Is this why I’m so attracted to the “difficult” books, and a wide variety at that?  Is it because I see beauty in complex places, making it a simple concept for me?  There are some books I read– and Proust, which I am reading, is especially guilty of this– where I cannot tell you the plot as the words themselves are so beautiful.  I read The Bhagavad Gita in college.  It was the first book I read after one of my closest friends died.  I cannot tell you what the actual plot was– according to everyone else, there was a plot.  But I… the language was so beautiful, the advice it gave so necessary, that I forgot to look at the big picture, existing only for each individual stanza.  I was saddened we did not discuss the beauty of the stanzas in class, so confused by the plot the people were.  I didn’t give a damn about the plot.  That language– it was all I needed.

As Natalie Merchant says in the amazing song “Wonder,” which I consider my song but am sharing it with Toddler-friend as I think she’ll need it, “I’m a challenge / To Your Balance.”  I’ve always felt like that.  I don’t do what I’m supposed to do.  It’s sometimes like I can’t.  I don’t fit in in most classes.  And now at my job… I have no idea what I’m doing.  I feel like I’m constantly making mistakes and yet… I think my way works for me.

When I was applying for jobs, I felt like all the employers could see my differentness, could see that I was not a 9-5, take a seat and do the work! kind of girl.  I know I’m not; I’d be deluding myself to say otherwise.  I’m me: I have random conversations with strangers on the bus while reading Proust.  I don’t limit myself to genre.  I get so frustrated, so annoyed, with how society is.  I just… I don’t fit in.  And while I prefer that I do not…  Some days, some days, it’s hard.  Especially when you understand something and no one else does.  Then there is no one to talk to at midnight when the thoughts and emotions attack me and I, I have no where to turn but in.

And so, this was how I found myself on one of my last nights on a really bad shift I no longer work, sitting in the dim light on the only warm place on a cold tile floor, reading Rebecca Rasmussen’s The Bird Sisters.  And it made me angry.  And annoyed.  And even more depressed and disillusioned than I already was thanks to my job.

A few weeks later my friend’s mom mentioned it, how she had heard it was a depressing book and that the only reason people were reading it was because of the poetic language.  I told her she was right and, in the process of getting angry at a certain character, I called him a certain bad d-word in front of an eight year old.  And yes, my hands instantly flew to my mouth to try to stuff the word back in.  The eight year old, thankfully, seemed to be into his Legos and did not hear my goof up, though I’m pretty sure he’s heard the word before.

And I once more proved how impassioned I can get over books, treating characters like actual people.  You should have seen my emotions over the Harry Potter books!  On more than one occasion I was pissed and one time I wanted to throw book 5 across the room (after getting angry at Harry for being angry for 150+ pages) and not read anymore to stop Harry from doing something I didn’t think he should do.  But alas (I like that word)!  That’s another blog post.  Maybe.

So, The Bird Sisters.  What didn’t I like about them?  Well, you do not go swimming in the Wisconsin River.  I repeat: YOU DO NOT GO SWIMMING IN THE WISCONSIN RIVER.  There are undertows.  Tourists go on sandbars that turn out to be just sediment and get sucked into the river.  My own great-grandfather died in a tributary of said river.  I have spent the last 22+ years having YOU DO NOT SWIM IN THE WISCONSIN RIVER pounded into my head by more than just my parents.

And then, when I went to camp this summer right by the WI river, I watched tourists swimming in it and people going “Oh, I didn’t know you shouldn’t swim in it.”  But there are horror stories.  And what does this have to do with the book?  Well, they swim in the Wisconsin River, which I do not condone.  But more importantly, they make even more idiotic of choices.  And I was… yeah, there are no words for my displeasure over the consequences and actions of some of the characters, nor do I think I can truly believe some of it.

Though I did enjoy the fact that the person who wrote the book lived in Spring Green and was actually writing about our state as a non-outsider, which seems to happen a lot:

Author: “Honey, I need a generic state where–”
Spouse: “WISCONSIN!”

Yeah, that’s pretty much how it happens with Wisconsin being mentioned or used.  At least in my mind that’s how it is.

And that character I alluded to earlier is a douche.  That is all.

