Welcome to the month of sheer and utter lacking. June has flown by in a way that is reminiscent of a dark storm with high winds and torrential rain - for an utterly unoriginal metaphoric point of view.

On a more original note, June has been much like a pleasant drizzling of honey over pancakes. Slow, anticipated, and utterly delicious, albeit time consuming in its fluid, sloth-like movement. Staring at the honey has eaten up minutes otherwise spent chasing rabbits.

How about that?

So, this month hasn't been terrible, but it's been at a bit of a standstill in certain areas. I will finish Then We Came to the End one of the days. I will, I will, I will.

Until then, I still sit around and randomly wonder whether or not this is all meaningless or perfectly pieced together. I'll need to sort that out over the next few months; I need to figure if what The End talks about is what I want to put up with, once again, later this year. Tick, tick, tick.

"... good god, was work so meaningless? Was life so meaningless? It reminded him of when an ad got watered down by a client, and watered down, until everything interesting about the ad disappeared. Carl still had to write copy for it. The art director still had to put the drop shadow where the drop shadow belonged and the logo in its proper place. That was the process known as polishing the turd. [...] Sure, for the sake of survival, but more immediately, for the sake of some sadistic manager or shit-brained client whose small imagination and numbingly dumb ideas were bleaching the world of all relevancy and hope." (p. 237)

That about sums it up.

This will be brief, without a photo, and not about a book at all.

Instead, this will be about the MagNet conference I am currently attending in Toronto, and let me tell you, nothing makes you more jealous than sitting in a room with a famously published author chatting about it like it's no big deal. Well, okay. That's a lie. He did make it out to sound like a little bit of a big deal.

But still. Seriously.

So jealous.

THEN WE CAME TO THE END
Joshua Ferris
385 pages

You know what's terrible? Corporate events that take you away from home for four days, work you to the bone, provide little to no sleep, and leave you feeling as if you've been ravaged like you've been never been ravaged before.

Welcome to my week, last week.

Sure, I get time and a half banked hours and I was away from the office for 3 business days, but at the same time, I was mentally and physically exhausted to the point of wanting to murder my colleagues. Last I checked, that doesn't make for a harmonious and pleasant work environment. Or, three hour drive home. Either way.

Complaining aside, it was just like any other work related fiasco. There was plenty of drama and talking about others behind their backs. Work is like catty high school escapades all over again, I swear to God. Regardless, we chatted, we laughed, and we speculated about certain goings-on.

This workplace camaraderie is kind of what led me to Then We Came to the End. I read a review about it over at the Bookish community on LiveJournal where the individual reviewing it used the first two paragraphs of the novel to sell the writing, tone, and plot. It worked. I ran out and purchased the book the next day.

Why, you may ask, did I purchase it so hastily? In reading the first two paragraphs, I saw something in the tone and sentence structure of the novel that resonated with me. It resembled something I would have put together and so, I wanted to read about a similar story from someone else's perspective.

The downside? The two paragraphs used to sell the book in the review had been doctored for the review in question. Sentences had been removed. Words dropped. The paragraphs in the review sucked me in. The real paragraphs made me ache for what I had been led to believe was hiding between the covers of the novel I spent money to own.

Am I disappointed? Only slightly. Despite the initial frown on my face, I have still come to enjoy the novel thus far: characters, tone, and structure included. It wasn't exactly what I had envisioned or imagined, but it's coming together regardless.

After all, isn't it nice to read about characters - whether they be fake or real - who are going through the same office politics and drama you are? Especially since they're able to voice what you're thinking when you can't.

"Why was it so terrifying, almost like death, one morning of a hundred, to walk back to your own office and pass alone through its doorway? Why was the dread so suffocating? Most days, no problem. Work to be done. A pastry. Storm clouds out the window that looked, in their menace, sublime. But one out of a hundred mornings it was impossible to breathe. Our coffee tasted poisonous. The sight of our familiar chairs oppressed us. The invariable light was deadening." (p. 56)

Night World One
Secret Vampire - Daughters of Darkness - Spellbinder
L.J. Smith

Spellbinder has officially been crossed off the list and Night World One is complete. Considering my distaste for the forbidden, albeit soul mate, love portrayed in each of the three novels, the last seemed to finally be setting up a much more promising storyline for any and all characters involved in the Night World.

Despite that, I am still going to move away from the Night World and return to it after a much needed break. There is only so much YA paranormal love drama you can take before your teeth start to rot with it. I've always personally been drawn to vampires (the sheer size of my own canines has led to many vampire jokes) and has resulted in them appearing in my work, but now, lately, I can't bring myself to even mention the vamps anymore. Sure, this all started long ago with shows like Buffy, and even before that, Dracula himself, but recently, with Twilight, True Blood and now, L.J. Smith's Vampire Diaries becoming a show, it's like beating a dead horse ... or falling back into the 90s. Either way.

The moral of the story is, everything tastes really great until you overcook it.

That, and, I'm finding lately even though I know I am reading about vampires, witches or werewolves, who are supposed to be paranormal super beings, I still cannot see them as more than regular human characters in each novel. Oh, you drink blood in your spare time? Sure. That's normal.

That's all beside the point, though.

I finished Daughters of Darkness a few days ago and stepped into Spellbinder territory. Needless to say, Daughters continued in much the same way and ended rather plainly. Even at the end of the book, I was still having trouble feeling any sort of empathy or sympathy for the characters. The connection just isn't there. At all.

Regardless, the book surprised me with one empathetic quote:

"I don't even know who I am anymore, she remembered with a sort of fatalistic gloom. I have the feeling I'm about to surprise myself." (p. 442)

I consistently fall victim to the cliche character who is trying to sort out who and what they are in the world. I suppose, on a large scale, that's all any of us is trying to do on a day to day basis, but it seems so contrived to spew this kind of garbage about how relateable it is. Of course it is. That fact is a no brainer.

Spellbinder has been relatively more enjoyable, only because I find I enjoy how much more mischievous the characters are. The happy-go-lucky, romantic, all for love characters were so boring and flat. Now, there seems to be a little more colour.

