnydipping after midnight--- something lovely wicked clever girls should always do. What I'll do is simply swim laps in the evening... I need to stop taking counsel of my fears and just go out--- to swim, to dance, to be around people.

Lexie at popartagenda will be twenty-four tomorrow. I do want to offer her my congratulations--- both on her birthday and on her new job as an account executive. A June birthday--- and I do wish her well...

It'll be brutally hot here this week. I'm keeping the flat cooler than I have been. That's all about my sinuses--- if the air is stagnant at night, I'll be up at 0400 with my face a mask of pain. As long as the a/c comes on for a bit, I just may be okay. Summers are always about my sinuses--- keeping them open, avoiding infections. Anyway--- cooler in here at night, walking over to my office early, keeping a small fan on behind my desk... I got through six summers between agonised doc-in-the-box visits. I'd like this to be a summer without a sinus infection.

And I hope it will be a summer when I can keep swimming...