Jennifer

Well, if JK Rowling kills Harry Potter, I will probably take a day off of work. I'll start there so you can officially write me off or officially join the campaign to lobby the legislature to mandate Harry Potter Bereavement Leave in that threatened event. I've read every Lord of the Rings book 700 times and will start them all again if I'm not careful. Then there's Zorba the Greek...how I long to be Zorba, giddily dancing my life story to amenable Russians, though, I'm afraid, I'm usually the Boss. 1984 and A Brave New World kept my post-collegiate Utopia-seeking vacuum of a mind busy for months. I'll swear by Steinbeck's fierce and towering genius on my little, bitty life but most especially to the aching sweetness and painful delicacy of Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden. The Great American Novel has, alas, already been written, several times and, sadly or happily, not by me. I loved the Poisonwood Bible which stole a sizable bit of my soul for Africa (www.napafrica.org). A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius really is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, and the surprisingly effective elbow distraction technique therein is the funniest thing ever penned by someone un-British. I recently read Already Dead and recommend it if you have a head big enough to absorb all the Nietzsche and patience for prolific insanity. Even better insanity can be uncovered in your own psyche when you read the book House of Leaves. You will never think the same about Feng Shui again. White Noise is better than white noise, which is saying a lot as I sleep with the fan on at night. White Noise knows about the supermarket...the REAL supermarket...and about "Airborne Toxic Events." I am not at all ashamed to say I've read every Stephen King book ever written and loved almost every single one more than I've loved almost anything else. If you disagree, you're just jealous or you're my mom. I admit I love Roland of Gilead like he really existed and when I'm feeling frisky I am not entirely convinced that he didn't. Shakespeare is a totally viably worshipable god, literally, ha ha, if you get my drift. However pretentious and absurd it sounds, I feel absolutely indebted to him. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments, love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove, oh no, it is an ever fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken..." Seriously. Don't you just want to run out and love in the face of alterations. Nothing gets at my inside pieces like a Shakespearean Sonnet and a friend who, bless him, understands it. Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear. If I could revive a dead man for a brief visit, it would be Shake and he would receive a most passionate sloppy kiss, no matter what state of decrepit decay he was in. I realize this is gross. In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway writes "There is no good or bad. There is only sleep." Amen, brother. The Old Man and the Sea surprised the fish out of me and I had to read it twice. Love in the Time of Cholera was recommended by one of my dearest friends and so I was disappointed when it started off sort of slow and thrilled when it finished off deep in my deepest heart. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and all it's satellite books make me LAUGH and LAUGH until I am laughing in public at various undisclosed and inappropriate locations and passersby are concerned for my safety and a man with a five o'clock shadow off to the left calls the authorities. Oh, that I can't actually go off hitchiking myself. And I'm proud, so proud, of all we've done for the dolphins. Speaking of raucous hilarity, I once met Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. at Chapman University and fell in love with his white suit and gray hair and freakish knack for making me say "aah..." and "oooh." He shook my hand and he laughed when all I could say was "thank you, sir. thank you. thank you so much." Slaughterhouse Five and Welcome to the Monkeyhouse and Timequake...I too am a "monopolar depressive from a long line of monopolar depressives." I also learned from Mr. Vonnegut that I am a "Swooper." Look it up. It's totally spot on. And even if it weren't, I would forever yearn to come "unstuck in time." Then there's Isaac Asimov whose foresight and cleverness never cease to amaze me. I don't know the name of any of his stories but they have all been incorporated into my catalogue of possibility. Sorry, I read to fill in the half of my life I lose by working so hard, so I could go on like this forever. I think Clive Barker is a genius and a madman and I love him. Imagica was truly beautiful in an epic way. In a right similar way to The Stand and Hamlet and Great Expectations. All beautiful. Oh, did I mention Dickens? I love Dickens. And Sartre. No Exit describes the Hell I'd be willing to believe in and sometimes, too often in fact, believe I am in. Oh, and if you've ever believed in magic in your life, or if you've ever wanted to furiously, you have to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke. You'll say, eh, o.k., at first and then you'll be sucked in inexorably on this crazy magical journey to the Raven King. The card at the Barnes and Noble said "The Harry Potter for adults." And, while I thought Harry Potter was the Harry Potter for adults, this did fill the void left by the last Harry Potter after the fourth reading and before the fifth. I could go on like this all day, but I wish for you to still be my friend and at some point I should actually get out of this strangely shaped and very vindictive chair. Oh to be a wizard instead of an Executive Director. I could just wave my wand and...poof. A sofa...for starters. should...really...um...be...going...