You like Pineapples?
How bout these *#$&@!! pineapples?
Got into LA fine last night.
Freaked out a bit that I was flying on September 11 again. Three years ago I flew on 9/11 and security deep scanned my laptop and completely erased my harddrive. That's how I knew the terrorists had won.
This time - no such luck. But it did make one thoughtful.
Finished a new book "Special topics in calamity physics." Sounds smart - and it is. First novel from a young writer with enormous potential. Not that I know anything - but its a 500 page book that lopes along for the first 350 - then tries hard to wrap up everything in the last bit. Loved the first half - not the second as much.
Been really caught up in a writer named Anne Lamott.
She wrote a book on writing called "Bird by Bird." Picked it up at Boarders last week - and just read the intro - which was 40 pages. She really snagged me. Then I found out she wrote two books on faith - and after reading about how she was a drug addict and was raising a son without a dad - I was even more intrigued. I picked up another of her books "Plan B - further thoughts on Faith" and read chapters of it out loud on the phone to my wife.
Yesterday I picked up her first book on faith entitled "Traveling Mercies." Each chapter chokes me up. She is a far left leaning liberal woman in her 50's with dreadlocks - but she knows what she writes about. Her naked honesty in her work floors me. I don't even want my friends to know the kind of things she shares with the world. But wow. That is powerful storytelling - and all the stories are true.
The only really great thing about spending two full days a week traveling is that I once again can partake of one of my great loves.
Reading.
As you get older - and mostly - as life and kids take over - it's really hard to make time for reading. Reading is by no means a selfish activity - but it is a time-consuming one. One that takes concentration and isolation - two things not very conducive to family life. I had gone from reading a couple books a week before kids to a book every couple weeks after kids. Now I'm back to a couple books a week again. And my brain and hopefully - my writing is better for it.
If only I could get on some kind of sleep system.
I'm back to staying up till 11 PST and waking up at 4PST... Not good. But I should be ok to plow through the meeting today. Gonna go back to my pages this morning and see what I can do - then it's hard at work on the China report due Friday.
Talked to my partner in this venture in China last night. Really great guy with a lot of good ideas. Think we will get along fine. Should be fun.
Oops. 6 am. Time to get cracking.
posted by greg at 9:11 AM
2 Comments:
Hey, Stephen King was married and analcoholic for years. And he still managed to churn out some effing HUGE books (Although I'll admit, I've never read a single King book apart from "On Writing").
And don't worry, she's a writer too (and an actress). She understands.
And man, personally, I would revel in the 2 days of travel a week. The times that I read the most are on the train/bus/plane. This summer was an exception, but I know that once I join the working world, there will never BE a summer vacation (unless I end up writing for a TV show, of course).
But be glad you have the opportunity to read. I remember hearing that, in the 90s, Bill Gates was so busy he couldn't find time to read ANYTHING. So what he would do is keep a running list of all the books he wanted to read over the year, and then when he could find time, take a 2 week vacation in the mountains and do NOTHING but read. I can totally imagine myself doing that, except I'd probably have my netflix queue involved somehow...
10:43 AM
I took it down because they have spies and sneaks here who catch things like that and try to nail us for "disrespect to the institute" or crazy things. It happens whenever they think something we say or do will have a bad rep in the public eyes. We don't want to be accused of hazing or torture...remember how our halloween went?
3:50 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home