So ... stuff

First of all, sorry for my short, pissy post yesterday. It's just ... I hate Wednesdays. With a passion. We're understaffed and have more customers than they expect and you're lucky to get a break ... I thought, with England playing, it'd be better. In the afternoon at least. But no, it meant everyone got complacent and we had no one in when the crowds came. I didn't even stop when the game was on, all I saw was the instant replay of the goal, because I was having a drink when someone started yelling from our staffroom. And I know I can't quit Wednesday's because they'll be even worse that way.

But still. I've had krispy kremes, I feel better. And, mock the week has started again and I love mock the week. Russell Howard is strangely fit.

So anyway, The Bridesmaid pact.

I think my first problem was, I saved this kind of book for after Our tragic universe, thinking that would be strenuous and I'd need to chill out. But it wasn't so much, more disatisfying, so I didn't need the chill out book. I needed the actual challenge.

So everything was predictable. And not just for chick-lit. Not just because I knew pretty early on what each character's issue was. Oh no, Julia Williams went further. She has 4 protagonists. 2 have met their soulmates and married them. 2 of them have met their soulmates and screwed it up for 15 years. 2 of them have babies. 2 don't. They're all from an Irish Catholic family, except one, who was American and Catholic. Each of them moans about their own problems, but then feels bad about how crap life is for the other (tiiiiired reading!) and then the ending was twee. One who'd had an abortion and thought she'd lost her baby still had a baby. One was reunited with her father, no problems, when he left before her birth. The one who was ill went off to find this Suicide unit in Switzerland just to have a change of heart on the flipping plane and the other one left her cheating husband and moved in with his brother, no problems really thought out.

Blah.

I'm having an early night now ... watching mock the week then off to sleep. I've got a driving lesson at 8, I start work at 9, then I'm outskies with the boy's godparents tonight. Oh and meeting some friends in London Saturday. And covering someone's shift before going out for someone's leaving do Sunday. And probably no lay in Monday to recover either, lol.

Inspiration #2

I need to feel better.

Jake Gyllenhaal makes me feel better.

I'm going to talk about Jake Gyllenhaal.

He's my favourite actor. Ever.

Once, in high school, someone asked me which actor I thought was most attractive, and all my favourite actors then were comedic actors and they ent pretty. I couldn't answer, because I didn't really look at actors like it.

Until Jake.

The first film I saw of his was Donnie Darko. We were analysing shows at uni, there was a theme but I can't remember. Someone did Requiem Of A Dream. We did an episode of Wire In The Blood which involved Barbies in bondage? Sign of what this serial killer had done to his victims. Anyway, someone else picked the cinema scene in Donnie Darko, where he learns about time travel from Frank?

It freaked me out, but the time travel aspect intrigued me, even if Frank's eye was disgusting. First pschological thriller I ever bought (I hate horrors. They don't scare me, but they wind me up. I don't like the way my nerves are on edge from the music or something). It was so good. Kind of like reading a Scarlett Thomas, where you sit back and go 'what?' and then watch again to understand. And again and again and get the directors cut and a book analysing the film.

I can't remember the next Jake film I saw. But as I watched his films, I noticed something about him. About the way he picks scripts. We need to disregard Bubble Boy, but otherwise, all his films have something 'different' in the scripting. And edge or an idea not explored. He likes working on films that are based on books (Brokeback Mountain, Jarhead) or biographies, reports of things that have actually happened (Jarhead, Zodiac, Rendition), he'll portray the writers, or sometimes he'll work on films that have huge ideologies, the significance of Catcher In The Rye to the American teen, the idea of finding a proof to work out the next prime number in any given sequence without working out the multiples (The Good Girl, Proof) ... every film he does is thought-provoking in some way. And he is a hottie, so it's aesthetically and mentally satisfying.