Either way, I'm taking a break once Spellbinder is done and diving into something else temporarily. I don't think I can handle nine books in one sitting. It's like eating too much chocolate cake. No, wait. That's a bad example. There can never be too much chocolate cake.

God. I wish I had some chocolate cake right now.

I haven't been running on the treadmill as much in the last week or so which has resulted in my reading far less than normal. Apparently, the treadmill is the only place I am able to read large chunks of a novel, uninterrupted, whilst not feeling as if I am wasting time not doing something else.

... That's kind of terrible actually. I miss the days of last summer when I would sit around reading all afternoon, not worrying at all that I should be doing something else, because quite frankly, there was time to do that something else then.

I digress.

I'm about halfway through Daughters of Darkness right now and it seems that, the more I get into it, the more I cringe every other page or so. It just feels so... I don't want to say unrealistic, because, come on, we're dealing with vampires, witches, shape shifters and what have you, but it's something about the whole soul mate issue that drives me nuts.

In talking with the friend of mine who originally told me about how much she loved these books, she mentioned how much she adored them as a teenager, but wasn't sure how much she'd love them now. I can understand that. I'm beginning to realise that if I were 13, I would probably love each and every word on each and every page. As an adult however, they're making me roll my eyes.

The basic premise in every story seems to be an issue of soul mates meeting each other, amidst a plethora of other things going on to cause conflict. The soul mates always immediately know that they've met their other half by the sheer power and energy they feel when they see each other and/or touch. In Daughters of Darkness, two characters absolutely despite each other but cannot deny the energy they feel when they touch each other -- the girl actually kicks the boy repeatedly because of the emotions he stirs within her, and she doesn't understand why, at first.

Two other characters fall madly in love with each other in what feels like two seconds. The character development is poor at best because I feel absolutely nothing for the characters. I do not empathize with the dangers of their relationships possibly coming to end because of external trouble, nor do I believe their love to begin with.

If I were 13, perhaps I would. The fact of the matter is, sometimes, young adult novels strike gold with audiences of all ages and sometimes, they're written perfectly for their age bracket. I'm not going to not finish the series, but at the same time, reading seven more feels like a chore.

... My friend said it would get better. I am holding her to that.

I have an incredible addiction to the Sims 2. Back in the good, old days of the original Sims, I would lose track of precious life minutes as they passed me by in a flurry of virtual happiness. One year, my mum bought me the Hot Date expansion pack for Christmas and it's safe to say that despite how slowly my computer ran the software, I persevered and lost a good chunk of that holiday to that game.

Things haven't really changed much. Sure, I've grown older, and arguably wiser, but not quite wise enough to stop wasting days on playing computerized versions of my real friends. Everyone has a vice, and mine seems to be the Sims.

A friend of mine came over on Sunday afternoon and I excitedly rattled off the happenings of my town. I was a disheveled, haven't-showered-in-a-couple-of-days mess. Despite all of this, he looked at me and said with a laugh, "You know, it's been a long time since we've seen that sparkle in your eye. That special kind of sparkle that only the Sims can bring out you."

It was a joke, and he was blatantly mocking me, but it was oh so sadly true.

Regardless, the moral of the story is, outside of work and attempting to get some sort of number of productive things accomplished, I've been playing the Sims. By the time I finally crawled into bed last night, my brain scolded me for wasting 48 perfectly good hours on ... well ... nothing. Or, if you prefer the argument I used with my co-workers earlier today: I did a lot. I raised four children, two of which who have now started University. I have experienced a number of career tracks ranging from journalist to nurse. I have lived in small, one bedroom homes and upgraded to ones with four. I have gardened. I had a dog, as well as a cat. I met the Grim Reaper. Lightning struck the tree behind my house - multiple times.

... I clearly just want an excuse to further talk about my problem.

It's a shame this whole rant is in no way related to the only quote I have so far made note of in the Night World series:

"Sometimes she was filled with so much awe and-and-and-and longing-that she thought she might break to pieces." (p. 273)

Then again, does longing to play the Sims count?
Or, longing to live life normally again? How about living life in general?

Oh, screw it, I get to do more in virtual reality. It's like being Barbie. One day I'm a doctor, and the next, I'm cruising the town in my Pink Convertible.

*possible spoilers*

I couldn't believe this cover when I googled it just now. This is quite possibly the best (read: most terrible) book artwork I have ever seen! If it was possible for books to be B-Side like a movie, this would definitely be dancing on the borderline.

Or, perhaps, I am being unnecessarily mean.

Seriously, though, if you've seen the re-released covers for the Night World series by L.J. Smith, you'll notice that they're a lot sleeker and minimalistic in comparison. They're also 3 books in one, but that's beside the point.

I picked up the entire series, based on a friend of mine raving about the books - she had read them years ago and absolutely loved them. At the time of her raving, however, she couldn't remember the titles, much to her dismay. Then, by some strange coincidence, we walked into a bookstore and there sat the re-release copies near the front entrance. It was really quite strange.

Regardless, I finished Secret Vampire today, and even though I am going to plow through the remaining eight books, I'm kind of unimpressed. Perhaps my disappointment will be isolated to Secret Vampire and the other books will shine - time will tell.

The problem I had, and I really can't blame the book for this since it came first, was just how much it felt like I was reading a dated copy of Twilight. Many of the same plot elements are seen in Secret Vampire as in Twilight, and I'm finding it hard to think it was merely a coincidence.

- James = Edward
- Poppy = Bella
- Vampire loves human
- Vampire loving human is bad
- Elders ensure vampire way of life is being adhered to, and will kill those who are not playing by the rules (Volturi anyone?)
- James is very protective of Poppy, obsessively so (erm, Edward?)
- Poppy has telepathic abilities, similar to those of Bella
- Poppy quickly masters her new vampire abilities, faster than anyone else (Breaking Dawn)
- Ash, cousin to James, shows up towards the end of the novel to provide the much needed conflict and resolution (rogue vampires showing up at the end of Twilight out of nowhere)
- James being one of the rogue vampires in Twilight

I could be reading too much into it, but if I were a detective, I'd assume that Ms. Meyers used Ms. Smith's Secret Vampire as a spring board for telling and creating Edward and Bella's story. I'm probably off my rocker. That's most likely the reality.

