Saturday, February 20, 2016

Incoherent Ramblings

Want to listen to me obsess some more? I just can't get into my next book. You know the feeling when you loved the book you just finished so much that it seems impossible to move to the next book? Yeah, I've got that problem. Maybe I should just reread Touch the Top of the World. I've started like three books and just can't move on yet. Or maybe I'll just go to an old standby palette cleanser like Don't Stop the Carnival.

If you don't know the feeling I'm talking about then you need to find better books to read. It's the feeling of the book you just finished being so good that you forget that you have finished it. It's the feeling of not being able to move on to the next book because your brain is still stuck firmly in the last one. It's a wonderful and horrible place. Gone With the Wind... yeah... that one will do it to you.

OR maybe I shouldn't start another book and should instead spend my time wisely prepping for the Quiet Day I'm leading a week from today. Hm. That wooouuld be wise. Nah. I'll let Future Casey deal with that.

I was listening to an interview with Yann Martel on NPR recently and he was asked about sending books to the Canadian Prime Minister. Martel (author of Life of Pi) said that he heard the Prime Minister say that he doesn't read fiction and was horrified. Here's what stuck with me: Martel argued that reading fiction is one of the things that brings people to compassion. It is when we read that we enter into the shoes of another person and walk around in them. That is so true. Reading is an escape that watching tv or playing online just isn't. Reading Touch the Top of the World I became a blind man mountain climbing. Reading Gone With the Wind I'm Scarlett watching Atlanta burn around me and just trying to get home to Tara of the past. I've been a middle aged Jewish man in the Caribbean. I like to return to the terror of a world in which people burn books and only listen to ipods. Reading transforms the user experience in a way that watching could never do. Martel is so right. Reading brings the ability to walk in another shoes and truly learn what it is like to be someone else. Reading breeds compassion. The end of the story was that Martel started mailing books to the Prime Minister that he recommended he read. That's awesome.

I think this might be my favorite time of year: Texas Spring. It's technically still winter (ha, winter) but outside the weather is glorious. The birds are singing and the sun is out. The humidity is low and the suffocating heat of the summer is still far enough in the future to seem like it might not come this year (double ha).

Okay, I'm lying. This isn't my favorite time of year. Fall in another state is my favorite. But, hey, this is what were living so this will be my favorite. Minus all of the allergies.

You know what would be a good security system? Putting those little kid door handle things on the outside knobs of your house.

My coffee intake is out of control. Too much coffee. Too much junk food. Ugh. Today is reset day. Well, not reset caffeine day, don't be ridiculous. Future Casey has way too much on her plate to start that crap. *sigh* When will I ever learn? When will I eeeevvvver learn?

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