Basically, I want to marry Jake Gyllenhaal. But if I met him, I'd be worried he wouldn't be as inspiring as his work. Apparently he does plays in London a lot too? I'd love to go find one and check him out. Like, see him craft something on stage, in real time. He and his sister seem pretty down to earth about the whole Hollywood thing too, which I guess is down to having a script-writing mother and a director father. And an acting Godmother (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Oh, and he was so humble about losing one of his best friends, when everyone in Hollywood was clambouring to give a Heath Ledger soundbit, everyone on Brothers said he was too upset to talk. And he took on another man's kids when he started seeing Reese Witherspoon ... that makes him such a huge hero in my eyes.

Why can't I meet Jake Gyllenhaal, goddammit? Or at least someone like him.

Now, how's that for timing?

My new computer can't come quick enough. I can't upload files onto my USB to transfer over. I can upload word documents, so a lot of them have gone on USB. And I'll have to change important photo's and word programmes and PDF's that way, bit by bit. At least I can library share my itunes, so no worries about my music going awry.

I was writing away happily earlier, thought I'd lost a file yesterday, and searched through everything. Found it first thing today and started bashing away happily on my keyboard. Then my battery ran low, so I charged it, and left it to feed the boy (who'd been running between the DVD player, his play room, and the garden happily. Boys are so easy, cars, balls, open spaces. All they need) and when I tried to start writing an hour ago ... nothing. Read-only. Then it lost it's file name (seriously? SERIOUSLY? How can you lose a file name but still be an open file?) so I opened the named file. Same info on it. I decided to give the writing stuff a rest. I wanna hammer the crap out of my keys, but apparently not.

I can't get along with 'the boyfriend pact'. I don't know why. Maybe because they're all whinging nonstop about their issues because one has MS and another obviously got raped and is now having IVF and the other's married to a serial cheater and the other one's just a bitch. I thought this was chick-lit? It's not meant to make me react this way, it's meant to make me go 'awwwh, that's nice' and laugh and hope the girl gets the guy. Nothing more. That's the entire point of chick-lit.

At least I have Harry to read too. I'm having new thoughts as I read Deathly Hallows, like the whole Harry-Hermione relationship, I can kinda see it through Ron's eyes, if that makes sense? Never have before. Makes it refreshing.

Still ... maybe I should've just gone straight from 'Our Tragic Universe' to 'Anna Karenina' ... but I do like to balance the thought-provoking books for some easy-reading. Maybe OTU just didn't have the impact I was expecting, so I'm thirsty for something more?

Thoughts?

I've calmed down.

Ish. I'm a little flu-y. I'm off to bed, since my manager has banned me from phoning in sick. Though if I get as bad as my mother, I will do.

Anyway, I called my other thread 'I need an intervention' because I spent too much this weekend on books.

I only went looking for Kate Brian's 'Scandal'. And the first time, I couldn't see it, though I saw another Kate Brian book. And 'Anna Karenina' (It's on the 50 books to read before you die list, and 'Our Tragic Universe' mentioned it endlessly) and another book I can't remember the title of atm. Is about two women who used to be criminals and how they've turned their lives around or not, basically.

And I tried again yesterday, and got it, and found this stand that was basically 'we think these books influenced Scarlett Thomas', stuff like 'the upside of irrationality' and 'quantum theory cannot hurt you'. So I have those. And a learners tarot book/card kit (I should explain, the bit about the devil card freaking me out, it's not because I think the devil will appear if I do a reading with that card. It was fairly graphic and reminded me of Tenacious D's devil, but if they'd made it scary rather than comical. I prefer the fool card) and a book called something like 'ask and it is given' about the power of positivity.

Science, self-help books and the occult are all themes in Scarlett Thomas' writing. Maybe I just want to understand her last book more. I also got the book of the film for Toy Story 3 for the boy. But it meant I spent like, £120 on books in 2 days.

So, with the exception of the Bree Tanner book coming out on Saturday, I'm not buying any books until I go away on holiday. I can buy books then, but for June and July, book shopping is OUT. In tesco's, asda's and WHSmiths as well.

And on Thursday, I should have a new computer. I'll keep Cadence, she's set to region one so I can watch my Drake Bell concert DVD and 'Beautiful People' on her.

