shutting down

I've kind of shut down, creatively, emotionally, mentally quite a bit over these last few weeks. It's a defense mechanism for me -- detachment. But I think that I'm almost ready to start opening up again. And we all know that good things happen when we open ourselves up.

I've had to say goodbye to a lot of things lately. To Chica, to columbus, to a life that I had grown weary of living. It's good to be back home. It's good to have familiar and loving people around me. And it's a little frightening to see faces that I've not dwelt on for years, people who I would have once considered good friends and confidants. They feel as if I left them behind for something different, and in a way, I suppose that I did. But they shouldn't feel that I forgot about them. I wish they wouldn't feel forsaken.

So, I've found employment, and I'm about ready to start propelling myself into life again. I am ready to move forward and find a new way of living, a fresh breath of life. In many ways, it is a return to the life I abandoned so many years ago with ideas of grandeur and success. I am ready to become a craftsman in abandon of artistry. And so I pick up the smallest chisel and start to chip away at this rock that has stood before me for so long - not to create a sculpture, but to simply make sand.

meming

Number of books I own:
If I would have to venture a guess, I would say around 1000. At least three bookshelves full cram-packed.

Reading Style:
I have long said that I am a 'binge-reader.' Meaning that once I start a book, fiction or non-fiction, I will continue to read, skipping meals and potty breaks to finish it (that is, if the book is a compelling read.) If the book is not compelling, chances are I won't finish it.

Last book I bought:
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. yeah!

Last book I read:
Same as last, HP. Before that it was a reread of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity.

Five books that mean a lot to me:
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
The Brothers Karamazov - Fydor Doestoevsky
1984 - George Orwell
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
The Collected Works of William Shakespeare - i have three different editions

Each of these books holds a special place in my heart (even though I feel like my fifth selection is kind of a copout) for various reasons. A Wrinkle in Time is the book that made me a reader for life. It was the first story that I read that both excited and intrigued me, and even after almost 20 years the story still compells me. Shakespeare is what made me know that I was a dramatist, even before I did any real theatre for myself. Plays made more sense to me when it came to the art of storytelling; they were fuller (even without all the descriptive passages) and seemed to have the ability to reach a wider audience. 1984 is important to me, because it is the book that made me a buyer. I received an original American edition of the book when my great aunt died, and have since become a limited collector. Fear and Trembling is oh-so important to me because in some fundemental way it changed my life, or rather how I thought about life and God and all the important thing we all thought about. Kierkegaard made me appreciate philosophers and all their out of this world ideology. And The Brothers Karamazov is simply my favorite novel of all time.

well, Mel, I hope I didn't disappoint - I'm passing the baton on the sweetzayne! let us have it lady.

-d.

no recovery

So, I get entirely finished with the book meme and it fucking disappeared on me. Sometimes I can't stand computers.

grrr.