Little Things

2004-08-13 - 9:05 a.m.

I was saved today by two kindly co-workers from a depressing or stressful day. Just a few nice words and I feel better. It really is the little things. I'll be an 88 year old man on my deathbed (not because of cancer or osteoperosis - I have a test that says so - ...I expect to die under an avalanche of books, although being hit by a meteor at the ripe old age of 92 is suddenly appealing for some reason) muttering "It's the little things! It's the little things!"

Kids in the Hall saved me last night, too, by having a sketch that was uproariously funny. I'll post the quote that had me laughing the most when I get home tonight.

And last night, lying in bed, I realised that the story of the man with the black hole in his apartment had gone wrong: the bar was the last place he would go! He'd go to a library! And now everything is falling into place and the damn pacing (which is what was causing the problems) is finally working right.

I'm not happy necessarily, but I'm feeling confident in my personhood, if that makes any sense. I'm capable, and everything will be alright for me, and if it isn't there will always be the little things to save me.

Oh, also, I finished reading Two Cheers last night. I'm setting it aside, but I'll be picking it up again. The essays inside it, particularly about war and oppression and confusing times, stir me to thought and I think I might like to write a scholarly-ish essay on one of them, maybe, one day.

I've now read three Forster short stories, all of them from relatively early in his writing career, possibly when he was around the same age as I am now. I don't think he enjoyed writing short stories at the time. I think he prefered the novel, though I have no evidence beyond my own feelings reading his stories. I feel like he was doing what I'm doing with my short stories...exploring, writing for the sake of writing, flushing out ideas that are too small to be novels but too persistant to ignore. Forster stopped writing novels long before he stopped writing, though, so he may have changed his mind on short stories. I hope so. His work is great, but I expect it gets even better once he feels he's in his element.

It's easy to pretend that Forster is a sentamentalist when you aren't actually reading him: his books are filled with quiet landscapes, dreamy characters, country settings. But the thing is, when you're reading him he suddenly becomes epic. He sweeps you up in his enthusiasm for his ideas. When reading him you get moments of "Yes! That's it exactly! That's what life means! That's how you do it!"

He's a powerful writer, and could be overbearing if he didn't care as much as he does or in the way that he does.

Cheers,

The Magus

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