And now I'm off to blow my nose, wash my hair, dose myself up and die in bed. And read a little, since that's a low-effort activity.

I need an intervention!

This is the blog that got deleted. I'll summarise. Spent too much money on books, meant to get one, came out with thousands of books inspired by Scarlett Thomas instead. Won't buy any more books, apart from Stephenie Meyer's latest money-making tripe.

Taco Bell in UK at last. Whoop whoop, blahblahblah, I'm now going to move to Lakeside. Really funny thing my friend said about Taco Bell you'll hear when I'm not pissed off at my computer being a retard.

And play with my smelly new tarot cards there (the devil card scares me, blahblahblah ... it's a Scarlett Thomas thing).

Labyrinth

" ... we don't hurry through life looking for outcomes all the time, however many times we're told that we should, and that we should be overtaking people, and overcoming things as we go. The labyrinth doesn't tell us how to live; it shows us how we do live ..."

That's a quote from the last page of "Our Tragic Universe" by the way, not the David Bowie film. It resonated, just a little. Although I am a competitive person by nature, at the same time I don't act competitive because I should. It made me think of how I've approached labyrinths I've been in, like the one at Black Gang Chine, and in Disneyworld at the Alice in Wonderland feature.

In Black Gang Chine, when I was about ten, I figured it out pretty quickly. I didn't hit as many dead ends as my brothers and sister (who could've cared less). It was the first thing we did there, and when I looked back over the maze, because the exit went up a hill, I saw one path that would have gotten me out quicker.

The Disneyland one is less satisfying. I went into all the dead ends on purpose. The main route was laid out, was over-populated. I went into all the nooks and crannies to get more of an experience.

My point is, if the way we approach labyrinths is about how we approach life, then I should notice some key facts here; my competitive nature, my ability to figure out a problem quickly (and act on it, though there's a little more of a delay in the last couple of years), my dissatifaction if something's handed to me too easily, if there's no need to work at a problem. It's in the work I find happiness.

I've recently discovered an opportunity to do some hard work to achieve something I'd find admirable. It'd help me escape from the thing I was given too easily. Was it Groucho Marx or his brother who said 'I don't want to join any club that would have me as a member'? I shunned one university option who, after a terrible interview on my part, offered me a place with a reduced A level grade from advertised ... and if I'd had the luxury of choice, maybe I would have approached my current situation with the same distaste. I'd gladly take the hypocracy of that statement if there's a challenge though. But lets not hold our breath ... sorry for the lack of proper information here, I don't want to announce I'm doing something I'm not. At the moment, I'm just living in hope.

Let's have a subject change, shall we? Sort of. I finished Scarlett Thomas' book today. I kinda feel about it how I felt about The Tree Of Seasons. I understand how the book flowed like it did, why decisions were made and events happened, but there was something still a little dissatisfying. She talked endlessly of the Storyless Story, and in some ways this book manifests as that - she doesn't get the guy (she doesn't get any guy), the book is a story of ideas and theories without the proof. Like it's left to the reader to prove what's said, or treat it as a 'Zen Story' (I'll find one and put it at the end. It won't be long!). She also talks about this fictional writer, called Kelsey Newman, who hypothesises about how we're already dead and living in this Omega Point as created by this supercomputer, reliving our lives endlessly until we do something worthwhile with them, becoming the hero and fighting personal demons to prove we are worth our heaven (like if Second World were jigsaw, from the saw films, or if we were all meant to live out books like 'On The Road' to reach enlightenment). But the guy encounters this beast that never was and at first they think he's dead and it turns out he got bitten by a dog. Which I guess in some ways is a little like a storyless story but once again, dissatisfying. Another character may or may not have committed suicide but there's nothing concrete about that either. The protagonist leaves her long-term boyfriend halfway through, but little more is said about him, and she doesn't seem to grieve.

