Forever roaming with a hungry heart

I am part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move.

Tennyson

 

I've talked before about being open to new things as I age. Or things I've previously rejected.

 

So right now there's the swimming, as I've mentioned.

 

Apples. A lot of fruits and vegetables give me a hungry feeling in my estomac, and apples were always the worst. But every night my step-mother eats an orange and an apple, and offers me some. I can't eat much orange cause I get cankers, but I started picking at her apples. And now I've bought two bags full! Quebec apples are yummy and for some reason they were all on sale.

 

Horror / ghost movies. I just never cared about them. At a high school sleepover my buds rented Nightmare in Elm Street, and then either fell asleep or were too scared to open their eyes. I had to hold Pelican's hand the whole time. ...Reminds me if the time Swiss Girl was excited about dissecting a crayfish in high school, and I love animals so we agreed we'd partner together and she could do all the cutting and I'd just draw. And then when it happened she felt sick to her stomach! And I had to do it. I can still remember it's wee digestive tract. ...It's annoying being unsqueamish.

Anyway, all of the sudden I'm in the mood for horror movies. I watched Resident Evil with my parents, and right now I'm watching What Lies Beneath.

 

Meditation. I've always believed it was good, but figured I just can't do it. My brain's too noisy. But it keeps popping up everywhere, so I decided to work on it this year. And then I read Mindsight and saw how much he uses it to help people integrate their minds, grow new neurons. My left brain likes to know how things work! So I've started doing it, a little bit. Just a minute or so of focusing on my breathing, before bed or when I'm nervous or upset. They say it's like exercise, you gotta try it regularly before seeing a difference. Transcendentalists believe you need to do 20 mins twice a day, for example.

 

So there's some of my New Things. Anyone else? Any thoughts? Instead of a song if the day, I leave you with a Tennyson poem. It takes place after Ulysses' return home, as he questions his retirement, and longs to get back on the sea and seek out new adventures.

 

 

Fernando Sings the Blue

I've mentioned before that Fernando and I do two frequent things with our kittehs. One, we speak for them in first person (firstcat). Second, we sing to them. Here's a sample of both, as performed by Fernando when I was writing yesterday's blog. I got as many lyrics as I quickly could.

Minion singing after being reprimanded for chasing Haley...

i gotta make you cry

so i can laugh

im a calico

so you better watch your step

out to have fun at your expense

i get my way

you better run

beause im calico

im a calico baby

and that's alright

ba dum bum bum ba ba ba bum...

Fernando's song, as he picked up Minion (who likes to bite or scratch his face, when she's in a nutty mood.)

theres a kitty

she comes from far away

she scratches my face

but i love her anyway

she's a troublemaker

trooouuublemaaaaker!

Oh yeah! Gimme some soul!

Your Unremembered Past (the kinds of memory)

I'm back in Montreal now, giving luff to the cats and settling in. Onto today's show.

 

The Dr Siegal book Mindsight has a great chapter on trauma, specifically on memory. There are apparently two kinds: implicit and explicit. Explicit memory comes when we're about one year old and the hippocampus emerges, and it's the place where you learn facts and figures, and create your biography. Implicit memory comes from birth or before, and takes the form of sensations that you record in the body, but don't remember recording. When you remember implicit memories, you experience them like they're in the present. This can mean flashbacks, or mysterious body pain, or avoiding certain things without knowing why, or numbing.

 

He gives a great example of a doctor studying a woman who didn't have any explicit memory. So every day when he came, she wouldn't remember him. One day when he came in and shook her hand, he had a pin in his hand and pricked her. The next day when he arrives, she wouldn't shake his hand.

 

He treated a woman who'd been raped during a heavy rainfall. She disassociated from the rape while it was happening, so didn't have an explicit memory of the details. But one day she was showering with her boyfriend and the sound set off the implicit memories, which is something you can't disassociate from. That is to say, the feeling of being raped. She was overcome by the feeling, and it felt like it was her boyfriend doing it to her.

Siegal works with such patients to go in and retrieve those fragmented memories, while keeping them grounded in the moment--to make implicit memories explicit. Something you're not reliving. Something you can look at, integrate with your biography to create a whole story, reflect on, and then release.

When we have an unremembered implicit memory, our brains are likely to come up rationalizations for why we feel a certain way--we think we're making logical decisions. Or decisions based on trustworthy intuition. When in reality we might be making a decision based on something negative. Like his patient who was reluctant to try new experiences because when learning to ride a bike she fell off and broke her arm.

