One More Slice

French fries...they were treats. Vacation food. Something that one rarely got enough of, salty and straight out of the oil. Until of course, the day that one of the grandparents let me order the large size and then hoover up everyone else's leftover fries. Urrrggghhh. Not that one doesn't enjoy fries now (decades later), but one does remember too many with a wince.

I will assume that the latest book in the Twilight series was one fry too many for me. Although I enjoyed the first three, I didn't see now the last three could maintain that tension while allowing the main character to grow beyond the utter desperation of her own desire. Perhaps there is a story arc that doesn't involve using your friends or a way to wiggle my brain into the narrow confines of happy every after, down in the twisting caverns of a narrative idea that suddenly looms over the text. Maybe when one is younger, one is just used to everything carrying undertones of preaching and perfectability. Or maybe one skates along the surface and watches the colors flash out of the narrative and enjoys the story. However it is that I found my way into the first three, I stalled out 100 pages into the fourth, empty of desire to continue reading.

Despite the sorrow that comes with finding that the last chapter is one chapter too far, I find it fascinating just how narrative can both uplift and stop the reader cold. What is it that provides narrative with this? The story? The reader?

If it is the reader, then what does it profit a writer to do more than study grammar and spelling? How does story-telling become something that draws people into blogs and novels and movies?

Spa Day, with Gerbils

While rushing through Wal-Mart yesterday, I happened to grab a handsoap that I hoped would be less harsh than what I had purchased last time. It was advertised as a "Spa" line, although beyond that it wasn't specific. When I happened to use it later, the aroma of cedar (a possibly unintentional aroma) diffused and clung to the hall bath. Just like the cedar shavings in the gerbil cages of my childhood. Nervous hopping rodents in need of relaxation in between being grabbed out of their cotton-fluff homes, what a perfect allegory for the work day. Now if only I could cedar-chip my office, perhaps we could eliminate...eh, probably not.