I much prefer the end of Mr Y. I mean, it was good, but 'the gun' didn't go off (actually, a real gun was fired, but you know what I mean) which was the whole point but why that would be desirable I don't know. It perplexes me, which I'm sure was the point. Dissatisfaction must be what she was after. But it didn't excite me the way the ideas in TEOMY did. I miss the excitement Scarlett ... again, this must be the entire point, and is certainly the point of the above statement, hence why I included the first bit.

So, the Zen story, straight from the pages:

"There is an old woman who looks after a monk while he meditates for twenty years. She gives him food and water and makes his clothes and eventually sends a prostitute to throw herself at him because she wants to see what he does with all his wisdom. He's taken a vow of chastity, but will he be tempted? The monk says something poetic to the prostitute about an old tree growing on a cold rock, and tells her there is 'no warmth'. When the spurned prostitute tells of this, the old woman is angry that she has supported someone who after twenty years has not learnt compassion. Then she goes and burns his hut down."

So much ... too much ...

I have so many things I want to say in this blog, and I don't think I'll remember it all.

There's a computer I want that I just about can't afford. It's about £550 and has 1000GB/1TB of memory. It's a laptop too. It's only in store, not online. I can afford £520 after bills this month, or put it on my card. But I promised myself I wouldn't.

I guess I could get an external memory for my laptop right now but it seems like a lot of hassle and I'd be worried the computer couldn't run without that external memory. And once I'd have moved everything I used onto it anyway, my computer would still only have a few MB left of space, because no matter how much I delete (and it's been a LOT, far too much) it barely makes an impact. I deleted 300MB of memory the other day and it didn't make a difference. How does that work? I still only have maybe 80MB space to run on.

So basically I can't carry on with Cadence, much as I love her and her dinkiness, but I can't afford better. Just wish acer hadn't lied about the amount of hard drive I could actually use.

And I saw Sex And The City 2 earlier. I don't know if Cassie reads and I don't want to ruin it for her, but hmmm .... I know I must have complained so many times about this before, but I've never seen it acted out before ... but they made up scenes to wrap up loose ends. Like say, Sam had gone on a 'journey' of personal growth and they realised that from what was said earlier, they had to get her into another position ... it felt a little slapstick. Take note, all books I've complained about before, what you've forced will feel like stale comedy. They also went a little far with the 'gun' concept (to enlighten you all, it's well known in literature that if you 'place a gun' in a scene, by the end of the book, the gun must go off. Two characters were given a piece of advice, for example, in SATC2 and by the 2 hour mark, the writers decided to 'set off the gun' and had the other characters go against the advice unwittingly. By this time, Claire was practically shouting in my ear 'what is the fucking point!' I got it, and when I tried explaining, she was like 'well, I just didn't love it as much as you, I guess'. Awwwh, hun, love had nothing to do with it. Scarlett Thomas' book keeps referring to a gun going off, but I'd read the concept before in a Harry Potter essay ... it was just fresh in my mind).

Only Charlotte and Miranda felt like they had character development throughout the whole thing, and the wrap up at the end was a little contrived.

But despite this, I enjoyed it, the dialogue was witty. The acting was superb, and the wardrobe and accessories, for the most part, were so gorgeous. I want Carrie Bradshaw's flats - both of them. Especially the 'love' canvas she has. I think I prefer her old flat, for the lightness of the decor.

Aaaand I got inspired, for a book of my own. The actual book was about dating, but at one point they were talking about soulmates ... I want to write about mine. I'll start scribbling some ideas tonight, but I still wanna churn out one scene for the Uprooted series I've been working on which has been screaming at me since Wednesday. I probably freaked out Lizzy a bit, because every time she looked at me at work I had the same expression on my face but really ... I was in Nevada. Sorry.

