Happiness is

Packet finished a day early and the advance copy of Nicola Griffith’s Always (an Aud novel!) to read. A snippet from an early chapter:

Self-defense is not just a skill, it’s a worldview. Like the scientific method–or religion, or motherhood, for that matter–once you accept its precepts you see things differently. I didn’t intend to tell my students this. Just as you don’t try to interest six-year-olds in natural history by discussing physiology and adaptive evolution–but take them, instead, to a pond to watch tadpoles turn into frogs–on the first day of class you don’t tell grown women to change their lives. You show them how to punch a bag.

So good and so full of moments that make me want to stop and read them to whoever is nearby.