{not my life}

i remember dining with my bald, boldy be-spectacled tutor, and answering the rudimentary conversation fodder: what are you reading? he was amused, scandalized when i told him anais nin, colette, thomas hardy. in a year full of highbrow roman and greek history and culture, i was tooling around with modern man doing, at turns, stupid, indulgent, hurtful things, to himself and those around him. i was seeking the illogical when i was supposed to be ruminating on and being illuminated by the supremely logical.

i guess i've always been a contrarian.

fast forward to my sf/f obsession: upon finishing every formulaic (i.e. logical) novel, i go through three stages before picking up the next one. 1) Immense satisfaction; 2) hunger for more; 3) self-loathing that i must read more. i casually cycle through way too many books this way. and with each "happy ending", i feel a bit more righteous--while simultaneously i know happy endings in life are rare. with each indulgence in this sham of balance and equity, i feel less real. so reading murakami--fraught with loss, pain, numbness, stupid choices--makes me feel like i'm participating, not in some utopia or plane of existence of ideas, but in some one else's terrible fucking life.

right now, i'm pretty open to that.
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