mallorys_camera | Worry & Distraction

Life continues to feel very flat, and I continue to have no interest in it at all.

Except that I find myself worrying about stuff that I (more than likely) don’t need to be worrying about.

A good case could be made that there’s no need ever to worry about anything since “worry” is not productive in the slightest. I mean—how does it advance one’s personal agenda to be filled with adrenalin?

It doesn’t.

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Next week, I’m doing a road trip.

Even if this “without weather” internal state drags on till then, the road should snap me out of it.

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I’m pushing myself to do the stuff ya gotta do so that when I snap out of this, there isn’t a big mess to clean up.

I’m continuing to churn out Work.

I went tromping. The Walkway route down into Highland Village and back: a quantifiable five miles. It was grey and chilly, which is good for tromping.

Afterwards, I decided I wanted one of those enormous “Cuban” sandwiches from Rossi’s alimentari (Cuban in quotes because no sandwich could be more Italian), so drove out to the Potemkin village of Eastdale to order one and also an enormous tub of tiramisu.

And it was release date for J.K. Rowling’s latest Cormoran Strike novel, so I bought that and read 300 pages last night. (It is 1,000 pages long!)

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I don’t like the Harry Potter novels at all. (I read a couple aloud to RTT.) While Rowling has an awesomely immersive imagination, the Harry Potter books are pretty pedestrian style-wise.

But Rowling has improved style-wise as the years have gone by. Reviewers keep pointing out that the Cormoran Strike books desperately need an editor. And while that is true—Chekhov's Gun is one of the most important principles in good writing: It’s how you distinguish the really, really good writers from the almost rans—the fact that Rowling throws in all kinds of details that have little or no relevance to the plot actually makes these books more immersive.

So, you know. Perfect if you’re craving distraction.