Pity Party

[mallorys_camera]

I’m reading a lot because I’m very blue.

Last night I started Margaret Drabble’s The Peppered Moth, a fictionalized biography of Drabble’s mother who is also A.S. Byatt’s mother because the two writers are – rather famously – literary rivals, the Olivia de Haviland/Joan Fontaine of Great Literature (with a trilled R.) Of the two, I much prefer Drabble. I read Possession when it first came out and hated it, found it ice-bound and derivative, John Fowles-ian with all Fowles’ pompousness and none of his humor. Drabble is a stylist too but a cozy stylist. Closest American analog would be Anne Tyler.

I’m blue because I’m discouraged and exhausted, too exhausted to buoy myself up right now. Maybe the universe will send me a message in a bottle: I think you’re great… Though of course belief in omens or signs or cosmic messages in bottles is a sure indication that one is becoming unhinged. I really need some sort of outside validation though. Fan mail from a stranger. An unusual traveling suggestion – Vonnegut’s preemptive “dancing lesson from God” – from an old friend. The Red Sea parting, the clouds swirling together spontaneously to spell out P-A-T-R-I… A telegram from God.

Something to make me believe I’m not invisible, interchangeable, expendable.

Yes, yes, I’m feeling sorry for myself. Yes, yes, the people in [your oppressed and/or beseiged culture goes here] have it a whole lot worse.

Comments

[dinahprincedaly.livejournal.com]

REALLY blue people don't even read... just blue enough, your mind and heart are cracked open enough to take a book in and travel with it... artists are a little cracked open all the time... you are clearly an artist and a thinker and your LJ is so often really hilarious with searing honesty... and you also seem like a really great mom raising thinkers, questioners--and they are guys, thats gotta be a challenge and funny guys at that

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That means a lot.

[fireflylive.livejournal.com]

I think you're fabulous even if today you're not sure of that. ::HUG::

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[lethe1]

Perhaps people around give you the impression you're invisible, but you're certainly not interchangeable and expendable.

Reading suggestion: Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark. It may cheer you up a bit. It certainly has your type of wicked humour.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I'll check it out. And thanks.