« Friday Five | Main | I suppose next she'll be watching TRL and wanting to get her learner's permit... »
January 17, 2003
Tired.
I'm tired. My eyes, they don't want to stay open. I haven't been sleeping well -- falling asleep far too late, having odd, vivid dreams, and waking up long before the alarm. I should really be in bed now, but I feel a bit restless and bored, too, so I'm staying up.
Lee lent me the first three seasons of The Sopranos, and I've been watching episodes every evening, while knitting. That may be the source of the bad dreams -- I don't remember much about them, but they're violent, and somewhat bloody. Not scary, though -- I think I realize, while I'm dreaming, that it is only a dream, and thus it doesn't scare me. I don't have nightmares often anyway, and when I do, I usually realize at some point in the dream that it isn't real.
I stayed up too late last night reading Empire Falls -- I bought it the other day because I'd heard and read a lot of positive things about it, and I'm loving it so far. It's one of those books that pulls me in, and makes me want to sit and read for hours. I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and now I'm avoiding finishing it. Why? Because I like it so much I don't want it to end. Even though I have another good book waiting for me (Ella Minnow Pea, which was a Christmas present from Lee. Hey look, that rhymes!)
I think the thing I like the most about Empire Falls is the way Russo portrays his characters -- he has a few that are unlikeable, and one that's downright repulsive, but he makes you like them anyway, or at least feel some sympathy for them. I'm always interested when an author can make me feel affection for an unlikeable character. (I also think that's why I'm enjoying The Sopranos, too.) When it works, I usually end up loving the book. When it doesn't, I end up hurling the book across the room. I ended up doing that with The Corrections, because I hated every single one of the characters so much. They were all uniformly horrible -- selfish, and self-centered, and stupid, and not one of them had a single redeeming quality. They weren't even funny, the way the most unlikeable character in Empire Falls is. They were just sad, and pathetic, and wrong, and I stopped reading the book 3/4 of the way through it because I just didn't care what happened to them. I never stop reading books once I've started -- I even read Hannibal cover-to-cover, and I hated that one, too. (But at least that one was amusing. The Corrections bored me, when I wasn't feeling nauseated by the characters.) So, a thumbs up for Empire Falls, and one copy of The Corrections chucked across the room.
I'm a little scattered at the moment, and feeling very glad I didn't decide to go to bed early, because my neighbors are having a huge fight. Screaming, slamming doors, throwing things, the whole works. It's making me a bit nervous -- like, wondering how long I should wait to call the cops nervous. If I knew them better, I'd knock on the door and suggest they take a time-out, since it is after 11 and all. But I don't really know them, and I don't want to get caught up in the drama. They're so loud, my cat is freaked out. They do this about once a month, so it's not a new thing, but this fight seems to be a doozy. Ah, drama. Perhaps some more loud TV is what I need.
Posted by Mary Ellen at January 17, 2003 11:28 PM