paltry
But I forbear to dwell any longer on a matter which has hitherto worn too loose a garb to admit even of an accurate inspection of its real shape or tendency.
Not quite the first frost, although there was a fine layer of mist on all the parked cars when I took the dog out this morning. She sniffed everything amicably and tried to hide from the roving trash trucks; in short, all is apparently normal in the details of the day. I try to check off items on my to-do list: cleaning a shelf and dusting books, reorganizing the books by my desk to reflect (hopefully) the books I am reading and the books I am planning to read in the immediate future. Trying to clear out the library books, either by reading them or deciding not to read them. Have, in general, decided to read them, which feels a bit unusual, because I am usually content to skim or find out that the book was not what I wanted after all. Moving slowly and deliberately. It feels a bit like I am crashing ponderously through the undergrowth of being, a bit like the dog as she barges along towards the nearest fern, anxious to root out the tiniest fragment of information, the value of which is opaque to the bystander but immeasurable to her.