I’ve been thinking a lot lately about books. Not necessarily just the stories, or the paper consumed to make them, the essence of an actual book when you hold one in your hands and smell the glorious odor of that moldy book that’s been sitting on the shelf for the last ten years without somehow being withdrawn from the library’s catalog because “it’s a classic and everybody loves it”—and yet it’s the only copy in the system which, as suggested or previously, has been on Death’s to-do list for ages.
What I’ve been thinking most about books are their worlds. I’ve been reading for a long time, and as a result, have read about a multitude of different worlds, some real, some even more real than those. And as I think of these mighty worlds, I thnk of my own journeys there.
I am currently about halfway through Jasper Fforde’s mystery, Lost in a Good Book—the sequel to The Eyre Affair, in which the book’s main character, Thursday Next, must go inside the story Jane Eyre, in order to catch a serial killer (I think he was serial at least. It’s been a couple months since I read it. Read it for yourself to be sure). How easy it is for Next to enter these magnificent worlds of Bronte and Crusoe, to be transmitted into a better, or worse world than we are in now. That would be the power of reading, as every way-too-into-their-job librarian would say (I am ashamed to say I fit into this category), but to do so as literally as in this book, would be such a dream.
The reason such an idea is on my mind, much more than just my own immersion into Next’s life (wow, grammar check is loving this), it the world I live in currently. The world in which I live in an apartment that is freezing cold, with neighbors who are too loud for their own good and know it, work 2 part-time jobs in order to pay for said apartment and bills for necessities, and have to come home to the news at 10:00, telling me about how not only is the temperature going to drop another 10 degrees tomorrow, but another group of people were gunned down, or held hostage, possibly a war crime happened, etc.
As long as it was after Deathly Hallows, when the government wasn’t trying to hunt people down and butcher their bodies, I would love to just hop into the wizarding world and enjoy life. But then again, I guess such things would find me again there.
I recently spent the last month inquiring about new residences, and have only this weekend given up, and my landlord has promised to be here tomorrow with new heaters for my place, and a possibly promise of ridding the building of the pesky noisemakers. This is definitely a plus, as the thought of moving furniture and boxes currently does not sound like a heaven. Especially since everywhere I look I find higher rent prices than I am paying.
That dream world of a pleasant life, with a full-time job, where I wake up with plenty of time before work to accomplish an entire list’s worth of chores, then come home from work to work on my next writing project, all the while having the time and resources to travel, rock out at wizard rock concerts and conferences, hanging out with friends, finding who I am…A dream world it is. And as much as I try like Amy Pond to choose, the dream world will always be just that. If I don’t like the dream world, I can’t just wake up to find a better reality, and vise versa. The Dream Lord can’t control reality, but he can sure make a dream world terrifying enough to realize you can make the great reality you have even better.
And so, as I have found myself digging across an endless tangent, no sensible point in sight, I stop.
As summer nears, I am in the process of saving up to go to Universal Studios to reach of my dream, being at Hogwarts. Yeah, it’s not the real Hogwarts, but to walk the crudely manufactured halls of the American reproduction, it works for my eyes. So hopefully as I work towards that goal, as people continue to tell me how insane I am for wanting to go to Florida in the summer, I will elaborate.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Life
“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans” – John Lennon
“What do you want from life
An Indian guru to show you the inner light
What do you want from life
A meaningless love affair
with a girl that you met tonight”- The Tubes
“Life! Don't talk to me about life.”- Marvin the Paranoid Android
Our life is what we choose to make and so with it. It’s working 60 hours a week or it’s sleeping those 60 hours away instead. It’s following your dream and becoming a success, finding true love, being a nerdfighter or being a fighter against nerds (hopefully VERY few of the latter are reading this).