The book was a quick and pleasant read. The dialogue felt awkward at times, but I find that's the case in most novels. Catching the truest form of conversation in novels is tough, since it tends to be used as a means of moving a story forward, when, really, in day to day life, our conversations don't exactly move our lives forward in any big way. Sometimes. Not always.

The pace was ultra quick, to the point where I wish Smith would have slowed down and really worked her way through the details. It would have been great to see the characters developed further, or some more time injected into certain parts. Things seemed to happen too fast, with one thing happening after the other with no break in between.

Overall, enjoyable in a mediocre way. I'm hoping for a bit more polish in Daughters of Darkness.

I think what stood out most for me in Generation X - outside of how much I found myself relating to the emotional conflicts, mental despair, and general apathy - were the included cartoons, bold statements and definitions littered throughout the book along the side panels of the story.

I had a quirky argument with my mother on the way home from work today - as we seem to do lately whenever the topic of life is brought up and how each of believes it should be lived - and it made me think about the comic above. We weren't exactly talking about buying a house, per se, but the conversation was rooted in possibly finding the love of my life at some trade show I have to attend for work tomorrow. I scoffed.

My retort wasn't well pieced together, and my logic possibly flawed, but I used examples from the lives of those around me and essentially rebutted by saying I'd rather live life my way than give it up for a man - a concept she seems to throw me at quite frequently over the last little while, which is strange to me since, up until about a year ago, being a relationship was like hanging out with Satan. Or so it felt like.

Regardless, the thought process was:

Meet love of life. Get married. Buy house. Work forever at a dead end job to pay for house. Game over.

"My friends are all either married, boring, and depressed; single, bored and depressed; or moved out of town to avoid boredom and depression. And some of them have bought houses, which has to be kiss of death, personality-wise. When someone tells you they've just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they're locked into jobs they hate; that they're broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they're fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It's profoundly depressing." (p. 143)

I somewhat explained this concept to her in my own disjointed way, and even though she agrees with this theory, especially in relation to people around us who have done it, she still seems to insist that I do the same. Well, at least, the whole finding a man portion of it. When did this become so important and my independence not so much?

I recall a conversation her and I had about a year and a half ago in which she admitted being afraid that I'd be alone, with no husband or children of my own, when she passes. Apparently, this the most terrible thing in the world that could happen to me. I kind of relish in the thought sometimes.

"Give your parents the tiniest of confidences and they'll use them as crowbars to jimmy you open and rearrange your life with no perspective. Sometimes I'd just like to mace them." (p. 86)

* * *

Fame-induced apathy: The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame-induced apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper.

Option paralysis: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.

Occupational slumming: Taking a job well beneath one's skill or education level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding possible failure in one's true occupation.

So, I find myself suffering from a quarter life crisis, and, truth be told, it's probably been going on for quite some time; I'd say, oh, three years or so.

It's arrival was not planned for since it showed up much earlier than expected - kind of like the friend you can always count on to be late, but then shows up early the one time you need them to be late. It hasn't been warmly welcomed and so far, it's only proven to be the annoying friend that always follows you around asking inane questions. The problem with Quarter Life is that he's asking legitimate questions that have left me wondering if I did myself a disservice by accelerating life the way I have.

Rebellion Postponement: The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career experience. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and expensive joke-inducing wardrobes. (p. 106)

The benefit is that I am not thirty. I have plenty of youth left to experience. The problem is breaking out of the seventy-five year old woman cycle I have found myself in. Go to work. Come home. Eat dinner. Work out. Do some more work. Volunteer time. Go to bed.

I was thinking today about how I've been too hard on myself, discounting all of the things I have done during my so-called youth -- random parties, general tomfoolery, late night street wandering, drives in the middle of the night, etc.

I think where things start to bother me is that all of these adventures stopped after I graduated, and well, I graduated at the stupidly young age of twenty. Youth isn't meant to die at twenty. Hell, it should never die, but that's beside the point. Twenty is not the age in which someone becomes boring and aged. Twenty is only the beginning of life explorations, world discovery, experience hunting, and friendship making.

Four years later and sure, I've gained some valuable work experience and learned a great deal about myself in the process, but the fun just hasn't been the same. It's become very laid back and almost gray. We've stopped having adventures for the sake of having adventures - everyone now is much too focused on their jobs, buying homes and potential marriages. Whatever happened to waiting until our third decade for things such as mortgages and marriage licenses?

I picked up Generation X at the right moment in time, for most every page drips with what I've been feeling lately. Sometimes, I think I was born about ten years too late.

I read about Sundays at Tiffany's on a book blog somewhere over on LiveJournal and decided to pick it up based on the endearing concept of the novel. I was a wee bit hesitant, knowing full well that Patterson is apparently some crime/thriller novelist guru, and well, although I wasn't disappointed necessarily, I wasn't wowed.

The novel read easily and I finished it over three, one hour sessions on the treadmill. Although the story gives you everything you need to know about what's going on, it doesn't exactly leave you feeling full. It was as if I got a taste of everything, but never had a whole course.

The story was predictable, and Patterson's (or Charbonnet's) attempts at tricking the reader into thinking it would end differently, I felt, were just thrown in for that purpose. I rolled my eyes and kind of thought, really? We could do without this part. Who're you fooling, kids?

The copy didn't wow me. There weren't lines upon lines that I needed to highlight to remember. It was light, fluffy, and I do not regret reading it; it simply wasn't a substantial literary dinner.

One concept in the book I did find myself relating too, however, was main character Jane's tribulations with her position in life. A little over the age of thirty, stuck in a job she dislikes, kept under her mother's thumb, and feeling herself to be in a permanent rut, I sympathized.

