Saturday, November 24, 2007

Calgon Take Me Away!

We had our employee special sale last week-- so I was careful to buy two Entertainment fictions (Crusie, and Wicked), one literary fiction (Pahmuk), one political read (Stiglitz), one non poli non-fiction (Wild Swans), one cooking book, and one writing book (about style.)


Today I started the Jennifer Crusie romance, which is potentially a bad idea because she will eat up my homework time. But I had all this school stuff on my mind, and I was royally annoying myself. This is the true meaning of escapism--when you need to read or watch something to escape your own mind.

I never really became conscious of the NEED for escapist literature until I had a job I DETESTED as a student painter. I would come home and read Georgette Heyer novels, and it was the only few hours of joy I had before having to go to bed and wake up to a hated job again. They helped me SURVIVE.

I couldn't read non-fiction today, to escape, cause that just would have drawn me back into School Thoughts. I tried an Oprah magazine yesterday, but all these info bits were too short to keep my mind tethered, keep it from wandering off.

The music in my mp3 player didn't work--I tried to make myself sing along with the lyrics to Jesus Christ Superstar, but The Brain kept waaaaandering away.

I tried watching tv last night,but that only worked for Ugly Betty--which is sufficiently dramatic and crazy to dominate my gray cells. But that's just one hour.

Enter: The Expert Entertainment Novel. It drew me in from the first page, and it will last for so many hours at a time, that eventually the things on your mind just fade, fade, fade away. I read it at the freezing 211 bus stop, I read it in the 211 traffic, I read it while waiting for the light to change to green, I read it while spending an hour petting Master William (brother's away for the weekend). And finally, I feel better.

... Jennifer Crusie is Calgon for the mind.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So, I was just thinking that how you felt about your job as a student painter is just how I felt about working at workplace that will not be named, but which i hated when we all worked there. Mae was talking about working on Christmas, and I almost had a panic attack in memory of former panic attacks. How I hated that job!! When I worked full-time that summer, all I did was come home and watch 3 hours straight of TV in a catatonic state. the horror!

Also, my aunt gave me Wild Swans one year for Christmas, and I never got around to reading it. Hmmm, maybe we should read it at the same time...

Soon your stress will be over! soon christmas vacation will come to save us all! Just hold your breath and soon it will be over!!

shayna

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