Lord. Here it is, late late July. No apartment for sure. Haven't contacted other Wal-Mart yet, out of fear of jinxing our apartment-getting chances by offering cruel fate an opportunity for mischief. I'm covered in stress-related hives all the time and have about $80 to my name. If I had more money I'd be less worried, or equally worried but with the alcohol to deal with it.
I've been trying to escape from this potential killing-spree-inducing stress by voiding my emotional bowels and entering into a kind of psychic purgatory. Or lavatory. No, no, it's purgatory. I've also escaped into literature.
In the past week I've read three entire books. Not bad, considering I've been stuck on The Four Fingers of Death and The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris since their respective release dates. For those of you who don't keep up with such things, it's been a while. Anyway, I thought a decent way to further distract myself is to write about what I read:
- This Monday, I needed to get cash out of my account, so instead of going to the bank or ATM, I figured I'd help the economy a bit and buy something and then get cash back with the purchase. So I went to Wal-Mart and bought a seven dollar paperback copy of The Hunger Games. The reason I needed cash soon dissolved, so I was stuck with nothing to do for the whole day. So I read the book. It's surprisingly quite decent; thrilling, even, in a not-put-down-able way. There's something about YA books: namely, they remind me of my young adulthood, but also, they're refreshingly well-plotted. Plot is something not marketable to adult-adults, so they throw 'em in with the YA crowd. I myself have always been a reluctant (some might say; defective) plotter of stories, so I felt The Hunger Games was a healthy read. Recommended, if you have a free day.
- Thrilled that I actually not only finished something I started, but all in one day, I looked for other short books to read in, similarly, one day; this is my new high. So I plucked Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone from my overburdened shelves and speed-read away. I'd read the novel years before, and it left quite an impression on me, but I ended up forgetting 90% of the action. E.i., when I saw the incredible movie version, it was more or less like a totally unfamiliar story line. I figured it had to have been highly modified, but the reread corrected me: the movie's pretty much word-for-word. I just don't remember too good sometimes. But anyway, a near-perfect book, full of whiskey-drenched poetry and winter inimical. PS: Bit o' trivia, recently discovered that Jennifer Lawrence of Winter's Bone film fame is playing the lead in the movie version of The Hunger Games. Crazy how dat shit works eh?
- Wednesday afternoon I received Hill/Rodriguez's Locke & Key v. 4. If you've never read or heard of this comic series, hang your head in shame. Then log onto some indie-cred-bearing online bookseller and buy all four volumes. It's the best thing you'll ever have linked to your name. I'll devote an entire single blog to it soon, so I won't give to much away, except to say that the series is better-written than 97% of all literature written between 10,987 BC and now.
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