Otherwise, I'm knackered, 2 episodes from the end of Gossip Girl series 2 (is series three being released any time soon? My friend Carla keeps telling me little bits and I'd like to know what she's on about, without having to hope ITV2/ITV3 will reshow from the first episode when I start watching) and hardly getting anywhere with Scarlett, since I just haven't had the time. I went looking for Scandal in town, but it wasn't there, so I'll have to try Lakeside tomorrow/Monday (with the dreaded Sunday service). boy got an invite to a birthday party, so I went to Toys'r'us for a present, and found half the shop covered in Toy Story 3. I got boy a puzzle of TS, since he was so good ... it's 100 piece for 6 year olds and he's already done it. Twice (with a teeny bit of help). My boy is scary intelligent ... he can recite half of 'we're going on a bear hunt' and 'the gingerbread man' from memory. Oh, I won £20 on one of those 'rich for life' scratchcards, which was ace since I rarely play. I think that was my second time ever. I've also got 'potty training in a week' by Gina Ford ... but that's for another post.

I'm watching Eurovision now. Laters, potatahs!

Early morning moan

I can't sleep. I tried to have a lay in and was still up before 6.

I went to kiss my son day before last, and he stood up as I went down. So now I have a split lip, and I couldn't talk very well yesterday (which only added to my already bad mood).

So I'm making today a donut day. A donut day doesn't happen very often, but if the start of my week (Tuesday and Wednesday) have been dire, I will go and buy a bunch of krispy kremes and bring them in to work. I've done it maybe twice before. But yesterday was hideous, we were short staffed (4/5 people from 2-4, and we needed about double that) and I don't think I stopped until people came in at 5. Which meant all the little jobs we do when we're not serving went undone and we do need to do those to keep going. Which means we all got a teeny bit stressed. But if we have donuts today, everyone'll be happy (because donuts are magic) so if we're short-staffed again it won't matter so much. Except I probably won't eat any, since I keep messing with my wheat intolerance. But I have maoam, so it's practically the same thing.

I'm getting my hair dyed tonight too, which would be good. Once my friend finished cutting there were huge patches of brown amongst the purple, so I'm going for an altogether different colour. I'm thinking like a honey-brown/caramel. But we'll see.

I'm still reading Scarlett though, don't you worry! Hopefully I'll have finished her by the end of the weekend, I'll have 2 train journeys to read on. Nervous about Saturday, since I don't know where I'm going or when! Will have to text Pete and find out. Will also have to make time to get Kate Brian's latest book (and remember what the heck it's called).

Oh, and I've been watching Gossip Girl on DVD. I'm about 7 episodes from the end of Season 2. Can't believe Blair's finally got her chance with Chuck and she's blown it (don't tell me they're fictional, they're alive on some plane of existence) or what Dan did ... he's getting less and less likeable ...

Our Tragic Universe ... so far.

I'm less than 100 pages in so far ... but whoa.

She's made the protagonist a writer. Which I'm sure I've mentioned before, I hate. But Scarlett Thomas is amazing, so she's forgiven.

She's carried on some pop co themes, and the end of mr y themes. But oh dear ... she's talking about infinite universes and she mentions how one book the writer has researched goes on about these two worlds that everone lives in without realising. Now, in pop co (about a toy company having a weekend retreat, summarising like crazy there lol) there's a videogames division and one member of the videogames group comes up with this concept of actually living out something like second life. That online game where you create an avatar and it has its own currency and you can get married etc etc? But it was mixing that with virtual reality suits/pods, so you could literally act out your fantasies. That's all fine. But when she talks about this writers works, she mentions microchips that are inserted at birth, and whenever people's brainwaves start to slow down, to initiate sleep, this other reality comes into being, and people unwittingly lead two lives. Does that just sound like the plot of a 10 year James Cameron project or what?

I like all the stuff about the Omega point and the universe and our existence going on ad infinitum. She talks about how we existed in one universe until our scientists created what they call 'second world', this point where the dead undie and time is never-ceasing, and it's all from this self-generating computer.life support machine. And to leave this 'second world' and go to heaven you should do more with your life, those doomed to sit on the sofa eating pizza will exist in the second world for longer, stuck by their own lacklustre attitude to their second life.

Of course, the writer's derisive about these concepts, she doesn't like the thought of living forever, but she has like, 300 more pages to change her mind ...

