Forty One



Survived yet another birthday. Got cash from my mother and a book from Bill - House of Leaves , which I'd checked out from the library THREE TIMES but never could scrape up time to finish. It's not a sit down and get sucked in kind of book. It's cross referenced with footnotes and appendices and exhibits and things written in code. There are various typefaces, depending on which character is doing what, and the type might be normal, or sideways or backwards on in boxes or just two words at the bottom of the page. The word house is always in blue. Strange book, and not the kind of thing you can just zip through.

I'm enjoying it - have been for months, ha ha - but books like this leave me feeling that I'm not all that bright. But is it style over substance? Is it too clever, and odd, for its own good? Or is it me who isn't clever enough, or odd enough? Why do I get yanked into brutal works (like anything written by Thomas Harris) but more cerebral things leave me feeling like an orphan at the door even though I insist on reading them? What about my own work? Is it literary, as a trusted friend insists much to my aggravation, or is it garbage as some reviewers have proclaimed? Why do I seek out the creepily artistic and renown to read for pleasure (currently on my night stand House of Leaves joins a Lovecraft short story collection, With Red Hands, and Rosemary's Baby), purposely putting my self worth at a disadvantage, yet write approachable but violent blood spattery tales that are a long way from literature? I know these thoughts aren't exactly good for me - depressive spiral, anyone? - yet I have to know how this book ends. There have been several places already that would have made good endings, yet the book continues. For more than 100 more pages from where I am, not including end matter.

Odd book, odd reader. And I think too much.

Even though it was my birthday, I wrote a little last night. Not much, was feeling more social than I usually do, but some. The highlight of the evening was a dead dog. I should set up a tally system of sorts on the right hand column. Corpses. Ghosts. Dead Dogs. So far, 2, 0, 1.

See how odd Tambo Math is? No Ghosts. Yet. Dubric would pull out his hair if he had any to pull.

I have not yet cut, or sewn, my blocks of the month! Horrible, I say! Lazy Tam! Bad! Needs a spanking! They're due at the quilt shops next weekend. I'd better get on it. Plus I have several Threads Tour Quilts to make, one for Stuart Mc Bride for being a sweetheart, and others for various people and conventions.

And write. And read. And continue on with the wife/mommy gig. And go to the gym. And so forth and so on...

So I'd better get to it.

Posted: Sun - June 26, 2005 at 10:01 AM         |

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