yesterday and some of today
yesterday: I was able to take my extra parcel on the plane without incurring an additional fee by playing some combination of dumb, cute, and cooperative. Except for the screaming baby, the plane ride was pretty unexceptional. I finished reading "Seymour, an Introduction" at the airport and watched The Royal Tennenbaums on the plane. So, a big melancholy day of travel with a little running between gates in Minneapolis.
I still haven't been able to bring myself to start Harry Potter. I don't know why I find a children's book imposing. But now I have the winter fiction issue of the New Yorker, which feels like a higher priority.
Today, I had lunch with my mom and grandma at our favorite Americanized Chinese restaurant, Joy Fong. Even though we only go there a couple of times a year, the the woman who owns (?) the restaurant always remembers us. She calls my grandma "grandma." As in "oh, grandma had to leave early? where's your sister?"
My sister is on her way home, so I will stop using the phone line for slow internet access now.
I still haven't been able to bring myself to start Harry Potter. I don't know why I find a children's book imposing. But now I have the winter fiction issue of the New Yorker, which feels like a higher priority.
Today, I had lunch with my mom and grandma at our favorite Americanized Chinese restaurant, Joy Fong. Even though we only go there a couple of times a year, the the woman who owns (?) the restaurant always remembers us. She calls my grandma "grandma." As in "oh, grandma had to leave early? where's your sister?"
My sister is on her way home, so I will stop using the phone line for slow internet access now.
it is snowing in my midwest
it is so excellent and sad. You might consider renting one of those inflight dvd players at the airport. They're pretty cheap.
What did you think, I'm interested. Some people think it's his most indulgent work.
Seymour.
As stupid as this sounds, I read the story over a few weeks. I'd read a little bit on the bus and stop and forget about it, and then start again, etc.
I feel like it might need editing, but I also think that might have been the point of it.
Re: Seymour.
The letters in the middle are really excellent. Here's where I ask you if you've read "Zooey" because that story contains a really excellent letter from Buddy to Zooey. I think that a lot of J.D. Salinger's work is incredibly indulgent, and I especially think that "Seymour, an Introduction" is. But I still love it. His writing makes me feel a certain way, I can't even begin to describe it. It makes me feel comfortable, it makes me feel young, it makes me feel like everything in the world will be okay. I feel myself growing away from that and from Holden Caulfield and it bothers me. A little bit. I think I actually try not to cast too critical an eye on Salinger, because it feels like those stories, "Franny" and "Zooey" and "Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters" and "Seymour" especially are part of me.
I can remember staying up late reading them in my room at my parents's house.
I'm done rambling now.