In (and Out Of) the House
February 24
This weekend I read House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Heather brought it to me on Saturday afternoon; I'd asked her to pick it up for when she went to Dark Carnival, since I've been wanting to read it. It's a neat book, very absorbing, at times quite unsettling, full of bizarre typographical, layout and stylistic choices that are sometimes very effective and that are at other times maddening. I found it a very compelling read, and burned through the entire thing between yesterday afternoon and tonight. It's basically a horror novel, though it does some weird Borgesian things, and it's very literary/confessional in tone at times as well... it's difficult to define, which seems very much to be the point. It's quite an impressive first novel, though. My brain has not belonged to me for the past day; it's belonged to Danielewski.
That said, I'm sorta glad to be free from its grip. It gave me headaches, especially when I had to keep turning the book around and around to read the weirdly laid-out text.
So what else did I do? Saturday Heather was gone hiking and such, and I was being self-indulgent. I had a late lunch at Mama's Royal Café, then took a long walk to the Temescal café, where I intended to work on reviews; instead, I drank a blackberry french soda and read House. After a while I wandered home, and hung out with Heather for a bit, mostly lounging on her bed and talking to her. Then we went our separate ways again, since she had other plans for the evening. I BARTed to Berkeley and wandered a bit, thinking, looking at the sky, and wound up not surprisingly at Au Coquelet, where I dined on a hot pastrami sandwich and a couple of wonderful cups of coffee. I read more (more, more!) and took a couple of random and ineffectual stabs at reviewing; I just haven't been in the right frame of mind for that kind of writing this weekend, either what I'm writing is incoherent & bad or (alternately) my internal-editor is cranked up unusually high for some reason, making it impossible for me to write (non-fiction, at least).
I got back home, and read more, and Heather came home and shortly thereafter went to bed. I slept on the couch, because Heather hasn't been sleeping well lately, and wanted the bed to herself; I stared at the ceiling and imagined new doors opening in the walls of our house...
This morning Heather was awake very unusually early; she actually woke me. After some brief putterings, we went to Mama's for breakfast. Then she dropped me at Temescal café and went to buy things for the garden. I read House and wrote a hundred words or so on a collab Heather and I are working on. And that was all the writing I did this weekend... which is fine, since this was supposed to be my relaxation-weekend. Even if I did feel vaguely directionless and unhappy much of the time, on some level unprepared for the large amounts of alone-ness... but tonight Heather made dinner, and we spent the entire evening together, and had a wonderful, frolicsome, glorious time. So I'm all better. Nicely re-calibrated. La.
February Solitary Short-Story Dare (now with bonus poetry!)
Total words written: 19,300
Words written today: 100
Stories written this month: "Henchman Blues"
"On the Underworld Line"
"Melancholy Shore"
"In the Seventh Circle"
Poems written this month: "Dreaming Apep" Chocolate bees again. I really liked them.
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