Last week, as I contemplated the upcoming replacement of my calendar, I also thought upon what I have done over the last year, and what I probably should have done as well. Did I work to follow my dream of being a successful writer? Was I able to find that one brilliant position at the library I wanted to work for the rest of my life? While finding such a job position has been difficult, no matter how I could approach it, I came to the realization that due to such strange hours of employment, my writing has fallen to the deepest reaches of my mind possibly only tread upon during those bizarre moments in life sitcom writers make episodes about when they’re forced to produce something immediately within the hour- otherwise known as the flashback.
I had to excuse for such actions. A large number of my friends, as well as those I follow on twitter, find time weekly—if not daily—to blog about topics on their minds, and they have more responsibilities than a sketch artist has broken pencils. If they can find time to keep up their authorial presence, what reason do I have not to.
As a result, this blog has formed.
When this becomes a regular production, you may find me discussing a variety of topics—possibly what’s happening in my life, what’s happening in the world around myself and others. This may also be an outlet to discuss something that has shaped my life a great deal- pop culture and literature.
In the dark days following the Y2K scare, I was presented with the choice for my future. I felt at that point in my career that writing was was future and jumped in to studies of the field of journalism. Now, this of course did not work out as I had planned, discovering what the first year of college is really like. While it was not the same as everybody else I knew, it did provide a difficult choice, as the grades I would receive prevented me from pursuing such degree.
While this saddened me, to this day I do not regret shifting my focus to English however, as it has provided such great friends I would never have met otherwise, as well as a love for great English literature, the books that hold it, and the buildings that house those.
While this blog details such things, I hope those who begin to follow this will also leave their own insight, possibly proving ideas for blogs to come.
So hop in the TARDIS and take the ride with me. Lets spend twenty-eleven together, and see where this blog will go.
“What do you want from life
An Indian guru to show you the inner light
What do you want from life
A meaningless love affair
with a girl that you met tonight”- The Tubes
“Life! Don't talk to me about life.”- Marvin the Paranoid Android
Our life is what we choose to make and so with it. It’s working 60 hours a week or it’s sleeping those 60 hours away instead. It’s following your dream and becoming a success, finding true love, being a nerdfighter or being a fighter against nerds (hopefully VERY few of the latter are reading this).
Last week, as I contemplated the upcoming replacement of my calendar, I also thought upon what I have done over the last year, and what I probably should have done as well. Did I work to follow my dream of being a successful writer? Was I able to find that one brilliant position at the library I wanted to work for the rest of my life? While finding such a job position has been difficult, no matter how I could approach it, I came to the realization that due to such strange hours of employment, my writing has fallen to the deepest reaches of my mind possibly only tread upon during those bizarre moments in life sitcom writers make episodes about when they’re forced to produce something immediately within the hour- otherwise known as the flashback.
I had to excuse for such actions. A large number of my friends, as well as those I follow on twitter, find time weekly—if not daily—to blog about topics on their minds, and they have more responsibilities than a sketch artist has broken pencils. If they can find time to keep up their authorial presence, what reason do I have not to.
As a result, this blog has formed.
When this becomes a regular production, you may find me discussing a variety of topics—possibly what’s happening in my life, what’s happening in the world around myself and others. This may also be an outlet to discuss something that has shaped my life a great deal- pop culture and literature.
In the dark days following the Y2K scare, I was presented with the choice for my future. I felt at that point in my career that writing was was future and jumped in to studies of the field of journalism. Now, this of course did not work out as I had planned, discovering what the first year of college is really like. While it was not the same as everybody else I knew, it did provide a difficult choice, as the grades I would receive prevented me from pursuing such degree.
While this saddened me, to this day I do not regret shifting my focus to English however, as it has provided such great friends I would never have met otherwise, as well as a love for great English literature, the books that hold it, and the buildings that house those.
While this blog details such things, I hope those who begin to follow this will also leave their own insight, possibly proving ideas for blogs to come.
So hop in the TARDIS and take the ride with me. Lets spend twenty-eleven together, and see where this blog will go.
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