Bliss

by Les

Why does sleeping feel so much better—certainly easier and more natural—than reading, or any other activity, for that matter? This is a problem for me or anybody who has a perpetually burgeoning to-be-read pile. If I should ever be imprisoned for anything, it wouldn’t be too much of a punishment if I always had a book with me.

Yet how do I spend my Sunday? Plastered on my couch! Much as I would like to think that it’s the couch’s fault (for being ultra-soft), I know the gentle rain and cool weather also had something to do with it.

These are happy days, I think. It’s not unbearable to be (in) (my) conscious(ness). It’s even nice, as I can spend long minutes just following my train of thought, amused, fascinated, and rarely despairing. As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve some projects lined up. Now if I could only climb out of the blissed-out sensation long enough to tackle one of them….

Tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, a group of friends and I are getting together to discuss “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger! I can’t wait!

Heaven is a place on earth. Image from photobucket.com

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The other day, I had a very fruitful session with Ma’am K., discussing short stories my classmate and I had selected because we wanted to emulate that writing style. I discovered Tess Hadley, my classmate’s choice, who penned this very subtle short story about two women and their “Exchanges.” (One keeps giving the other decorative eggs, while the other keeps giving her friend jugs. For two days I had puzzled over what these symbolisms meant.) My own choice was Ursula Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them,” which is about animals and Nature and a certain attitude to them that is not one of domination.

I can’t say I’m a fiction writer, although I’m attempting to write a short story. My deadline for the workshop draft is in less than two weeks! I’m happy though that thanks to our last session, I was able to figure out the sorts of things I want to write, and how to write them. I am now officially abandoning the Sherlock Holmes pastiche I had started to write about a month ago, and which is 1/3 of the way through. It’s just not working. I think I’d try my hand at quotidian themes.