Saturday, 21 September 2002

The day didn't go just as planned, although I did get some exercise and some writing done.

Jackie went to the Farmer's Market without me, rather than waking me up (although I did get up at 6:30, so it's not like I slept in so very late). My knee was a little sore for no obvious reason, so we skipped weight lifting. We did go for a nice walk along the Simon trail, after having lunch at Panera.

I wrote just a little in the morning, but then quite a bit more in the afternoon and managed 500 words. Things still aren't flowing very quickly; I'm kind of feeling my way. I'm still over-analyzing--I need to just write and have faith that I'll be able to fix things up later, but it's not quite going that way yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Jackie fixed leftover gumbo for dinner. Gumbo is usually served over rice, and that's what she did. But it's kind of soupy gumbo and we were both hungry, so Jackie served some bread as well. In India meals in the south are generally served with rice, while in the north bread is more common. But in Bombay (which is roughly mid-way between north and south) it is common to serve meals with both bread and rice, leading to meals with bread and rice being called "Bombay meals." So, today we had Bombay gumbo for dinner.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned here that my degree is actually in Economics. It shows up in my writing just a bit--things have costs attached, characters have to work, scarcity and competition are problems that characters face. I also sometimes like to play with changes in the relative scarcity of resources, with biotech or nanotech making some things much cheaper while other things stay expensive.

My interest in economics shows up in my reading as well. Today I read an article from the March/April 2002 issue of Financial Analysts Journal, "What Risk Premium is 'Normal'?" by Robert D. Arnott and Peter L. Bernstein. It tries to estimate the extra return that investors expected from stocks relative to bonds (as distinct from the extra return that they actually got). An intriguing article, albeit a bit depressing for anyone looking to invest in either stocks or bonds just now.