C'est intéressant, n'est-ce pas?

 

Playlists and Music and Artsits oh my! (My favorite music so far, in 2012)

I'm on a plaaaane!

But in the meantime here's some music. I like to compile my fave songs at the end of the year, but it's hard to see what I listened to most because the songs from January will have a bigger play count than a song I bought in July, even if I listened to both of them equally.

So this year I'm setting all play counts to zero every month. But first I go through the list and pick out the songs I listened to the most, and put them into folders by month. ...I know I know... eez crazy.

January

• Orion - Elizaveta
• Fall Creek Boys Choir - James Blake and Bon Iver = SO interesting. I am becoming a Bon Iver fan.
• Do It Now - Ingrid Michaelson
• Fire - Ingrid Michaelson = I'll buy this album I'm sure... when there's a job in my life.
• You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome - Miley Cyrus
• Let It Be Me - Ray LaMontagne
• Start a War - The National
• You're the One That I Want - The Lennings = You know I love covers, and this is a great one.
• Our Hearts Are Wrong - Jessica Lea Mayfield
• Good Feeling - Flo Rida = That Flo Rida... he's so hot right now.
• Turn Me On - David Guetta with Nicki Minaj = Why does Guetta have such weird videos in re women? Best comment on youtube:

• And finally "Let's Go Crazy" as covered by the worst cover band of all time: Eaton Canyon Royal Ensemble. Wish I could find more of their work.

February & March

• Roman Holiday - Nicki Minaj = Eeeeasily my fave song these days. The album isn't even out, this is just a recording of her Grammy performance. New album in April! 
• Buffalo Stance - Neheh Cherry = I got into an 80s-90s mood in February.
• The Glamorous Life - Sheila E = Now that's how you do an award show performance!
• Starships - Nicki Minaj
• Baby Jane - Rod Stewart = What can I say, I was raised on him.
• Old Fashioned - Cee Lo Green
• Last Chance - Nicki Minaj with Natasha Bedingfield = I had to play a lot of Nicki for Philea-bird.
• Next to Me - Emeli Sandé = Just randomly discovered her.
• Cry Baby - Cee Lo = As soon as he starts the verse I diiie.
• Never Forget You - Noisettes
• Clouds Across the Moon - Rah Band = There was some weird shit in the 80s.
• All This Time - Sting = I've always loved the line: "Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one."
• Goddess of Change - Joan Armatrading = Still putting out some good music!
• Slow Down - Wyclef Jean with TI = One of my fave songs for awhile now.
• More Beautiful Than Silence - K'Naan = Only feel lukewarm about his latest EP, but this is a good song.
• The Times They Are a Changin' - Peter Paul and Mary
• Somebody That I Used to Know = by Gotye, but I also like the cover by Walk Off the Earth. The latter video is pretty cool (several people standing around playing the whole song on one guitar.)
• Just a Step Away - Carly Rae Jepsen = I don't usually buy music that I regret, but this EP wasn't as good as the samples sounded. It's poppy and likable, but not endurable. As opposed to Cee Lo's album which grew on me more over time.
• Season of the Witch - Donovan
• I'm On Fire - John Mayer
• There is a Ship - Peter Paul and Mary = I love just about any cover of this (usu. The Water is Wide)
• I'm On Fire - Tori Amos = Her covers are always interesting.
• Landslide - Tori Amos
• Take On Me - Ely Bruna = It's that one hit wonder from Aha! Well done cover.
• Ready to Make Up & All I Need - Toronto = I loved bands with female band members, when I was a teen. My brother bought me a Toronto best of LP for my birthday one year.
• On the Dark Side - "Eddie and the Cruisers" 
• Blind - Talking Heads = My brother and I loved this video, with the wrench and "BLIND BLIND BLIND BLIND BLIIIIND!"
• Criswell Predicts - Mae West = She sang some weird songs, yo.

That's it bebbies! See you when I'm able to get back to online land!
  

Being Book Manic

Well, I'm off to Montreal tomorrow. Time to see the husband, huggle the cats, and pick up some things. I haven't been saying yet that I've really really moved to Nanaimo yet. I don't think it will feel that way until either (a) this time when I return, or (b) when I get a job.

It's been a helpful month. My brain feels cleared up. 

I at least cleared up my reading list by today. 

Here are the ways I categorize books in Goodreads:

(Swiss Girl likes to joke about how much she likes making lists. I love categorizing.)