Michael, I could not. His life as an imaginary friend just seemed peculiar to me, and the process not well explained throughout. It was as if both author's took a fabulous concept and kind of murdered it with their execution (no pun intended). That must always be the biggest disappointment in a novel - a good concept with a poor plan.

On the redeeming side, I particularly enjoyed:

"Honey, I don't want to ride the train. I want to drive the train." (p. 11)

Drive on, monkey. Drive on.

"I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray, with a deep note of pathos in his voice. "But I seem to have lost the passion, and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget." (p. 291)

... Dorian Gray developed this problem, whereas I, well ... I was born with it. Welcome to Only Child Syndrome folks, where the only person in existence is me. We never seem to grow out of the phase that, you know, people seem to dissolve a few months after leaving the womb.

Then again, I refused to leave the womb to start with and they ripped me out, much to my dismay.

It's all beginning to make a lot of sense.

Tomorrow, we move on, because I already started and finished the other book and have started on the other other book. Reading on the treadmill, once again, really helps to amp up this book eating thing.

I've been thinking a lot - my past time of choice lately. I spend more minutes in a day contemplating the meaning of life than I seem to contemplate anything else anymore. This hasn't exactly led me to cheery, rosy patches of thought, but it has led to me to insight ... or perhaps, insanity.

I've rewound my own personal footage and vicariously lived through myself - the self that once was. I've thought about things I've done and then wondered why I did them in that particular way. I've come to some pretty funny conclusions about certain things -

"But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything." (p. 235)

I used to be a dreadful romantic. I think, to some degree, we all must be whether we admit to it or not. We're so bombarded by images of the idealized romance and perfect relationship that the message must be creeping into our collective conscience. On the same token, we're all also very bitter probably.

Regardless, I used to be a romantic. My teen years were very typical in that I swooned over boys, both celebrity and non, and imagined picture perfect romances with every single unrequited love - and they were all unrequited, believe you me.

Then, I grew up a little, and I'm not nearly as adolescent stupid as I used to be. Reality has smacked me a couple of times, warning me of the limits of romanticism in real life. I'm okay with this. On the other hand, I can't help but also continue this farce of a life I lead - one in which I seem to continuously pretend is a movie rather than, well, real life.

While on the treadmill a day or so ago, I was thinking about a relationship I was in a couple of years ago: very high school, very cute, too sweet for life. It ended abruptly, as most relationships of that nature do, but truth be told, I had seen the end coming long before it actually showed up on my door step with sparklers in hand.

The night That Boy and I broke up was not a shock to me at all. We had just experienced yet another quasi-awkward evening, not really speaking to each other, nor really looking at each other - something that had become commonplace over the last weeks of our "relationship" - and when I had finally gotten back into my car to go home at the end of the night, something in me snapped. I decided then that enough was enough and we were simply going to end it, once and for all.

I marched back up to That Boy's house, rang the bell, and plainly asked, "What's going on with us?" when he opened the door. With a big sigh, and a shake of his head, he said, "I don't know," and so, our conversation began.

The thing that amuses me the most, is how much I manipulated that situation to be something out of a film. I knew we were going to break up at some point soon. I saw it coming, and had already accepted the fact. I initiated it, wanting to no longer be part of something so dead and heavy, and yet, what happened during The Talk makes me chuckle in sick pleasure.

... I cried. I sat on his stairs, and whimpered like a teenage girl, my actions only encouraging him to put his arm around me, rub my back, and whisper, "I'm sorry." I let tears flow down my cheeks without saying a word. I stared blankly at the floor, my feet and the wall ahead of me. I took on this role of subdued drama queen, soaking up the moment for all that it was worth.

It was all fake, and yet, I did it anyway. I played it out the way it's scripted in movies and on television. I made it out to be the most cliched moment in existence, and today, all I can do is look back and laugh.

I don't know if I knew it at the time, but the past is always 20/20.

The only unfortunate thing is, I haven't done that kind of thing in a while. I haven't played out a moment like a movie in what feels like eternity, and perhaps that's a good thing, or perhaps that's why I'm feeling kind of indifferent to everything. Life has become very life-esque lately, and I'm bored.

I miss my bad habits -

"Of course married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality." (p. 301)

I finished Dorian Gray the other night, after having worked through each page at a pace so much slower than normal. Regrets? None. Looking back over every page that I folded over and highlighted made me only love the book more, despite not having actually loved every page of prose.

I've since moved on to something so much lighter and fluffier and despite how easy it is to read through, it doesn't pose the same challenges. It isn't offering the same kind of spring board for random life ramblings. One hundred pages in and I only have two pages ear marked in my new novel. Dorian Gray annihilates that number by one hundred percent or more, with quotes such as:

"He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away." (p. 267)

The last few weeks have appeared challenging from a nostalgic perspective. I have romanticized the past, wishing only to return to minutes that I felt better equipped and prepared for. I have tangoed with previous experiences, and have contemplated how things just do not feel the same, but, at the same time, do.

I've seemingly allowed myself to look, and then fall, into a pit of nostalgic quicksand. I'm sinking, folks, and my struggling is only making it worse.

"Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts." (p. 270)

I often think about times when I felt as if I had more drive to achieve the things I still dream of today. It's almost as if the older you get, the more that will gets sucked out of you. I'm not sure where the blame lies - soul sucking jobs, the routine of a nine to five office ordeal, the aging process, or ourselves.

My mind involuntarily rewinds to a time six years ago when I had the option of doing something more than I did. So often I want to go back and just kick that girl in the shin for the decision she made because, at that point in time, she was too lazy to take Route B when Route A looked so much brighter and faster.

I'm paying for that decision every day, and although it has led me down an interesting path and offered its own experiences and wisdom, I'm almost positive I could have also done without. Sure, I wouldn't be who I am today without those instances, but on the same token, I've only just rediscovered the girl who used to exist; the one with the drive and aching will. Everything in between only served to destroy that, which only makes me wonder, what was the point?

