I was going to blog about my grandmother’s hometown—and I will, perhaps tomorrow—but as an aside, I took a taxi to downtown Beijing this morning (beautiful, glorious morning) to write at Starbucks, and overheard two men talking about their personal lives, sharing stories about their mistresses and wives, their children with those mistresses, their inability to cheat on their mistresses…you know, regular stuff. I wasn’t really trying to eavesdrop. They were just so loud I couldn’t help but listen in.
And one of the men said this: “Love and jealousy are almost the same word in Mongolian.”
I’ve been rolling that around all day. It’s so elegant. It’s such a true idea.
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I’m catching up on some comic book work and interviews, and beginning a new project. Reading a lot, too. Finished SILVER BORNE by Patricia Briggs, ANYONE BUT YOU by Jenny Crusie, INSTANT ATTRACTION by Jill Shalvis, and have started BROKEN by Shiloh Walker. Fantastic books. My Kindle runneth over with goodness, and it’s truly liberating to be able to buy books while I’m in China. Not so long ago, I’d pack a suitcase full of paperbacks to read while traveling, and now all those good stories are with me, at my fingertips. The Kindle isn’t perfect, and neither is Amazon, but when it comes making books more easily accessible, they’ve done it. And thank goodness.