I will admit that Seer of Sevenwaters was much better than Heir to Sevenwaters, but no book has been as good as the first two.  I know it’s hard, when you set the bar so high, to constantly hit it.  And I rue the fact that, in my opinion, the books have not made that bar consistently.  I was talking with someone the other day who I found out from a random conversation–

Her: What are the popular names now a days?

Me: *naming some with her input* and Finn, short for Finnegan.

Her: I read a book where there was a character named Finbar.

Me: Me too!

– yes, it totally was the Sevenwaters Trilogy.  She hadn’t read the stand alone books.  I told her I had, but had no idea why, that they weren’t as good as the first two in the series.  But alas, I fell compelled, once I have started and invested so much, that I have to read all of them, even if I stop caring about the characters, as with what happened with me and the Sevenwaters books.  I grew restless. I grew bored.  And I stopped caring.

I did enjoy the discussion of runes in the book, however, as I got some runes for Christmas, so it was neat seeing others use them in the way they are meant to be used instead of me trying to figure out what they say.  (They seem to think a love in my life is imminent.)

I really need to stop reading books just because I’ve read the rest, especially if they seem to be missing the bar with each subsequent book.  I guess I’m just masochistic…

But alas, I excused the cheesiness of the characters and the plot and let out more than a few laughs.  I don’t really know much about the time that Voltaire was satirizing, so I cannot really comment on anything to do with that.  But I can say that the few notes the translator/editor person gave that discussed how Voltaire basically took his enemies names and put them in not-so-flattering characters… Man, I wish I had the guts to do that (though it probably doesn’t help that the US is a sue-happy nation where even a hint of libel and you lose your arm, your leg, and your last pair of clean pants).

Who says we can’t put money on happiness?  Those who sue seem to think we can.  Voltaire, you lucked out in that regard.  In other ways, not so much.

And what is it with all the books I’m reading lately where people suddenly realize they don’t actually love the person?  I know that’s real life but geez… I’m already getting a healthy enough dose of it!

I lost a very very good friend in a tragic car accident about 5 and a half years ago.  I’m not going to go into details; I still get angry thinking about it.  They say forgiveness is good for you, that it is beneficial to your health.  But there’s a difference between forgiving someone who betrayed you and forgiving the person who killed one of your best friends.  I can say “I forgive” all I want, but at night when I’m alone and frantic, the anger swells through me and I feel the touches of hatred seeping through my soul.  It takes longer to forgive all of this, but this is for a different entry, one that may never be posted as I get wound up just thinking about all this.

I only bring it up as it puts my thoughts on mortality into perspective: I may be 24, but that does not mean I never go to bed wondering: What if I don’t wake up, or get in a car wondering: What if that car slams into us?  I don’t tense like I used to, but it’s all still there.  Truth be told, I think of mortality an awful lot.

And sometimes, I worry I won’t get everything done I want, and that includes reading all the books I want.

I find myself in a great panic.

Is it a wonder I am drawn to the paranormal, to the thoughts of an afterlife as a way to comfort myself?

I was at Half-Price Books just before Thanksgiving as they had sent coupons in the mail to us.  I went in for one book:  I was doing really really well until I found their paranormal book selection.  I bought three, one of which was The Complete Book of Ghosts: A Fascinating Exploration of the Spirit World From Apparitions to Haunted Places by Paul Roland.  Unlike other paranormal books that tell stories and legends but never enough to satisfy the wanting of knowledge that Ikkalee feels, this book took the idea of paranormal existence from a more reporting point of view.  It basically showed the evolution of how our society’s current beliefs in the paranormal came about.  And yes, it was really interesting.

And yes, I refused to read it after 3 am.

Some of the information passed on in truth as the book later proved to be potentially false, but I figured the book was meant to be read like you believed in the Paranormal anyway; it wasn’t trying to convince you of its existence.  It just wanted to explain.

All of my paranormal books, tv shows, and experiences– did you know there’s an iPhone app called Ghost Radar?  Had way too much fun with it one day to the point where a coincidence happened that caused both me and my friend’s mom to jump– mix together until I cannot always keep them straight.  I know I learned a lot from the book; I just can’t remember what.  But I quite enjoyed that it started in ancient times– Ancient Egyptian culture = Fascinating.  I use to tell people I wanted to be mummified– and even included Biblical stories of potential paranormal activity.