Sex and the city

So, I read Carrie's Diaries full of compliments about Candace Bushnell's writing.

And when I was in Asda's the other day, they had a buy-two-for-£5 thing and Sex and the City was in it.

So of course I got it.

And I finished reading it this morning.

It's a completely different format to what I thought it would be. The start is examples of different situations, using 'aliases' to cover identities, and slowly Carrie's story with Mr Big materialises through these different scenarios. The end of the book is much different to the end of the film. But I think the take on love in the book is also different to the series.

But it was still good. I can see how they managed to turn it into both a series and two films, even if things were re-written for current events/to minimalise main cast.

And now I'm onto my new Scarlett Thomas. See you in a few days, unless I have something else of consequence to write before I finish.

Good day, good day!

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Scarlett Thomas' 'Our Tragic Universe' came out Thursday and I had to wait until this morning to get it (dear work, please schedule my hours, in future, around the release of any of my favourite author's books, so I never have to wait 2 days again) and when I was there, a book display saying 'David Mitchell' caught my eye and I went looking for the book (turns out, it's not that one) and *squeal* there was a new Sarah Dessen in my search!

Bit of a rip-off though. Penguin have started these'pocket money books' which are £3 cheaper than a bog standard book. I got it anyway, but the entire story was 30 pages. And there were 2 exerts from books I already have filling the other 60 pages. Normally, her books are around 250-300 pages each, and a tenth of the size for half the price makes no sense. It's a sweet book though. It's about a town in America who have a roundabout (it's a bizarre concept out there, but bogstandard here) and this girl is nervous about going on this roundabout because her mother is. Eventually she gets the balls to try, obviously, but it was kind of interesting reading an American's take on the whole structure. A couple of weeks ago, my lesson was all about right hand turns on roundabouts. They only intimidate me in heavy traffic when I'm front of the right hand turn lol ... and only because I don't want to crash.

Also, I liked the smell of Sarah Jessica Parker's new perfume, NYC, which I smelt the other day, but it was on a piece of card so I bought the 15ml version. I'm not sure how it'll mix with my skin acidity, the wrong perfume can reak of deer glands rather than the scent. It's fruity though, they usually work with me ... about a week ago, when I was in Lakeside with my sister and mother, I got this other perfume, called lost in love. I think it's a kids one really, but it smells really nice and sweet, and was £4 so I dont' care! I also had a hot apple pie and custard milkshake from shaekaways, it's called a Sylvia and was gorgeous! I'm working my way through the names, I've had George and Dave before, and other one I can't remember the name of. I love shakeaways ...

Things to be perky about

My last few entries, save for the SATC prequel review, have been, I noticed, dour.

So I'm going to make a few points here to try and pep myself up:

-Scarlett Thomas has a new book coming out this Thursday, "Our Tragic Universe" where the secrets to our universe are possibly held in a knitting pattern?

-Kate Brian's 11th Private novel, scandal, is out on the 27th. Billings is gone, but Reed and Noelle will probably make their new home the next Billings. This actually means something to me, but is waffle to you.

-I finally updated my 'flavour of the month' playlist on my iPhone/iPod. Now I don't have to choose between mcfly, the Glee soundtrack, and anything else that takes my fancy.

-the sun's coming out, and boy and I have agreed to play outside more with his slide/football after nursery.

-my hairdressing friend is going to banish my numerous split ends thursday night.

-I have an early morning driving lesson this friday too.

-Sex and the City 2 is in cinema's soon and looks even better than the first (which I'm watching now)

-The two cars I like are both being sold locally for around £3000. That's got to be good, since one of them's a mercedes benz, right? (It's an A140. That, or a Kia Picanto)

-There's just over 10 weeks until I'm in Florida, at Harry Potter land, soaking up the sun and enjoying two weeks with my boy.

-my tax credits info came through today, so I can work out money, and stop worrying about that.

