so I don't BURST

I know I've mentioned (complained?) before that everything in my life seems to come in the form of a deluge. I feel like I have these enormous tidal waves of events, people, mistakes, coinscidences, creativity... Maybe they're more like chains... it seems like one event (good or bad) brings on a whole series of related events...

Now that I've thoroughly butchered some metaphors, I'll try to get to my point: After months and months of being too busy/stressed/overwhelmed/distracted/sad to read for pleasure, I didn't even know where to begin.

I timidly visited the library last week (it was like going out for coffee with a past lover that you intended to "stay in touch" with), and brought home only one book. I chose it for it's size, as I sometimes do, because being able to carry it around in my purse is really important. "Phone Rings," by Stephen Dixon turned out to be a great collection of thoughts, in the form of phone calls (real and imaginary) between two brothers, over the course of their lives. There are no quotation marks and hardly any indentation or paragraph breaks, so it was a little tricky to read at first, but being able to witness these brothers in their old age, reminiscing and sharing their perspectives of their family's history was wonderful.

I listened to "A Year of Magical Thinking," by Joan Didion on my way to Wisconsin for Christmas. It was good. It was easy to listen to.

My sister, Meggen, gave me a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood titled, "Moral Disorder." I've just started it, but I am finding it fascinating. I have read "Surfacing," and "The Edible Woman," but I found them confusing. I'm aware of the feminist themes in them, but not enough to process the instances and references and fully appreciate them. The short-story format of "Moral Disorder" really appeals to me... in little bites and glimpses, with more concise structure, I really like Margaret Atwood.

Finally, I began a second audio-book on my way back from Wisconsin: "Beatrice and Virgil," by Yann Martel. I stumbled across his previous novel, "The Life of Pi," on a library visit years ago when I lived in Canada, and I was completely spellbound. This story is equally absorbing-- we get to read excerpts of a short story by Gustav Flaubert (as it is being read by the main character), and experience a fantastic play as it is written by the antagonist, an elderly taxidermist. Yann Martel expresses profound and provoking philosophical and historical thoughts through animals, without making it a book about animals. There is so much detail, so much description... there was a scene that made me pull my car over and just listen, and think. I am enraptured. I am in love.

The drought has ended, and I am swimming in a vast sea of beautiful, engaging literature.