"You always want to know what one has been doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing." (p. 258)

Time comes and goes rapidly, and lately, I feel like it's going more than it's coming. I'm also forgetting a lot of what has been going on lately, illustrated on Saturday by my inability to recall for one friend why another had been with me on the subway previously (he hates the city and the subway system and I could not, for the longest moment, remember why he had agreed to join me).

Time ticks by, but on the plus side, I am nearing the end of Dorian Gray. So far, a journey that has ruined my mind on many levels. Sure, my brain has been ravaged by work and the fact that there is too much metaphoric food on my metaphoric plate of things to do (eat), but the ideas read are only perpetuating the things I already have tucked away.

"Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful." (p. 209)

One thing I have always failed to mention is just how pleasant Oscar Wilde describes the gentleman in Dorian Gray. Certainly, this only happens in the beginning of the novel, but I was quite pleased at how beautiful these men were made out to be - personally and physically. Of course, there are all those rumours about Wilde that would justify his phrasing, but we'll ignore that for the sake of simply appreciating the portrayal.

I must say though, Wilde falls victim to the same shared characteristic of all classic writers. I found my eyes crossing in frustration when he began to over describe parts of the book that I felt to be unnecessarily spoken about for so long. This wordiness drives me nuts, and while I understand why the material has been published as such, it still drives me bonkers.

I think this fact means I fail at literary life, all around.

Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis ... Thanks, I think.

I get a weekly email alert from EyeWeekly - a free indie paper in Toronto - and normally, I skim through the message in a couple of seconds, not really finding anything that grips my fancy enough to want to read on. This week, as soon as I saw quarterlife crisis, I was sold, and in it for the long haul.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of a quarterlife crisis. Since it's still a relatively new life "crisis" recognized as fact, it somehow always helps me to feel a little better whenever an article about it creeps up. Well, helps me feel better or worse, depending on the day. I think in this case, it only made me feel worse.

I read through the article, agreeing with every word - the confusion, the lack of direction, the fact that having too many options is the reason for not choosing an option in the first place. I can't fathom the number of times I've ranted to someone about the fact that we have too many options now-a-days; we don't know what to do because we can do anything.

Quarterlife crises generally begin hitting people in their mid-twenties, shortly following graduating when you've spent a few years in the work force and begin to wonder, "Is this it? What's next?"

Unfortunately for me, I graduated at the ripe, young age of 21 and began to feel the pangs of Seriously? a couple of years ago. Unfortunate, again, is the fact that now I am only 24 and everyone around me is getting married, buying houses, and considering children - generally things saved for the latter half of someone's twenties. By default, I've been thrown into a full blown quarterlife crisis because everyone around me - and I suppose myself, included, to a degree - have chosen to accelerate our lives. The only difference is, whereas I only chose the shorter schooling route, everyone else chose to accelerate the rest as well. I am the only 24 year old I know who still wants to have fun, experience life, travel and not shackle myself down to a mortgage, children and one job for the rest of my days. The disconnect between myself and my friends seems to grow more and more every day; they don't really know it, for they don' feel it in their happy, little lives, but I feel it for I have none of these things, except ambition and drive.

It's an interesting thing, my generation. I don't understand when the rush factor became so prominent as to take over our lives. Here we are, following a generation of individuals that chose to delay marriages and mortgages in favour of jump starting careers and delaying hard work in favour of travelling and experiencing the world. We've seemingly done the opposite.

I don't fit in with the way everyone around me has chosen to move through the motions, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't make things, at times, more challenging than they need to be. Disconnect.

Funny how that's the way I typically feel, day to day, when recently, at work, we've launched a new brand wholly based on connection. It's hard to market something when you're not feeling it.

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us." (p. 13)

Being "mysterious" has always been my shtick. I never really let the cat out of the bag or necessarily share too many details - with people who are not my closer friends, of course.

It's interesting to me, then, to observe people who do not maintain that air of mystery. For example, my manager loves to share a plethora of stories with us, as well as rants and raves. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but when her and I were busy packing up boxes today, she began telling me her epic wedding party story, and in the back of my mind, I couldn't stop thinking about how I probably would never reciprocate.

But perhaps that's just because I've previously gotten too close with managers, and as such, effectively ruined the Boss/Employee relationship. That's never a good place to be.

Regardless, staying on mysteries and secrets, I have a Lavalife account. Shh, it's the most dreadful and embarassing of secrets. Only, it's really not, because I don't use it. Well, not traditionally.

It's an entertainment device - I log in once a day, check out the ridiculous chat messages and emails left for me, delete any smiles and move on. The sheer volume of pathetic pick up lines or attempts to get your attention by playing off your already quasi-joke profile (though, they don't get that) are too hilarious to pass up.

I've seen it all. I've had the sickeningly sweet, right down to the "doctor" who rudely told me my standards were too high and I would never find a man -- this was the first thing he ever said to me. He was basing this opinion off a profile where I state that I love the arts, my friends and family, and that describing oneself in a short number of words is impossible. Yep. He must have been reading between the lines to pick up on my ridiculously high standards. Smart man. (cough)

The best encounter occurred yesterday, however. Some random guy sent me a chat message, complimenting me on something or other, which I thanked him for. I rarely stick around to actually chat with people and so, logged out before he could reply. When I returned the next day, he had responded, making a comment about how I sounded older than my years. I simply replied by saying that that wasn't the first time I had heard that and again, promptly logged out.

I returned last night to:

I think you need braces.
I still find you charming though.

... This, coming from a guy whose profile is nothing but a soapbox rant about how shallow the female population is on Lavalife. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I called him out on it. There was the chance of a good internet scrap, and I wasn't going to pass it up.

He pegged it on me by blaming me for focusing on the braces comment, rather than the compliment he had given me prior to that. Oh, right, pardon my error. You like my face, but you also think I need to fix my smile. That makes perfect, mathematical sense.

Again, I called him out on it. His reponse?

I'm growing rather bored of this.