-refusing point blank to have fatty foods for the past week has meant I've lost 6 pounds. If I keep it up, and refuse wheat too, for the intolerance, I should be back down to a normal weight. If I lose track, it'll shoot straight back up.

-me, boy and his Godparents are going to London zoo sometime in June.

-my best friends are debating whether to go to Cyprus sometime towards the end of the year.

-boy and I are 1&1/2 chapters from the end of Goblet of fire. And he fell asleep at a certain point, so I could pretend I'd read him the bone of the father junk that was way too scary for a 2 year old.

-I'm getting better at my wii.

-I got Sherlock Holmes on DVD. Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law are a tasty team.

-There's only 2/3 more chapters for me to review of my writing before I give a copy to L (I didn't forget!) ... just remember, it's a draft and I'm still ironing out bits that don't make sense! I've left some in while I think how to rephrase ...

-I had a good day out with my sister and boy, playing in a park after buying lunch in tesco's. And found love with toffee butter popcorn!

Stefenie Meyer

Blogging twice in a day? I know right? But someone pointed out to me that I didn't even mention Stefenie Meyer in my 'top 5' list and I thought I'd do a post in her honour (we'll call her Lizzy for now. So Lizzy, this is for you ... you've been warned).

I'll start with an anecdote to ease you in to my bizarre and contradictory view of Ms Meyer. I was in HMV and saw a spoof called "Nightlight" and decided to buy it. I've got Barry Trotter somewhere too, so parodies aren't completely out of my range. When I got to the counter, the guy told me that he was only just reading the twilight books, had I? And I said yes, and he asked the inevitable 'are they any good?'. My answer (and I paraphrase) was 'it's like a literary chocolate pretzel. You won't know if it's any good until you've finished.'

What I meant was, do you remember when chocolate-covered pretzels came out? And everyone was like 'they're gross' but invariably you got dared to buy and then eat a packet? And when you first take a bite, the combination of salt and chocolate was repulsive. But salt and sugar are two things your body craves, so you're not actually sure if you like them or not, because the connotations of savoury and sweet mixed like that are negative, but they fulfill the sweet vs savoury snack debate. So you eat the whole packet. And by that time, you know you don't like them, but you also know you're going to buy another packet.

But when I was reading them, it wasn't like Harry Potter, where I had to know, like underlined, bold, in italics, in CAPITALS, HAD to know what was going to happen at the end. I exercised extreme will power in not reading the end of those books (except in Tesco's the night HBP came out. I saw the page about Bill being a Werewolf, went 'Oh, poor Bill' in front of these 6 year olds who weren't allowed to even crack the book open and slammed it shut. Heehee). With Twilight, it was more reading in the hope I was getting somewhere good. And at first, it didn't disappoint.

I've always struggled with the 'getting to know you' scenes. I remember one guy I used to email used to talk to me about meeting people, and it was unfathomable to me. It had been so long since I'd met anyone new, I wasn't quite sure of the dynamics of it. And then I met my wonderful friends, but even now I'm not quite sure how I managed to pass off as normal (or maybe I'm like Carter in my fic, in that I'm a complete asshat but you just love the honesty); so for me to read someone constructing those getting-to-know-you scenes, it was like a revelation. I wanted more Edward and Bella too, at that point (I liked the chocolate pretzel). But then ... I don't know, the baseball game was an over-reaction, it was their first date! And whatever happened with Jacob and the Wolves just seemed to be padding until she got to Breaking Dawn. I hated reading the Wolves conversations, Jacob was a douche (though Taylor Lautner does a great job making him likeable in the films) and Bella got even more irritating.

There's other things too. Bearing in mind that the first film came out around three months after I came out of hospital from a blood condition. Bearing in mind that even now, I'm considered in remission (Timothy Spall, the patron of the charity who support the hospital, said he's still in remission and it's been 14 years. I'm sure the count only went up to ten?). I'd heard of the books before, Claire had said girls in her year were obsessed and the message about celibacy was completely derivative - this coming from a girl who attends a church at least three days a week - until I decided I wanted to see the film, I didn't want to read the books. When I did, so many details seemed glazed over. The one thing that stands out more than anything is the lack of research she did. She puts 'coagulants' I think 'do you mean the Von Willebrand Factor?' (the coagulant that was in part responsible for my hospitalisation). Maybe that's too harsh.

