which way is up or which way down

[fahye]

I am in the medical school computer lab, where I expect I will remain for the next five hours or so.

I have to write a four-page summary paper on ADHD and a five-minute oral on lifestyle factors affecting fertility in Western women, research regulation of lactose intake in bacteria and start looking up statistics on schizophrenia in Australia.






Surely someone, somewhere, wants to comment-chat and distract me.

Comments

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Well, isn't it a good thing you're not going to the Rhode Island School of Design? Imagine the school jumpers you'd have to wear.

Something beautiful. I do not know that I have anything on hand, although I believe I owe you a Starbuck/Boomer ficlet from a while back. I could give that a shot.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

Their hockey team is called the Nads. O, la.

It was not a request :O but if you feel like it, by all means! I am trying to ferret the good/useful litcrit out of the bad re: Portrait. (I relieved the Berkeley Public Library of most of their Joycean material yesterday. However, most of it is useless to me because I am not Ulysses-literate.)

[fahye.livejournal.com]

So at games, the cheer goes...right. Okay. Bright idea THAT was.

I need to resort to some self-disciplining measure like twanging an elastic band around my wrist to stop myself from buying or borrowing any more books. I got a book of philosophical essays on psychology by Derrett out the other day, but I still have to finish Quicksilver and Year of Wonders and the DT books and, you know, EVERYTHING.

If I could freeze time, I would read the contents of my bookshelf.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

Derrett?

I had a friend who tried to stop swearing by twanging an elastic band around her wrist, but the pain of it always made her swear and the experiment failed.

In the great tradition of copying you, I am thinking of compiling a brief list of things which people are unlikely to know about me, but it is difficult and I'M NOT ONLINE. REALLY. I'M WORKING. Really.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Oh, you know, the dude. DENNET. What. I swear I typed that the first time.

*fails*

Yes, yes. Work. Sure. Absolutely.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

OOOH, OK. That's what I thought! YAY. You will understand him better than me. I have not the science.

I am not working. I am trying to figure out if I can fit JOYCE CLASSES in next year. There is nothing I should like so much as to have my hand held patiently through Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.

Q: Why do very smart men such as James Joyce adore retarded really stupid, "naive" or "innocent" women?

[fahye.livejournal.com]

A: I know not, unless it is an academic interest due to the rare nature of such a specimen in today's world, comme lepidoptery.

AMORY LOVES YOU.

*delusions on your behalf*

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

OMG OMG I AM TOTALLY MAKING CALEB READ THIS SIDE OF PARADISE AND HE IS DOING IT LIKE A GOOD BOY. HAVE I TOLD YOU THAT I DESIRE AMORY/TOM THE POET SLASH. BECAUSE I DO. THAT BOOK IS EXTRAORDINARILY SOOTHING TO ME, LIKE A HOT BATH.

IT WILL BE ONE OF THE BOOKS I TAKE TO COLLEGE. WHAT? MAKING A LIST ALREADY? ME? NO . . . ok, I am.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

HOW MANY ARE YOU ALLOWING YOURSELF?

I could not do it. Every time I have to transport some of my books to my parents' I die a little inside, and that is only five minutes away.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

I do not know. :( I am reducing it to authors at present, and I think, if I allow myself only 1-2 books/author I will be OK. Right? RIGHT? *weeps* The authors are (so far):

Robert Dessaix
F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Gardner
Eugène Ionesco
James Joyce
Hilary Mantel
Terry Pratchett (possibly)

For a maximum of 14 books. Hmm. BUT, BUT I CANNOT HAVE ONLY 2 IONESCOS. I WOULD DIE.

Authors whose work is difficult to find at a pinch (like Ionesco or Mantel) take precedence over authors like Fitzgerald or Joyce, also. So there's some wiggling . . .

Call it a 15-book limit?

[fahye.livejournal.com]

You are a far stronger soul than I. Though it's an interesting exercise. Seven. Hmm.

Neil Gaiman
Terry Pratchett
Julian Barnes
Tom Robbins
Robert Dessaix
Stephen King
Shakespeare

I think. I am likely forgetting someone that I would die before surrendering the works of.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

It seems strange that we have only a 1.5 overlap!

[fahye.livejournal.com]

These are the ones that always make me want to write when I read them. And I need to have those types of books around me at all times.

If I could go for three more books on their own, I would nab Art & Lies, R+G Are Dead, and Fight Club. For the same reason.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

That is good reasoning.

Let's see. I nabbed mine on the grounds that I have read can read them endlessly and (except for Dessaix, perhaps?) that they are all stylistic influences of mine. Even Gardner, in a more convoluted way.