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Monday, July 27, 2015

This book stole my brain last night.

Last night, I was having a little trouble falling asleep. I’d just picked up a new book, shortish; a scant 167 pages. I decided that rather than play phone games (against the rules after 11pm), I’d read a few more pages before trying again to fall asleep.

Though I watched 2am go by, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. There were no chapters, and the “hard breaks” were… not that hard. Finally, minutes after 4am, I finished the book.

Maybe ten pages before the end, I was thinking things like, “Okay, we’ve heard all this before; why are we going through this again; ugh, get out of your head already!” The “twist ending” that I had believed was the twist ending was visible almost from page one and it seemed to be getting more and more obvious as the book went on.

However.

I’m not going to spoil the book at all. I’m just going to say. I was surprised. I managed to fall asleep, and when I woke up this morning, the book was still with me. Solidly. I woke up with Branden at 7:30 and wasn’t able to nap at all, despite considerable exhaustion. And though the fog of the narrative has let me go, I just have to say. This book is one of the tightest I have ever read. It is reminiscent of Hemingway’s six-word story in its capability to pack a ton of punch into a pint of words. It. Is. Creepy. And powerful. And… shiver.

This morning I thought maybe I could still make it to the gym, but wisely I gave up on that idea fairly quickly and decided to tackle the internet instead, which I haven’t caught up on since Thursday. (That’s a lot of missed internet, folks.) I felt that it was probably a lost cause to try to write.

First thing’s first: the foster kitten needs to go in tomorrow for her spay surgery. Call and set that up, no big deal. Then, I decided that ordering my medication was probably a good idea. Which required me to call my pharmacy as usual, then not as-usual to call the neurology department at the hospital. That’s three phone calls for the anxiety of at least six! Have I mentioned that I hate making phone calls?

Then, at lunch, I grudgingly looked at the coupon I had that is expiring tomorrow for a free veterinary exam for my newly adopted kitten. No, I didn’t forget to do this before. I remembered it. I just didn’t want to. So I called and made him an appointment, just under the wire.

Then I emailed my Writers’ Group, to clarify our mission.

Hey, I’m usually a quarter this productive on my best day. WTF?

I was looking forward to playing Don’t Starve since before opening Tumblr, but now I’m feeling like I’ve done all that, plus blogging (plus reading an entire book last night)… maybe I should try to finish my outline. I mean, excessive italics don’t really matter much in an outline.

Today my rambles come in “short” or “ridiculous.” I guess you guys get “short.”

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