Here are my reads since arriving Feb 22, by category:

NOW READING

King Lear, and a Dalgliesh mystery (my first.)

READ

Mindsight (the book about how to change your brain)

Stigmates et BBQ - My one French author whom I like so much, and this book was a total disappointment!! I skim read the last quarter tonight.

An old Crusie.

A Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

And Mitford's The Pursuit of Love which was my fave fiction read.

GAVE UP

* Jane was another disappointment, but a cheap one.

UNFINISHED (or read parts of, for short stories)

* Love in a Cold Climate (Mitford) I put aside for now. I think I'd reached my limit of WWI - WWII literature.

* The Katie Fforde I left in Montreal cause it's so big. I'll bring it back with me.

Now that you've been updated on my mania, I should finish packing and go to bed.

   

Humpty Mabel: A Tale of Divorce

I'm finishing up Mindsight--so much to share with you guys! But I can't highlight stuff in this old kobo of mine, so I'll have to come back to the book later and find things to share.

The author (psychologist) asks each patient to tell him about their childhood, not just for content, but for clues in how they tell the story. One of the standard questions is do they remember being separated from their parents, how did that feel. So here's my separation story.

My parents divorced when I was 7 years old. We moved back to Alberta and they had shared custody. When my dad was home from being a pilot we'd stay with him, and when he was away we'd stay with our mum. (She was doing a library science degree.)

At grade 4 we moved back to Manitoba, because my dad and his girlfriend (my step-mommy) wanted to move in together, and she was a flight attendant based there. I loved my mother a ton, but Step-mommy was wonderful and I came to love her too. For New Years and in the summer my brother and I would go to stay with my mum in Alberta.

This pattern of visiting my mother continued for the rest of my childhood and teen years, though in the summer my brother and I would visit at different times. And I continued for the rest of my adult life to visit my mother during my vacations from school/work.

Somewhere in here this Horrible Feeling began. I dreaded the end of my visits with her. When the last few days came, I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach, and sometimes I'd cry at night. It was all I could do not to cry at the airport, and the flight home felt interminable. When I got home I'd be depressed for several days. I would call Swiss Girl the very first day cause I knew she'd have stories to tell me about her boyfriends and mother, and she'd want to go out, and I'd have a distraction. I would still cry sometimes at night.

I think I did pretty fine with the divorce of my parents, and they were very civil about it. But this was the worst effect--this horrible separation from my mother. All three of my parents knew about this feeling, though I may have downplayed it a bit so they wouldn't feel bad. And it's not like no good came from it, cause my mother made those visits wonderful adventures, and she gave me advice and taught me about life, and she's always been funny and entertaining. We'd talk once a month and I'd tell her EVERYthing in my friends' lives and she'd give us advice.

The only other thing comparable to this Separation Depression was when, in grade 5, my step-mother moved back to Quebec for a few months. I pined for both of my mothers. Step-mommy sent me a card for my birthday that you could turn into a mobile, and I cherished it as much as the letters from my mom. I cried many nights. I turned, as I had since I was little, to my cat Ernie and my stuffed animals for comfort. ...I had a nice babysitter, and my best friend's mother, and of course my daddio. But luckily we moved to Quebec that summer and I got La Step-mommy back.

I don't have regrets or recriminations about any of this. It's not to make my parents (who read my blog) guilty about it--I'm the sum of these experiences, and I don't dislike who I've become or where I am. Just having some Thinks. And in these Thinks I realized the following...

The dread and depression of separating from my mother stopped in my early 20s: The first year Fernando and I went out together. The desire to get home and see him was strong enough to offset the sadness of not seeing my mother. After that, I had occasional pangs, and of course I still missed her.  But I was also madly in love Fernando.

- Here's the New Thinks part - 

It's like he helped me transition out of the pain of childhood, and the pain of the divorce, to become an adult alongside my parents. I'm sure I grew some neural links that connected the ending of that pain, to Fernando. I'm sure my brain has a deeply ingrained connection between Peace and Wholeness, and Fernando. It's almost like separation caused separation in me too. Fernando glued Humpty Mabel back together again.

Hm. ...Well that explains why I'm so stuck on him.
 



Song of the Day - my Fernando song in those days.

 

Maybe she's born with it... maybe it's Fotoshop by Adobé

Have you guys seen this yet? If not, you'll love.

I went swimming today. This is shocking because...

First, I haven't swum in years. (10-15 years?) Second, I haven't exercised in a year, and have been Quite Sedentary.