I've never (internally) laughed so hard. In fact, I think my brain exploded a little at the sheer audacity of it all and complete brain dysfunction. If Lord Henry were my friend, we'd share a good chuckle over it --

"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything and people who know absolutely nothing." (p.123)

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself..." (p. 33)

Sometimes, and only sometimes, it feels as if I am a walking joke finely crafted by the universe, perpetually caught in the punchline cycle. Quite frankly, I don't find the universe's joke all that funny, but that's when s/he smacks me upside the head and laughs even more about it.

That's when I scowl and run away to the bathroom.

I only mention this because I had one of those moments today at work, and all I could do was shyly thank everyone for their comments before retiring to the bathroom (where I legitimately had to pee) to shake my head in hilarious frustration.

As part of a project I have been very closely working on and quasi-managing, I was responsible for sending an email to all staff in the Canadian office once again reiterating some of the deeply important fundamentals of the new initiative, officially launching tomorrow. Not wanting to make this one of those boring, fuddy duddy, standard office emails, I flowered it up a little and added some creativity.

I asked my manager to peruse the email before I sent it, as I had told her I would, just to ensure I didn't forget any details - two hears are better than one! - and was only met by her warm, and fairly standard, "That is wonderful! Perfect!"

I always experience a strange hiccup before actually hitting the send button for staff wide emails. There's so much stress behind knowing that that many people will be receiving your email simultaneously. That's a whole other story and issue unto itself though.

Shortly after sending out the email, another one of the girl's in my department immediately commented on how much she enjoyed one of my added flair bits, and was once again welcomed with "I know! Isn't it great?" from my manager.

When I returned to my desk following lunch, one of the lady's who had been away in the morning was chatting with my boss, and interrupted herself to compliment me on my email, stating just how well written I was.

I smiled. I said thank you a number of times. I also cast my eyes downward and temporarily booked it out of that situation because it was as if my life long goals were smacking me in the face. They were wearing flashing Christmas lights and performing the Riverdance in front of me, posing the question, "Why?"

Quite honestly, it all broke my heart a little, because I know what I want to do, and I'm not doing it. Despite being good at my current job, it's not where my heart lies. But I suppose that's the common problem many people have - we all just eventually find ourselves stranded in a place we never thought we'd end up. We justify to ourselves that our jobs are okay, pay well, and come with benefits. It's not what we want to do, but it's not the worst thing in the world.

It may be the common condition, but how many of us common condition folk are honest to goodness, deep down happy?

How many of us are yielding to our temptations like Dorian Gray? How many of us are ignoring them, allowing them to consume our souls?

Our portraits are all deformed, but unlike Dorian's, they're deformed for the wrong reasons.

"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear and vivid and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?" (p. 34)

Far too often I bemoan the fact that I am not reading as much lately. Of course, this is a judgement based on the amount of reading I was doing last year when I was unemployed and not attempting to lead four lifestyles at once.

Slowly, but surely, I am working my way through The Picture of Dorian Gray, and with every sit down, I am busy highlighting fragments of text that I either can't help but smile at for their truth, or frown at for their relativity.

"The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. the others write the poetry that they dare not realize." (p. 84)

Often, I wonder where ideas flow from - especially when there is such disconnect between the actual experience and the idea. Where do the emotions come from? Where does the knowledge? These grandiose images blend together to create occurrences that have never actually materialized and yet they feel so real on paper. They're ghosts of something that never was, but they're convincing.

I consider the stereotypical writer and his hermit characteristics. I ponder just how stereotypical that perceived stereotype really is. Perception, after all, is everything ...

And sometimes, I think I perceive and experience more right here, than I do anywhere else.

I was reading the latest edition of Quill & Quire whilst on the treadmill tonight, when I came across an article lamenting the death of Book Expo earlier this year.

The death of Book Expo.

I raised an eyebrow, perplexed, since I had heard nothing about Book Expo suffering until reading the article of its demise.

Then again, let's be honest here. I have never been to Book Expo, and I don't really think you can attend an event by association -- friends and acquaintances have gone in the past, and as such, I've lived vicariously through them. At the end of the day, I am slightly out of the loop.

I've yet to work in book publishing. I managed a stint in newspaper publishing, but then my contract ended and well, the paper downsized the role(s) I was in, moving it to another paper of the same family.

Despite that, I often dream of working in the industry at some point, disregarding any and all negative press that often discusses how much the industry is changing -- or, floundering, depending on who you ask.

I generally do a good job of ignoring such sentiments, but for whatever reason, reading about the death of Book Expo broke my heart. Perhaps it was the fact that it seemingly came out of nowhere (thank you disconnect!) or the fact that I had always dreamed of one day attending Book Expo for myself, whatever the reason, I read the article sadly, feeling for the first time as if I was watching the industry wash away.

Sure, it all ended on a high note. The conclusion of an event that really wasn't doing much for anyone anymore has instead spawned a sea of revival ideas and localized groups. Book Camp experienced a site meltdown because so many people logged on to register. Despite the death of a giant, the fiery passion of the small still burns beneath.

And yet, despite those flames, every now and again, when news like this manages to crack through my stubborn mind, I wonder, what if they're wrong? What if the industry is on the graveyard track? What if digital one day kills print? What if we're all just fooling ourselves because we're pathetically in love with ink stained paper?

What if?

Work is slowly killing me. It has been nothing but early mornings and overtime hours for the last little while and it's beginning to drive me insane quite rapidly.

Needless to say, I am eagerly counting down to April 2nd when all of this will be over and I will once again, hopefully, be able to return to a quasi-normal life. Fingers crossed. I'd rather not come out of this alive, only to discover that I have another equally time consuming and frustrating project to call my own.

That may be the day I go nuts.

After all, I'm not reading nearly as much as I used to. I have all but stopped writing save for a few outlets and it's only when that begins to happen that I begin to grow bitter and resentful. I'm supposed to be a president for the CAA, but you'd never know it considering how little time I have to focus on the things that need to be done.

I miss the days of last summer when most minutes were spent basking in sunlight and reading book after book, immersed in a world ages from here. I miss wrapping myself up in the comforting blanket of another character's life through the words pumping out of my fingers. I miss a lot of things lately, and I don't generally miss things.

