You stick around now it may show

[raybear]

The highlight of my day so far was playing the word "tenderly" in my scrabulous game against mintwaster for a 50 point bonus.

Though burrowing under the covers and staring at the cloudy afternoon sky while listening to Bill Evans wasn't so bad either. Satisfyingly mournful and comforting simultaneously.

While climbing the stairs from the subway, I contemplated quitting my job. I don't know for what, so I didn't. I just had that feeling of dread about going into the office today, which isn't so surprising, after 6 days of not having to be here.

I'm still occasionally weirded out by the internet, and how you can, on a whim, google the name of a former best friend from high school and stumble upon video footage of her toddler playing on a backyard swingset. She ended up marrying this guy who I sat next to in 10th grade world history and argued politics with him all the time because he was a staunch republican. We weren't really close in the years prior to her marrying that guy, but it was sort of nail in the camel's back. They named their child "Noble", which was strange at first, but after a moment of pondering, realized it was totally par for the course.

I started reading The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers on the plane last Friday. Its hard to always find things I can read in transit, because if they require too much concentration, I will get nauseous, but if its too little concentration, I get easily distracted or bored. Also, sometimes books just need to be read at certain points in one's life and they will happen when they happen. And this one is happening. I have never read this before actually, its one of those "Yes, yes, I can hardly believe it myself" gaps in my reading self-education list. I'm nearly halfway through already, I don't think it will take me much longer to finish. Particularly if the weather stays the same. (And my direct deposit check never clears.) I am still trying to figure out "southern writing" exactly, particularly my own, since there are some key chapters in my own book that take place there and I think maybe my voice changes and I'm trying to figure it out.

I've been in a bit of another world lately. I'm still not sure if I want to shake myself out of it or not. I might actually have to go deeper in, to go through it. I think this will be okay.

Comments

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

>it was sort of nail in the camel's back.<

Hee hee!

I don't really know anything about "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter," but the title really rings a bell...I think I remember teachers in school gushing over it and thinking "yeah, I should read that."

I totally want to read Cormac McCarthy now that I've seen "No Country For Old Man." I've been going around saying "friendo."

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

"...For Old Men," that is.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I've read Blood Meridian, which I liked okay. I'm not that into him as a reader (though I have respect for him as a writer), and I think its because I'm not from the west.

Carson McCullers is sort of Harper Lee-esque in her prose, but she takes bolder liberties with her narrator, which I like. So far, I"m digging it a lot.

[swampgirl.livejournal.com]

i started the heart book awhile back and drifted out of it, but can't remember why. i do that a lot. i know lots of people who always finish the books they start, but i frequently quit. i just quit a book on Mao and started Morrison's "Love." What are you thinking/feeling about the McCullers book?? Should I pick it back up?

[raybear.livejournal.com]

i only recently started giving up on novels! it used to be pretty rare that i wouldn't finish one i started, but in the past couple years, if i'm struggling that much in the first 1/3 to keep reading, i put it aside because there are thousands of other books out there i still want to read too, there's no reason to force my time. this is probably still acting out a little after grad school and required reading!

i will probably write more about the McCullers book when i'm done but right now, i'm liking it a lot. i'm connecting to a lot of the ways it talks about the south and small towns and the people in them. the characterizations are sometimes problematic, but also feel genuine to how people think, with regards to race, sex, disability, not just in the 30s, but in the present-day here. mostly i'm reading it for structure, how she moves in and out of POV, as well as her syntax and rhythm of sentences.