Dreams, Whales, Books

I’ve been rather itinerant for the last week or so… did some visiting, some birthday celebrating, and so much reading that you’d think I’d be reading in my dreams. Instead, I had a dream that Shah Rukh Khan raided my suitcase, stole my pants, wore them in a rainstorm and ruined them. This is nearly as random as the dream I had once that Eminem was my boyfriend: when he came to visit, my father chased him around the house in a rage. Or the dream I had last night that I found a pair of glasses, needed to know whose they were, and hired a private investigator to find out. The role of the private investigator was played by Matt Damon. This is usually the situation when actors appear in my dreams — the actors appear not as themselves but playing the role of someone else. Not the case with Shah Rukh. He was himself when he stole my pants. The nerve!

Anyway. Itinerant. I went on a whale watch, with 7 Seas Whale Watch in Gloucester, Massachusetts. (The link automatically plays a video.) The sea was unusually still — so still that we saw sharks more than once — and so quiet, nothing but the sound of the whales breathing, slapping the water, appearing and disappearing. It’s hard to believe, when the whales show themselves, how big, slow, and majestic they are; you think you’re prepared for it, but you’re not. They brought tears to my eyes. We have an enormous responsibility to them and we’re not doing a very good job.

If you ever have the opportunity, do a whale watch. You will not be sorry.

Now, about all that reading… I need a clone. Can I have a clone who’s wired in to my own brain? I’ve got about fifteen Must Read Now books piled up on my bedside table, then a shelf of Must Read Next fiction on the bookshelf outside my bedroom and a shelf of Must Read Next nonfiction just below it, but really what I need is to be reading all of it simultaneously. I’m adding about five books a day to my hold list at the library, I’m buying books I’ve already read because I need to reread them immediately and can’t bear to give them back to the library, and then there’s my e-reader, which is full of manuscripts, mostly mine, and research I’ve compiled into Word docs, and nonfiction books, and other stuff there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to get to. This is a wonderful, intoxicating problem to have, but I don’t really know how to manage it. All of this reading is in service of the next book I’m writing. I would like a clone, please. I will call her Cora, or maybe Beverly. Daphne? Could I get three clones?

In the midst of all the reading, I’m also reading one thing just for fun, Edith Wharton’s The Glimpses of the Moon, because I adore Edith Wharton, though I have several friends who don’t like her at ALL, which I completely understand, though please note that my understanding does not alter the fact that my friends are in error.

*thbbbbtttttttt*

LA LA LA

Yours with inexplicable hyperactivity,

Kristin