I miss life, when life wasn't really stereotypical and mundane.

"Who wants to see life as it is, if they can help it?" (p. 130)

I first read Long Day's Journey Into Night in my high school drama class. During each class, we'd all sit in a circle and take turns reading character lines.

Somehow, I had entirely forgotten about this when I picked up the book at a University of Toronto book sale for a mere two dollars. The night I finally picked it up, my brow furrowed and I wondered to myself why the text seemed so familiar.

Then, it dawned on me.

I put the book down at that point, instead finding myself tantalized by other novels coaxing me to their pages. It wasn't until mid-February that I picked it up again to finally finish. Not only had I forgotten my original reading of the play, I had also forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

Let's face it, the characters are drop dead miserable. They spend much of the play wallowing in their misery, taking both sly and direct jabs at one another, and criticizing each other's lives. Essentially, it's any family behind closed doors, only, at an extreme.

However, dependent on your frame of mind and where you're coming from at the time of reading, the characters will either sound dreadful or they'll reach into your chest, pull out your heart, and stomp on it. I found myself empathizing with Mary and stopping dead in my tracks whilst reading her sad, rambling monologues.

"How could you believe me - when I can't believe myself? I've become such a liar. I never lied about anything once upon a time. Now I have to lie, especially to myself. But how can you understand, when I don't myself. I've never understood anything about it, except that one day long ago I found I could no longer call my soul my own." (p. 93)

Mary's delusion, if we want to call it that, has more or less been a consequence of her drug addiction, but her mentality is experienced by people everywhere regardless. Even I find myself often wondering if I am simply moving about my days in a hazy state of lies. Many times I question myself why I do the things I do - what benefit am I receiving from my work? Who am I helping? What need am I satisfying, if any at all? What? Why? How?

It's almost as if you get so caught up in living the routine, day to day lie that it becomes the truth, and finally, one day, you no longer know the difference between the false and the honest. What happens when you reach that point? What clears up the picture? What fogs it up even more?

Although the characters struggle with their own demons, O'Neill highlights the general struggles of waking each morning. They suffer as we suffer. They remember, feud and share laughs with one another. They live lives that they necessarily did not want to live.

Perhaps I'm thinking a bit too much lately. I'm drowning in a sea of nostalgia and as such, every emotion has been heightened, increasing in sensitivity to a degree I haven't felt in a long time. It's Mary's inner turmoil bubbling over, begging me to listen --

It's time to stop lying.

"I love it. It's like we're in a snow globe and God decided he wanted to see a blizzard so he shook us all the fug up." (p. 166)

I kind of have that nagging feeling that things need to change. I am perpetually moving on and trying new things because, well, I'm sure there's a very psychological reason that I'd have to pay someone to evaluate. Regardless, it's time to shake up the snow globe.

I swear, tomorrow, we move on from An Abundance of Katherines.

I'm not much of a dater. I suppose, to some degree, I never have been. I was born a fiercely independent only child, and a fiercely independent only child is how I remained. I preferred my own space and my own time to do as I pleased. I never liked having to answer to anyone, much to my mother's dismay.

It seems I grew bored of people quickly. It's a terrible thing to say, but judging by my track record of "best friends" through grade school, I averaged nearly one new attached-at-the-hip friend each year.

It wasn't anyone's fault. I tend to experience things quickly and then dismiss them as passe as equally fast. Much of the things we did in high school I backed away from because I grew bored after a month or two whereas everyone else carried on with the same activities for years. Been there. Done that. Out of here.

Needless to say, the speed at which I race through things doesn't always go over very well with people. My only child fickleness and stubborn attitude of wanting, nay needing, to be left alone for large periods of time, tends to get on a lot of people's nerves. It's happened quite frequently to my friends now that I've just disappeared for a few days without a trace. Only child invisibility - a girl's best friend.

This all tends to speak volumes about my lack of dating, or relationships, in general. Not only do we face the challenges of above, but I seem to exude asexual tendencies - I just don't find every other male to be bone jumping worthy. In fact, I find very few fall into a dating category at all.

What does this tend to mean in the end, when I do ultimately venture out and give the big wheel a spin?

"It rather goes without saying that Katherine drank her coffee black. Katherines do, generally. They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends: bitter." (p.77)

I love black coffee.

"I was thinking about your mattering business. I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do." (p. 201)

Reading John Green's An Abundance of Katherines was, at first, like reading a light-hearted, fluffy book about quirky teens - a one-time child prodigy, his sidekick best friend and small town girl. As you make your way through it, however, you begin to realise that beneath all of the racist comments (sidekick best friend Hassan uses racial terms regularly), mathematical theorums, banter and sometimes distracting footnotes, Green has delved into your mind and, based on your existing perception of life, really made a mess of things.

Colin Singleton, our fearless (or perhaps, fearful is more appropriate) main character, is a child prodigy on the verge of growing up. Standing on the brink of the rest of his life, he obsesses over no longer being a prodigy, lamenting instead the fact that he wasn't a born a genius destined to change the world.

"The vast majority of child prodigies don't become adult geniuses. Colin was almost certain that he was among that unfortunate majority." (p.10)

I grew up during the time of quasi-prodigies. If you demonstrated even an ounce of promise in elementary school, you were immediately dumped into a special enrichment program, meant to help your brain blossom, and possibly, sprout a million weeds. I went through a fair number of these so-called enrichment programs, and, I won't lie, I sometimes wondered what I was even doing in them (the math ones, more or less, to be honest).

Teachers, program coordinators, parents, etc, would always boast about your abilites and encourage you to be all you can be. The world was your oyster and they'd drill into your head the fact that you can do anything you put your mind to.

Then, you grow up. The real world doesn't embrace or encourage individuals who show promise. The real world, generally, crushes them instead. You spend your childhood and awkward teen years believing that you are special, the world is waiting for you, and then you discover, painfully, that you've been lied to for years.

That's when you begin to obsess with mattering, because, frankly, mattering just takes you back to childhood where everyone would fawn over you and your intellect, making you matter by default in your small, secluded, elementary school world.

