Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Moments of brilliance followed by the not so much…

You know how it is when you promise to meet a friend for breakfast, only the night before you started reading this book that was really good. Couldn’t put it down good. Didn’t notice the time passing good. And you stay up way too late finishing it because, man, there are just a few more pages until the end. Only there isn’t, and by the time you finish it’s late, you’re tired, and you kinda forget that you set your alarm early for that breakfast thing? So the next morning when your brain sorta kicks in around the fourth time you hit the snooze alarm, you realize you have to haul ass out of bed, take a quick hot shower, and then put on some serious war paint because you look like Death came and beat you about the face with his scythe last night for the hell of it. Only if you put on makeup it means that coffee waits until you get to the bakery.

Beautiful, life-giving coffee that owns your soul with its two lumps of sugar and dash of cream. The first drops of which coat your tongue in caffeination-y goodness and immediately erase the withdrawal headache that had tried to take over the minor function that your brain was capable of. And as you sit there, sipping the too hot beverage and trying for coherence in the conversation with said friend (but failing badly because you forgot to ask how a.) the blind date went and b.) to figure out if you can go to the ballet this weekend; all things she’d patiently asked you when you’d been slightly more aware) you realize that you had stupidly and rashly promised to write a blog entry about something.

Though god knows what.

If life were truly a “choose your own adventure” book told entirely in third person, I could flip ahead to page 64 (write the entry), read the chapter and then flip to page 92 (don’t write the entry) and read that outcome as well*. As I cannot, I figure I’ll just wing it and y’all get to deal with the incoherent ramblings (see page 1, or above).

I am one of those people who can forgive a book its flaws and plot holes for a dynamic character. Like many of you mentioned in your posts, if I read a character that has me engaged and flying through the pages, I may not even notice grammatical flaws or small plot holes. Large plot holes? Well, if they are big enough for me to fall into then I’ll be pulled out of the story, but if it’s a touch of deus ex machina (Word keeps wanting to chance machina to machine automatically. I think it has something against latin) meets coincidence in the grand scheme of this is some good shit then I’m good to go.

And I had a lot more to say on this subject (verging on coherence even and getting out of the land of repetition), but I just got a phone call. One that not only took up my remaining writing time, but allowed me to incorporate the comment “That’s so Mensa” and a Buddhist tale I learned from Zen Shorts.

My mornings tend to be a special kind of kookie even without a breakfast meeting dragging me out of bed before the prescribed time. Hmm, this may explain why those flashes of “brilliance” have become very occasional, verging on nonexistent.

*Page 64 totally would have told me that I was receiving a phone call though, and then I could have skipped ahead to 92 and more coffee.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You left out the most important part - what was the book that kept you up so late?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, exactly!

Anonymous said...

Hear, hear! The Last Mortal Man by Syne Mitchell has been keeping me up late. Okay, I showed you mine.... ;-)

Jackie said...

Man, can I quote your ode to caffeine? Pretty please???

Anonymous said...

ah, what a lovely description of coffee, also my life-giving force! can i be your friend?

Trish Ryan said...

That is hysterical that we all know how you take your coffee, but not what book kept you up so late :)

Perhaps if WE could skip ahead to page 64...

Anonymous said...

BSC, this is totally off topic, but I was just at the grocery store and saw a guy sporting a Bluetooth, and I have to tell you that you have totally RUINED that for me forever, thanks to your Bluetooth/Borg post a while ago. Now every time I see someone wearing one, I have to fight not to laugh.

Kate said...

dammit, woman. The book! the title of the book!