Books and Trials

Somebody asked me yesterday about my prognosis.

Say what???

I've been thinking about little else since then, even though my answer was that I don't really think in those terms.  I mean, clearly if I did nothing in terms of treatment, my prognosis would not be great. But the question just doesn't seem to fit.  A perfect analogy escapes me, but maybe it's like someone asking you, "How many books are you going to read this summer?"  How could I possibly know?  I'll read one book, and either I'll get to the end or I'll decide that I don't need to get to the end, and based on my mood or how much I liked or didn't like that book, I'll choose another.  And so it goes.

This is my plan with trials.  I was on one trial.  I thought that it was going to be like Roots or The Thornbirds, books that I loved as an adolescent because they seemed to go on forever, and there was nothing that I liked less than starting a new book.  Instead, my first trial turned out to be more like Catcher in the Rye, a book that I read in a single afternoon on a rainy day in South Carolina.

I'm hoping that yesterday was page one of Ulysees, or even The Good Earth.  Something meaty, if you please.  But even if it's a one-day read, I'll be certain to be moving on to the next title as soon as I'm finished with this one.