baggage's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Irving, Long Drives and far away Friends I'm driving a lot these days. I mean, well, I drove a lot before-but now I'm driving even more-probably about 200 miles a day. And no, that distance is not an exaggeration. God-I wish it was, but, unfortunately, this is one situation where reality has more than one up on hyperbole. But, you know , I really can't complain (although I kind of am aren't I?). These every other day drives into the heart of traffic congestion to see a doctor about my little hand problem seems to be helping-surely recovery can't be very far away (a loose calculation via my odometer tells me I'll be fine by 192,000 miles. But, it still is a kink in my neck. Even though I can rationalize that there are people out there with much worse ailments (some that aren't treatable, some whose treatments are beyond their financial reach)-even though I have those hard facts running through my head every day, I still get that familiar pang of self-loathing and pitying whenever I see brake lights in front of me; whenever I look at the clock on my dash and realize that it's 2 p.m. and I've spent 90 percent of my waking hours in the car. But, drowning in a shallow pool of self-pity has always been my specialty. And maybe it's time I moved on to other attributes of my personality. _________________________________________________________________________ I miss him. J is back in Georgia-his last few weekends in California taken up by visiting family. The last time I saw him was at Club Lush. We were ready to head home and made plans to get together for a farewell jam the following weekend. It never happened. I was too busy driving. He was too busy visiting other pieces of his jigsaw puzzle life. And, well, he left without even saying goodbye. Imagine that. Too busy to say farewell. I'm not angry. Just a tad sad-simply because I'm a jealous friend who still hasn't quite gotten used to the transitory nature of the people I share my life with. _________________________________________________________________________ And so there are books. And like I mentioned before, I love books-and often turn to their quiet companionship when all else fails. But, now, after some thought, I feel slightly disappointed by my latest read as well. Irving's newest, The Fourth Hand, is a lot shorter than his other works-the seminal Prayer For Owen Meany or Widow For A Year for example. The Fourth Hand seems, in comparison, to be more of a novelette than a novel. Sure-it has all the classic Irving elements that endear him to my feeble mind-but it's a quick read-and, well, unsatisfying. Like a lover who won't take their time. And you know why? It's because shorter books make better screenplays. At least that's what my other friend J told me he read in an Irving interview. And so Irving simply compromised the richness of his literature for the sake of film? Cut himself and his readers short so the transition from pages to screen is easier? Unbelievable. Disappointing. I prefer books to film. Any day of the week. I supposed I always thought Irving would too. _________________________________________________________________________ One more thing before I start my trek today. Thanks so much to all of YOU (you know who you are) who were kind enough to reach out. I love Diaryland, and would never leave. Sometimes, between the drives, my job, my mom and the music, I run out of things to say (oh yes-miracles do happen). Updates are not as often as I'd prefer, but as my hands get better (therefore making the drive shorter), so will the frequency of entries. Life is too short not to write. 7:55 a.m. - 2001-08-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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