Unfortunately, we get trapped in this train of thought. For example, here I am today, twenty-four years of age, still married to the fact that I want to matter. I want to do something that matters to someone. I don't know what this something is, but it's certainly bigger than merely mattering to someone because I took their dog for a walk or bought them candy. No, it has to be much bigger than that.

There's no way out of this thought process; at least, there isn't one I've yet discovered. It becomes life as you know it and instead, you find yourself miserable all the time because no matter what you do, it doesn't matter enough because your sense of mattering is skewed. I am perpetually unhappy with every office job I have ever had, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. My job does not matter. I have done nothing worthy of mattering.

"In another 2,400 years, even Socrates, the most well-known genius of that century, might be forgotten. The future will erase everything - there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible." (p. 213)

The book smacks you in the face with realities we all know, but don't often think about. Sure, I know plenty of my quirks are irrational, but they're so normal to me, I think I need them. Life is illogical on so many levels and yet, we obsess over things like wanting to matter, when ultimately, in the end, it'll all just fade away. One day, no evidence will exist and it'll be like you never existed at all.

It begs to question: what's the point?

... I told you Green's book makes a mess of everything. So much for light and fluffy.

i let go, i fell in

Growing up, my mother enforced the rule of never damaging a book by writing, drawing or highlighting in it. Folding over page corners to mark your place was severely frowned upon also and resulted in my ridiculous collection and obsession with bookmarks; no one in their right mind needs handfuls upon handfuls of bookmarks when you only ever read a few books at a time. Besides, that's what ripped up pieces of paper, old movie stubs or useless receipts are for.

It wasn't until recently that I threw caution to the wind and stopped believing and following Mother's Rule. There was no particular defining moment, and if there was, I can't remember it and as such, my story is kind of falling flat. The point of the matter is, one day I must have decided that a certain passage was worthy of remembering and that encouraged the pink highlighter to the kiss the forbidden page - folded over corner included! Naughty, I know. If my mother saw me, she would have had a seizure.

Ever since that fateful day, I've been folding over corners like a mad woman, and following it up with a good dose of highlighter. The books, ultimately, appreciate it I think. After all, the paper creases and ink stained pages only mean the book is all the more loved, much like the Velveteen Rabbit. Unloved things don't look shiny and new. That probably also explains why my teddy bear looks half dead -- I have no shame. I sleep with a teddy bear. I admit it.

Regardless, the book(s) loves it. They all love attention; every single page soaks it up.

"But he always had books. Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back."
-- An Abundance of Katherines (p. 110)

I will forever be single - just me, my cats, and my books.

they're gonna give you hell

Last summer, I started the Blue Bloods series, after finding myself in love with the covers at the bookstore. I know, I know. They say to not judge a book by its cover, but I can't help the fact that I do. Pretty covers with masquerade masks on them draw me in unlike others.

Regardless, I picked up the first two books in the series and devoured them both quickly. I began to notice parallels between Blue Bloods and Harry Potter that were undeniable. It's like Harry, Ron and Hermione were vampires instead of wizards, sent off to vampire school to learn all about their vampirism. I was curious.

Revelations, the third installment, came out in the fall of 2008, and I eagerly anticipated it for months. The first two novels were well put together and read decently. I expected the third to move the story along fluidly, just as the others had.

Instead, I found, Melissa De La Cruz fell flat with this one. It jumped around between the characters too quickly, introducing far too many subplots that felt useless, despite them coming together in the end, anyway. I no longer connected with the characters, and found myself caring less and less about their well being. The love triangle De La Cruz tried to really hit home in this book left me feeling empty - I didn't care whether or not main character Schuyler got together with either gentleman.

What really drove the point home for me was the end, where instead of feeling sympathy for the characters, I laughed, at the climatic moment that was meant to be devastating to a number of characters. I laughed. Literally. I read the paragraph and laughed out loud.

I am surely going to hell.

It's disappointing. I was really feeling this series until this book flopped for me. I'm not sure I can even be bothered with the fourth installment at this rate. What a waste.

all of our secrets, coming undone

In 2008, with much thanks to the horrific, albeit insanely successful and somehow addictive Twilight series, I once again found myself in love with all books paranormal. I went from the Twilight series to the Blue Blood series to a plethora of other vampire, magic, witch, and more based books that all obviously surpassed the quality of Twilight, but fed my hunger for a love I had discovered many, many moons ago before realising I was a baby trapped in an adult's body and entirely unable to sleep with the lights off after reading or seeing anything scary.

With some time to kill around Christmas, I began the Blue is for Nightmares series, starting 2009 off with the last two books of the series - until the Fall of this year when the 5th installment, Black is for Beginnings, is released.

To be honest, I was surprised with how much the series sucked me in. When I started Blue is for Nightmares, I kind of rolled my eyes initially, wondering how in the world this series had become so notable. I'm not sure what it was, exactly. It may have been the way the characters interacted in the first couple of chapters, or the dialogue they spoke, but something seemed a little off.

Then, I got into it. Things started to pick up and I was itching for the next page, and the next, and the next. I needed to know what was going to happen. Sleep was no longer an option. I'm serious. I ended up reading much of Silver is for Secrets in one night, staying awake until one in the morning on a work night because I just could not put it down. I had to know, and I had to know immediately.

Things didn't change much with Red is for Remembrance. It was a little bit more slow going at first, as I found it hard to get over the tension of Silver is for Secrets. Hell, Silver made me cry for the first time in a long time over a novel. That is some tough material to follow up.

Once I figured out the plot twist in Red, however, I needed to read the remaining 60 or so pages before sleeping, resulting in another rude wake up call the next day.

Sure, the Blue is for Nightmare series is not literary genius that will be taught, studied and broken down, but it is enjoyable. It flows and reads well. It grips you. It does exactly what a thriller should, and that's keep you engaged and involved. Overall, it's a job well done and deserves to have sold the 200,000 copies or so it has.

Now, if only I could sell 200,000 copies of something.