But I have a new bathing suit and was determined to use the damned thing. I bought it because I promised Fernando I'd go swimming with him when I returned home. But then The Nanaimo Plan happened. So there I was with this new bathing suit... and a decision to return it or not.

I decided to keep it. There are two pool facilities in Nanaimo. The closer one has $3 swimming from 10:30 AM to noon, and the downtown one has it from 9-10 PM. I made the effort to get up early and go to the closer one.

The pool was really nice. They have a fun one for kids with slides and a fountain...
  

There's a training pool I didn't see--must be for learning to swim...

 

They have a smaller one which must be for physio therapy type stuff (there was lot of disabled parking spots outside). And I'm guessing for splashy classes*. Oh yes, there's a splashy class in the picture!



And then a big one which had 3 lanes for laps: slow, medium and fast. Yay! Cause I need a slow lane, otherwise I worry I'm holding someone up and don't enjoy myself. I was swimming with the gray hairs and the pudgy kid trying to swim the length of the pool without taking a breath.

I don't think there's too much chlorine in the water either, cause when I experimented with getting water in my eyes, it didn't sting.*

 I'm not a bad swimmer, simply because my high school had a pool. Swimming was part of the curriculum every year for 5 years (Quebec junior high and high are together, and lasts 5 years). So I can do the basic moooves. I didn't have goggles though so no crawl, but tootling about on my back and sides.

I thought I'd throw in towel after 10 minutes, but my dad was coming back for me in an hour so I thought: 30 minutes then I can sit in the hot tub. But it actually got easier as I went, and I swam for 45 minutes. So pat on the head pour moi.

When I got out my legs were so shaky I had to sit for a moment. (Chairs thoughtfully provided for wilting flowers like myself.)



No idea if I'll manage to get out and do this again. But once is better than never. I'll let you know if I'm sore tomorrow. Right now it's just the muscles under my left arm. But exercise pain is nice.
   
__________
* Ah yes, they recently upgraded to UV light treatments, so there's less chlorine.
   

Fashion : It might be good for us

We often talk about fashion like it's this thing that enslaves people--the drive to be cool, to look "in", to be accepted. And that does happen. But high fashion isn't like that--it stands out, it's outrageous, it's different. The people who wear the crazy clothes help provide a variety to society, some kitsch, some eccentricity. John Stuart Mill lamented the decline of eccentricity in his time because he believed weird people kept society vibrant, and imaginative, and innovative:

"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained."

Which is why I like to talk about fashionistas and kooky clothes. See: Gaga / more Gaga, Prince, Pointer Sisters, Jagger, Cyndi Lauper, Iris Apfel, Pretty in Pink's Molly, wigs, shoulder pads, shoes, earrings, Alexander McQueen, makeup ads,  Hartwell's 3 Laws of Fashion, and Grammy peeps, Oscars, more Oscars (with Cher!) VMAs, and Cannes.  

Today's Eccentric Dresser is Freddie Mercury. He was a shy and very private man, but an extrovert on stage (much like Prince). In public he sometimes denied being bisexual (homosexuality had only been made legal in 1960s in Britain), but on stage he really did personify a sort of Gay Outrageousosity. And tricked all the straight or conservative or anti-gay rockers into playing along.

I watched a rather sad bio of George Michael, how he really struggled with hiding his homosexuality ( though he humorously commented that one only had to watch the Wham! videos); how he struggled with depression; and how he thought he was so ugly he wouldn't look in the mirror. And watching some behind the scenes videos of the Freddie Mercury Tribute you could see him singing along, obviously a fan and very moved--which all came out in his "Somebody to Love" that blew everyone away. (I can actually remember where I was when I first heard it on the radio.) Freddie's stage persona must have given some young men the courage to wear their tight pants and open-chested shirts in public and Be Themselves.

So of course Song of the Day must be from Queen (the Freddie photos follow). I'm choosing "Under Pressure" cause I think it's how a lot of my buddies in the United States are feeling these days:

 

     

"Somebody to Love"

   

Expected + Unexpected

 

What I find as a writer is that I celebrate the little things that happen between the big events. ...It’s the big shit that you can do without. It’s the tiny stuff, like the way humans are when they think they aren’t being watched or when they’re at rest, that’s really fascinating. Hawksley Workman

_________________________

My dad was listening to an interview about music and the brain and apparently one of the things that makes music pleasurable is a combination of the expected and the unexpected. We've been thinking about this in relation to all the arts and have decided: 'Tis true. You're going along with a song, or movie, or book and you think you know what's going to happen next and them: Zing!

