Caturday

I spent some time unpacking today. We then took a walk down the Sammamish River Trail and ate lunch at an amazing curry place. I found a wig for my Halloween costume, but I still haven't found a bed.

One friend named Jess is beginning to take some unpleasant forward-bound steps in her life, and I wish her the best in that. Another friend named Jess spent some time talking to me about relationships, threesomes, and the importance of H- in organic chemistry.

Stef makes amazing brownies. I ate one tonight while drinking a Maudite and watching Hot Fuzz, which while very enjoyable, isn't quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, though people probably need to appreciate them both together and separately, much as you would understand the difference between your left fist and your right.

I want to turn in, but I'm a little hesitant to resume reading House of Leaves. As I flew to Connecticut a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to whip out a highlighter and trace over a line, a footnote, sometimes an entire page just muttering to myself "Yes, yes. I need to blog this. This line totally explains the breakup." By page 49 I was sold, and the elegant composition of poetry from the chapter devoted to echoes was like a soothing balm granted from a wisened sage:

"Chi dara fine al gran dolore? (Who will put an end to this great sadness?)
L'ore. (The hours passing)"

That was then. Now it hurts. Karen and Wax's stolen kiss just before Exploration #4 cut into me like a knife. I think the story has, at the ripe old age of Chapter XV, made me more than a little gunshy. I'm sure Danielewski has a fantastic story that he's in the middle of telling, but I'm kind of in the middle of wishing I were dead, so it doesn't help that he's devoting a portion of his work into performing a postmortem of Navidson's long-term relationship and how distant he has grown from the woman he loves. Part of me, obviously, is transposing someone else onto Karen, and I don't like what I'm seeing. I cannot see this story from an outside vantage point. I am putting a great amount of significance into it that shouldn't be there, or at the very least I wish it wouldn't fit there, but it does. Navidson's story is quite different from my own, but we both fall into the sad state of "busted up relationship leaves us ruined shells of men". I have to say I don't care for it.

Of course I'll go back to it. I am the person who picks at every scab and who pokes his tongue against every sore tooth. I am the person who will probably become so completely laden with anguish that my only solace will be to strip off my clothing and run into the night naked and screaming in tongues.