Some can't relate, but that's life.

[raybear]

I haven't been posting much, not intentionally -- though now that I notice, I start to think, oh god, I can't remember what I did last weekend -- I should have journalled about it! Its gone forever. And now I have to write the longest catch-up post ever! I don't want to! So I don't. Which means sometimes there are gaps in the record, but hey, we'll live.

There are some various reasons I haven't been distracted from wanting to write lj, because my attention has been given to:

a. My inexplicable leap in Scramble prowess. (For those who don't know, its an online Boggle type game on facebook.) I'm playing a lot more games.
b. Daily Lit. I'm currently reading Madame Bovary and Ethan Frome.
c. I'm also reading a tactile book -- The Kite Runner. (I know, its kinda crazy that I'm reading three novels simultaneously, but it actually kinda works and I think its because my brain was trained by my years of reading livejournal friends page, which is about having dozens of narratives in your head at one time and jumping from one to the other with minimal transitions.)
d. The few brief warm sunny moments of last week, I went outside as much as possible, to either ride my bike to the gym, eat at Hot Doug's with for lunch, go for a walk to the library, buy bread at the bakery a few blocks over.
e. I spent a lot of time last week (and still am spending a little time) freaking out about stumbling upon a group on Facebook containing a large slice from my church community growing up. Suddenly all these memories that had been locked up got let loose and people were contacting me, texting me, and my friend in KY said, do you feel like you just got released from the Witness Protection program? Yeah, a little.
f. I kinda miss Cupcakes. No, still no word. (I wasn't planning to communicate him again, but I did text him one more time yesterday. That's it though, for real.) This is such a bizarre, unexpected and unresolved ending to our dating.

I mostly have a lot to say and write about item "E" but that will have to come later. I'm still not ready to go there fully. Or rather, outside of the confines of my brain.

I had jury duty last week. Now, while there, I sort of realized something about myself. I'm really good at waiting. Seriously. I am almost always prepared for it, with a book or headphones or a pad and paper (though usually all three) but sometimes when I have those things, I don't use them -- I'm perfectly content to sit and stare or people-watch. It is often relaxing, but at the very least, it rarely makes me anxious (there are a few exceptions: like being stuck underground on a stopped subway train. That is not always relaxing, but sometimes I can use breathing exercises to trick myself into my laconic waiting state of mind.)

Having said all that, dude, jury duty is boring. And there is a lot of waiting. I sat in a room and waited to watch a hilarious training video. Fine. I waited for two hours while other people got pulled out of the room to report to a courtroom. Fine. My group got called and we had to do lots of waiting in hallways and elevators to get to the courtroom. Fine. We got in the courtroom and waited until we were told to go to lunch and report back in an hour. Fine. I go to lunch and wait in line. I eat and wait for the hour to pass. I go back to the courtroom and wait in line at security. I wait out the courtroom. And wait. And they say wait fifteen minutes. And we wait 30 minutes. And then they come out but don't say anything. And we wait. And wait. And finally they say, good news! They settled! We have your checks and your dismissed for the day.

So I wait to hear my name called.
Then I go outside and wait for a bus.
Then I wait for the bus to arrive downtown.

It was a day with a lot of waiting.

Comments

[tracijean.livejournal.com]

hey, I just updated my livejournal with a very similar opening paragraph!

what do you think of kite runner?

[raybear.livejournal.com]

i know! after i clicked update and went to my friends page, and i thought "jinx!!"

i'm about 3/4 done -- i'll probably finish it today. but i think i can say, no matter how it ends, that is a super super compelling story, but i personally found the writing itself kinda mediocre. i mean, ok, that seems harsh, but i found that my brain was constantly workshopping parts and how i would fix them, which is probably not what i would want my book to illicit in a writer-reader. but there also some really beautiful narrative moments too, so i guess i shouldn't say "mediocre", but perhaps "uneven". obviously i'm sorta in the minority about this, as it has been well-reviewed by critics and people in my life equally, but oh well.

[tracijean.livejournal.com]

I so totally agree with your criticisms there. And the ending, OH MY GOD, is awful. I shall not spoil anything for you, but dude. DUDE. COME ON NOW. Anyway. I taught that book the first semester I taught World Lit, and it DOES have a compelling story and it DOES create good discussion but I just can't teach a book that doesn't get me all, uh, juiced up (in a literary sense).

[swampgirl.livejournal.com]

How did you shape discussion of the book? I was thinking of using it in my Gender and Violence class, but then was feeling queasy about the sort of positive way the author portrayed the US invasion of Afghanistan....

[swampgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm with you KR. I listened to the audiobook, natch, and the author is, I think, really good at narrating his work. I liked his voice and enjoyed hearing how he pronounced everything, too. But though there some parts of the book where I felt totally drawn in by the story, there were a couple spots in particular where I already knew what was going to happen and it just felt contrived and made me *aware* of the writing in a way that I didn't want to be.... I really liked the book, but I'm not too keen on reading the Thousand Splendid Suns, even though I've heard others say they enjoyed it a lot, too. I also don't think I'll see the movie -- I don't really want to see some of these scenes in action.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

I think its because my brain was trained by my years of reading livejournal friends page, which is about having dozens of narratives in your head at one time and jumping from one to the other with minimal transitions.

oooh what an interesting theory.

[freakysparks.livejournal.com]

Am I weird for having done this for years? The only thing with reading several books at once is it's too easy to leave one (or more) unfinished.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I actually did it all through childhood, but then at some point lost the skill. I think lj just helped me relearn it.

[freakysparks.livejournal.com]

It's awesome that you have found a way to use lj's powers for good.

[clockwatcher.livejournal.com]

I recently got the passive dump too. It feels pretty disrespectful and leads to a lot of uncertainty and thinking about it more than if even a brief e-mail were sent along explaining the new deal. Annoying.

item "e"

[sorting-laundry.livejournal.com]

i hear you on that one. i went ahead and signed up on facebook because i got tired of hearing everything through the grapevine (aka Bryce)... but now that I have, I don't know... i'm re-thinking whether or not i'm really wanting to "go there", so to speak...

as far as scramble goes, you are so kicking arse. but i chalk my feeble scramble skills up to baby-induced sleep deprivation. at least that's my current excuse.

cheers,

-k

Re: item "e"

[raybear.livejournal.com]

yes, i feel slightly guilty about trouncing the sleep-deprived new mom, but then again, i can't go easy on you and thereby insult your intelligence either. i'm sure what goes around will come around in the gaming arena.

one of the weird thing about the whole st. timothy group is that the group is mostly all the people older than me, who i was never very close too anyway, because i was younger and nerdy, so its bringing up all these sort of just peripheral experience memories. by the time i was a senior in the group, the only other person in my peer group who came on a regular basis was david c.