It's Canadian Music Week so I thought I'd share one of my favorite artists who demonstrates this principle. His songs never quite go the way I expect them to, so they're interesting to listen to over and over. He's also a fantastic lyricist--comes up with great images, a mixture of bombastic and silly.

_________________________

 

I’m very inclined to want to celebrate things that are wonderful; to me it’s exciting. The guy who poured my basement is so passionate about pouring basements. We would talk about all of the required things in a great basement and he had equipment that he had shipped in from the U.S. It shot lasers and made the slope towards the drain just perfect. And to me, people who love and are passionate, it makes me excited. Hawksley Workman

_________________________

You needn't sample them all. But I know some writers have trouble finding Soundtrack Music, so I put a little description of each song. If you'd rather just play them in the background as you internetize, I put them on a playlist:

_________________________ 

Piano Blink My favorite song, about the end of a relationship. 

Some things don't softly go
But it's over now
(Somebody gonna hurt somebody)
It's over now
(Somebody gonna hurt somebody)

You, Me and the Weather Another melodramatic love song. And a good example of the unexpected, when he reaches up into his falsetto, and the way he keeps cranking up the key.

Hey Hey Hey (My Little Beauties) A sweet little philosophical song. I like the child-like kerplunk of it, and the final line: "Hopeless isn't true."

One certainty of living

Is that you're gonna die

So why not stand in awe of it

Instead of asking why

Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off Workman's rah-ther obsessed with sex and death.

so let me say that you look lovely in all of this
and let me say that the death that i fear
could in part be a fear that I'd lose you, your just as i found you

Jealous of Your Cigarette On the rock side... he's jealous of her cigarette, cause she wants to suck on it, and not him. Did I mention the other thing I love in a songwriter is humor?

Mind itself is magic

I'm reading a book called Mindsight by Dr Siegel which is about the power of the brain to grow underdeveloped bits, to integrate the parts that aren't well integrated, to repair damage. I'm only partway through, but it's done through meditation, journaling, linguistic exercises and such. The beginning of the book is a description of brain science, and then he goes chapter by chapter with a case study and how this person was helped.

The second case study is about a 90 something old man who'd always been fairly disconnected from his feelings (and other people), but had recently become even more so. The doctor practiced right brain exercises with him so he could get in better touch with his body and emotions and how to express them. The next time the doctor heard from the wife, a year later, he was a changed man.

Apparently the reason why the right brain picks up on body sensation better (which is where emotion begins) is that it's the bit that receives the body's cues. It's the bit that develops first as well, so we start as right brained bebbies.

He gives a nice brief summary of the differences:

This must be why when Dr Bolte-Taylor had a stroke that affected her left side, her right side took over and made everything feel whole--she had trouble distinguishing between her hand and her desk, cause the right brain is more holistic, more physical. And as the right side doesn't use language but uses physical cues, like a baby, she could still feel when a visiting doctor was treating her disrespectfully, as opposed to when someone came in who was respectful or caring. She was hyper-aware of nonverbal language. And though her left brain didn't recognize her mother when she arrived, her right brain did a happy dance when this being came in, climbed into the hospital bed with her, and held her.

Anyway, I really liked this bit next:

It seems like the right side is what allows us to accept contradictions and not try to solve them all--to allow for mystery. For example, when someone says to me "there are no coincidences" the left brain science oriented side of my brain is skeptical; but the right side of my brain says "It's okay to not understand everything... we can accept an impersonal universe AND a magical one."
    

Song of the Day: God is Alive, Magic is Afoot 

sung by Buffy Ste Marie (written by Leonard Cohen)

O Protagonist, why should I love thee?

Recently my dad and I were musing about why you can look forward to a new TV show but it just doesn't grab you from the start, and agreed that one problem is when you don't care about the protagonist right away. But what makes you care?

In the first episode of The West Wing we're introduced to characters (the White House staff) who are witty and passionate, likable, but two of them have also just gotten themselves in trouble: One finds out the woman he just slept with is a call girl, another is in trouble for a gaffe he made on TV, and the President has just crashed his bike into a tree. They're not intimidating or worldly--they're imperfect and therefore likable.

I recently started Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Match Me If You Can and liked the character immediately because she walked out of the house to go to The Most Important Interview of Her Life only to find a bum passed out under her car. The details of the slow ruination of her carefully put together First Impression Outfit, as she races towards the interview on a hot summer's day, immediately made me sympathetic.


