Reality is painful

I did something this last week I haven’t done in a while. I huddled up with a good book until I finished it. I am mostly a nighttime reader, devoting at least an hour to the book of the moment. It has been a long time since I decided to put my feet up and read during the day. There have been times in my life when I have spent entire weekends this way. I have plowed through books in a weekend and I remember these times fondly...most often during a rainy weekend in my flat in San Francisco.

You may ask what book or circumstance inspired me.

The circumstance of feeling a little off, restless, unsettled due to a situation that is going to take time and patience to resolve and even though I know this, it leaves me a bit frustrated on a deep emotional level. The good news is I have been sought out by a very close friend of mine who I lost contact with when we both moved out of San Francisco. She is in a similar predicament and I trust her implicitly and we have talked and I am so happy someone else gets where I am at.

The book is one I would not have thought would grab my interest to the extent that I felt compelled to google several real life examples of the fiction presented in order to learn more about the real life events that inspired the subject of the book. Jody Picoult: Nineteen Minutes. Who doesn’t remember the horror of Columbine orRocori or Virginia Tech or any other news about the latest teenager to open fire at a school, mowing down classmates and teachers with reckless disregard. The day after I started this book there was a shooting in Cleveland. Who doesn’t wonder what kind of mental pathology or psychology is in play for a person who would do something so violent, so permanent, so unbelievable. Like 9/11, it is a form of terror that I simply cannot wrap my mind around.

I had read “Vanishing Acts” a while ago and found Picoult to write with a realism that got me thinking. She has a gift for character development and weaving a story around several different points of view. I have shied away from her up until last year thinking she was just another popular fiction writer, prolific in her ability to crank out books but perhaps not all that interesting. I stand corrected. Here's a quote from her website:
“I think that sometimes when we don’t want to talk about issues that are hard to discuss or difficult to face, it’s easier to digest it in fiction instead of nonfiction.”

Meanwhile, there has been no hiking for 3 weeks and after the second week I found myself a bit more cranky than usual. Seems those hikes aren’t only working the physical but the mental as well. Sunday SP and I did four miles on the Tahoe Rim Trail. It was beautiful and high up there and at one point you can see Lake Tahoe to the West and The Carson Valley to the East. I was thrilled to be tramping through the trees once again. Surprising even myself.

In other news, I had a garage sale. My first. On a gorgeous Saturday last weekend, my hiking partner and I put out our wares and hoped to make a little cash. Turns out we should have gone hiking. Not terribly successful for me. The upshot is while preping for the garage sale I actually cleaned my garage and it is looking spiffy. It was a learning experience: sign placement, listings, newspaper ads. What to do to be successful. We dropped the ball on the newspaper ad and I think that was a mistake. We did however, have a gentlemen show up who had us on his list from Craig’s List...so there ya go. That worked. SP wants to try it again. I am waffling. I may just continue on with my donating stuff for a tax write off and continue being the thrift store/bargain hunter that I am rather than hosting the bargain hunting.

The deck is newly painted and is looking spiffy. Great sense of accomplishment there.
Perhaps I'll get some pictures up this week.