On Being An Angel

For the last couple of days I have been an angel. It was really quite an effort though of course it was quite impossible for me to assume a beatific expression to replace my habitual cynical sneer. Ridiculous as it may seem to you who know me I have been sketched and photographed from every angle so I can be a model for angelic persons in slightly modified versions of Renaissance paintings. The artist is a Mexican priest with an unusual vision. He made me a pen and ink portrait and I look like somebody's great grandmother who starved to death on Route 66 on the way from Oklahoma to California in 1933, so I know he has no illusions about what I look like. He just thinks it's beautiful, so I'm not arguing. We went to dinner at J's, and there were two other Buddhists there, so we exerted a little guidance on the artist to see the world from a Buddhist perspective. I don't know. He said unequivocably that Mexico is so corrupt that it can never change. Shouldn't he believe in Divine Intervention?

The roof is leaking and there are termites in the vigas. Where do I begin?
And I have decided that I will complete the first draft of the book I'm working on by the end of this month. I'm not going to bed until I complete Chapter Twelve, but I think I can do that tonight...........................