Hamster running the wheel

I have to admit I am mighty comfortable in this new, but temporary job... in an office. The environment I've dreaded and everyone is nice, intelligent, hardworking, and they treat their employees well! I have a month left of school, two months of DUI class, and then start summer school in the midst of that- work three jobs that are equivalent to working full time, but nothing more. I miss making things, riding bicycles.. - okay mostly those two things that I somehow picked up because I didn't have so much to do. I still have read to keep some sanity, but as my friend said "You have been reading a lot of violent books lately." I think when anything is referred to L'Stranger and existentialism, the only way they can express that is through violence... so I think that it just happened to be a common theme. Have I ever added that The Stranger is a favorite and really made me interested in reading again.


This book I am reading now, and he is apparently what is to Spain as Celine is to France. I still can't sense the maddening aspect of it halfway through, but we'll see. It's very good so far.. its tragic, but in a dark humorous way. I guess I'm a little desensitized after reading...

This was apparently Camus influence for the Stranger, and it has to be one of the most entertaining and intelligent things I've read. I am not a huge mystery reader, but this is fantastic..

A second part! I loved Books, but this was so so. I read halfway through the short memoir and I wasn't fancied by it. It is more about his career and his famous friends are interesting- Kesey, Sontag, blah blah.. I guess I get turned off by name droppers, even though its unintentional for the most part.. (i.e. Patti Smith).

3 lbs heavier

Yikes. Out of shape, yes.



I loved his short stories and I can see how this story is a bit of an extension of his bitterness, ramblings against nuclear families, the dirt between fingernails, and the mundane tendencies of picture perfect marriages. Frank and April Wheeler are from parents who never wanted to have kids, and the Wheelers seem to try to define their lives by their marriage, home on revolutionary road, steady income, and family - even though their minds are in denial that what they believe and how they chose to live will change and be nothing like the conservative neighbors around them. The affairs with Mareen Grube, happy hour with the Campbells, and the only strike of truth from Mrs. Givings insane son John are still refreshing and simple. Yea, but this story ended too predictably. I can see how the story in the time it was written (60's) was a kick in the head for the American Dream scheme, and it still works. I think if I still lived with my parents in suburbia and was going to school to work in a cube for a corporation, I would say "hell yea", this is what should happen to those white picket fence families, but I vowed to never fall into that lifestyle...so ho hum.


Reading this now.. and its refreshing. weeeeeee