better than nothing

I went out for a few beers with a friend of mine last night and it was good, though I came home singing which Friar will tell you and nearly everyone else will agree is not my greatest talent. He told me to shut up, using more words and more politely, but I got the point so I killed him at Scrabble and went to bed.

I'm re-entering one of my periods of having no idea how I look, but getting a distinctly bad feeling about it. I once went about a month thinking I oughtn't leave the house without a paper bag over my head. It's not that my image of myself has greatly improved since then, but more that I've realized that people who sit around talking about how ugly they are are either genuinely ugly, in which case they make others uncomfortable, or are not genuinely ugly, in which case they make other people bored, and my fear of being awkward or boring generally outweighs my desire to tell people they don't have to look at me when they talk to me if they don't want to. Anyway this is not the best timing, self-image wise, but there's not much to be done. I think I will sew myself up a tent this weekend and wear it til the feeling passes.

For reasons entirely beyond reason I decided to start The Life of Pi. Dear Yann Martel I am very proud of you for doing all that research! How many authors can list animals in a zoo for pages and pages? How many authors can list deities of various religions with the same fervor? I want to brush your pretty poetic hair for you and pinch your sweet clever cheeks, but if you do not get me a plot in the next 20 pages I am going to throw your damn book across the room.

Last weekend Squire and I hung out with some old friends of mine, people who think I'm a good singer by the way, though I think they're just impressed that I always know all the words. I remember everything. I hadn't seen these friends in uhm five years, so it was strange and interesting to be sitting around like no time had passed, yakking away and laughing. Squire fell asleep listening to Jan Werich read Svejk and when I went upstairs to bed he was still smiling. In the morning we drank strong coffee and watched the roe deer running in the field up the hill.

Comments

[Madeleine]

Keep going if you can. There is a plot in there somewhere, though of course it involves a guy alone in a boat with some animals (that is in the blurb, right? Not a spoiler?) so it's fairly introspective plot.

[Patricia Harrelson]

I didn't find the plot and so dust collected as it lay with book mark in place on my night stand for over a year. Pi is back on the bookshelf, book mark still in place. Some day . . .