The first scene of Jane (the Jane Eyre update) is similar--a protagonist at a job interview which she desperately needs. She actually needs it more than the Phillips' character does, and we're told she's desperate, and we're told why. But I guess I didn't feel the desperation, didn't see it acted out as in the Phillips' book. And she gets the first job she tries for, no struggle, no obstacles. I got a quarter into the book without seeing an obstacle.

Not trying to pick on first time novelist Lindner, just having some Thinks.

On topic song of le day: This is one of my favorite opening lines to a song --> "High school she was that girl that made me do the hula hoop around the gym--just to get a peek again, she's a ten!" It's a song about the sex trade, but poignantly starts with this sweet image of the cute high school girl, and the boy with the crush.

Acoustic version


Original version

Internets can be yoga for teh brain

I've written before about how the internet is a great place for finding people with the same opinions, or problems, as you. I come across some posting about a person's struggles, and there's 80 comments saying "I thought I was the only one feeling this way!" It always reminds me of the Police lyric: "Seems I'm not alone at being alone."

But the internet is also a Great Distraction when the day is bad and the brain is in turmoil.

You can pick a topic like Jim Jones or the theory of relativity and just lose yourself in link after link after link. Here's the three stories that most distracted me today:

* Kony 2012 - My dad mentioned it a couple times, but I didn't read a thing on it til today. It's a movement to encourage the US govt to stay in Uganda, to help their government catch the leader of the Lords Resistance Army--famous for using child soldiers. There are so many things wrong with this bunch, I won't enumerate them here--Uganda's PM has criticized them, as has former child soldier Ishmael Beah. If you haven't read the criticisms you could start here or here.

 * Trayvon Martin - The young man who went to the corner store for Skittles and iced tea, and was shot to death by an overzealous-and-stupid-and-armed?!! neighborhood watch guy. And the decision by Florida's police to accept the killer's word that it was in self-defense even though there's massive evidence to the contrary. They barely even investigated. Outrageous.

* Ashley Treatments - Choosing to medically stop the growth of a child who is severely brain damaged (Eg. six month old mind that will never progress). The idea is that once such a child gets to adult size, they usually have to be institutionalized because they're too big (and dangerous) to care for at home. By keeping the person at a child's size, they can remain with their parents.

So that occupied my brain. Does anyone else do this? Spend hours obsessing over random topics or news items?

  
  

Jane Eyre starring Rick Springfield!

I've never met a Jane Eyre movie I liked, so what made me think I'd enjoy a book modernization? In the original novel Jane's a strong character, but this Jane is a wilting flower. And though the author has given her a terrible past, it hasn't made me sympathize with her.

Also, Mr Rochester is a rock star, and I can't stop picturing him as Rick Springfield in Hard to Hold.

Well I only paid 50 cents for it. Time to read the end and move on to the PD James I started.

In other more important news, how come no one told me they did a Prince medley on The Voice? Both my mother and father watch this show, yet neither informed me. ?! Not sure how I feel about "Kiss" as honkeytonk though.


So here's the Big Question: Do you finish a book even if you don't like it? I stopped doing that at least 5 years ago. Once your To Be Read pile gets into the 100s, you just can't waste time on meh.

PS - I see from her acknowledgements that Rochester is probably supposed to be sort of Springsteen. I tried to picture him too, but always came back to Rick.

PSS - There are many 4 star reviews of this book on Goodreads, it's by no means A Bad Book. Just not for moi.
   

Stories, stories everywhere and not a drop to write...

I think most people, not just writers, see Stories wherever they go. Though I think I see characters more than stories, and usually from pop culture.

For example, I was just watching a bunch of Cee-Lo videos, and the Cee-Lo in this video would make an excellent detective. Or the hero of my next romance novel.

And every time Prince does something batshit crazy I think: You can't write this stuff! His latest: He's not letting The Time perform under that name anymore, because he owns it. They've renamed themselves The Original 7ven.

Of course, I've also always wanted to write a romance with Morris Day as the hero. "Why don't you stay awhile? See how it's done!"

Lately Prince has been making comments about how people don't know that HE wrote songs like "Nothing Compares 2 U." He's being all pissy about any song that's ever been recorded by another band. What a hi-lar-ious dude. So needs to be a side character.

   
So how do these "would make a great story/character" flashes present themselves to you?