The belief in ghosts is nothing new.  Many people have had afterlife experiences.  And yet, Ikkalee still begins to panic as the thought of death grows near.  She can’t even take the humor of people pretending to be dead, anymore.

So.  That being said.  I was also annoyed that she was the person who was uniting a nation.  There were so many other great people out there in this novel, so why settle on the main character?  It just…  I’m a cynic.  Let’s start there.  I’m a cynic and not a big fan of lauding people for things they do not deserve.  I guess since she was more of a pawn, it makes sense she was the face of a revolution, but… There were so many worthier and so many better choices out there.

And I hated the epilogue.

I loved The Hunger Games.  I thought the characters were amazing and the plot was an interesting idea.  And then I picked up Catching Fire.  And while it wasn’t bad… Geez did Katniss bug me.

It’s been 49 days since I read this book, but apparently my initial thought upon (almost) finishing was: “Either I’m incredibly brilliant or book characters are incredibly dense.  And people do doubt my brilliancy…”   Let’s put it this way: I know writers are supposed to try to hold out mystery, but I figure out Sherlock Holmes’ mysteries before the big reveal (I’d say before he does but he and I are on similar wavelengths.  He’s just a pompous ass, though I am totally going to watch the movie as I just found it for cheap on blu-ray).  I spent the majority of Catching Fire yelling at Katniss about what was obvious to the eye: and of course, everything had to be explained to her in the last 50 pages.  I was rolling my eyes and groaning by that point.

That’s not to say that her denseness completely ruined the book.  There were some very excellent supporting characters in the Champions of the Past.  I quite enjoyed meeting all of them and seeing how they interacted and how the games changed them.  They made up for my annoyance of Katniss and, like a few of them, I joined them in wanting to hurt her on occasion.  But alas!  Hurting/maiming/destroying the main character is not something that is lightly done, especially in first person, so naturally, she escaped harm to come make me want to throttle her for book three.

When you have nothing to do but read, you sure get a lot read.  Sometimes, you’re not sure you want to.  And sometimes, people really need to stop writing trilogies and sagas.  I know it’s the new thing but seriously?  Sometimes a single book will more than suffice.  Sequels just ruin perfectly amazing books.

Anyway.  I took the first book, The Hunger Games, to work one night back when I worked awake overnights and let’s just say that book was finished in one night.  I was amazed: here was a teenage girl who was nothing but flipping awesome!  She kicked ass, she could survive, she was fiercely loyal, she was all these great things that anyone– not just teenage girls– should strive to be.  The book was such a quick read and I was impressed.  So THIS is what everyone had been talking about for the past few years.  Here was what I’d been waiting for in YA and what I’d been waiting for in modern fiction (I refuse to grace it with the word “literature”) all these years!  Maybe there was hope after all.

Sure, some of the writing was subpar, but there were great scenes and great characters in the books.  I’m waiting anxiously for the movie as a few of the supporting characters are EXACTLY as I pictured them to be.

So I was in love.  I had another awake overnight shift in 2 days and was excited to be able to read the second book.  I was glad I had chosen to buy all three books at once; there was no waiting anxiously like with Harry Potter where I walked around as a 12 year old Zombie stating “I want Harry!” for a good day.  And then, it all crashed.  But that’s for the next entry.

My book goal list does not run much better, as three of the books on it make the top 23 longest books in the Latin/Cyrillic alphabet, according to wiki.  Does this mean I’ll have time to catch up on the blogging I’m behind on?  I sure hope so.

That should sufficiently explain my disappearance.  Except, maybe I shouldn’t have said it right now and should have made Sherlock Holmes figure it all out for me.  He does solve enough to have a book entitled The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.  And *SPOILER ALERT* he dies.  But don’t worry.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle bowed to pressure and he was resurrected.  I just haven’t gotten that far yet.

So yes, Holmes is still a pompous ass, but he’s getting better!  He’s had failed cases on his conscience; peoples’ deaths on his conscience, and in a previous volume, he was outsmarted by a woman.  And oh, how I laughed.

And now, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, I have solved another non-mystery.  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime?  The title to that book can be found in a line in one of the first stories (I’m unsure of which and my copy isn’t near me) in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

And better updates coming soon! I promise!