But dismissing the silver and cross as symbols that vampires ... not exactly fear, but dislike, that was narrow-sighted. I know she's a mormon, I know she hates the very idea of going against God, but one Vampire myth I heard makes that very point. I heard that the first Vampire was Judas Iscariat, the man who sold Jesus to the Romans (sidebar, Jesus told him he would, wasn't he following orders? What's so wrong with Judas? Not to be blasphemous, I just don't see how he let Jesus down). That when he heard Jesus had been hung on the cross, he hung himself on a cross too, and he was visisted by the devil as the blood left his body and was told that God wouldn't admit him into heaven, despite the decree he would when his son died for him, and that the devil didn't want him in hell either, and he'd live forever more on the blood of the innocent. The silver comes from the 30 pieces of silver Judas sold Jesus out for, the innocents over time have been turned into Virgins ... she could have twisted that so it only affected Judas. (Sidebar again, did the bible have every type of storyline ever invented in it? Look again, I swear down someone was visited by the ghosts of the past, present and future. The first murder, prodigcal son and Joseph are in there after all).

I read another story when I was in year 6, a Victorian Horror book, and one of the short stories was about this village who accidentally opened this crypt, and their sheep started dying off, one at a time, then in twos and threes, and it spread to the pigs, then the cows and horses, and then the people. The Cullens aren't moral, they've just been sleeping a while.

So my point is, I know enough to know she hasn't done her research. Bella would've smelt weird after the Ballet studio for longer than a couple of days, blood takes 10 days to fully recycle itself. It would've taken her that long to replace the donated blood.

I think Twilight's good if what you want to read is the emotional aspect. I think it's poor if you have read so much into, maybe not precisely vampire lore, but other elements that contribute. I think it's poor if you want to read the narration as typical English prose, and speech as colloquial (well done Stefenie, for muddling them up!). I think it's poor that in a saga spanning almost 2000 pages with all elements of blood, horror, death, war, weaponry and practice fights, it ends the way it does. Especially with the themes throughtout Breaking Dawn (sorry, I know one person reading this who hasn't read Breaking Dawn and I promised not to say too much about it). If you're going for escapism, you can't get better than Twilight. It's the books I tend to read between Scarlett Thomas or Christopher Paolini or Phillip Pullman. The fluff between the heavyweights. I know that sounds awful, I do, but always bear this in mind:

I always liked the chocolate covered pretzels.

Sarah Dessen

First off, I have five writers that I admire above all others, for the following reasons:

C.S.Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia got me hooked on reading. I was almost four when I was introduced to the Pevensies, and I've loved them since. By some feat of ignorance, I only read The Horse and his Boy (the third in the series) when I was 18. I'd read all the others before I hit double figures. In some ways, this has left me completely devoted to certain writers. I will go to certain lengths for books that other women would go through for shoes, and I attribute that wholely to C.S.Lewis.

J.K.Rowling - The modern C.S.Lewis as it were. People always seem to think if you rate Ms Rowling then you know nothing of writing, purely because she's so popular. But honestly, the woman's a genius. The sheer number of threads she buries in Harry Potter, and manages to draw to conclusions makes her so. I think I referred to her as a Jigsaw Master to someone the other day. Harry Potter is full of those annoying sky pieces that you need to finish off the picture. You just have to look hard enough to know when it's the right sky piece. I wish I had her scope for putting so many storylines together.

Lionel Shriver - The first (of two) adult writers in my list. We Need To Talk About Kevin made such an impact on me, both as a carefree late-teen, and again as a mother. The lengths Eva, the main character, would go to in an attempt to ignore her fault in the situation surrounding her was incredible. I could read that book over and over (but yet I'm still only up to the second chapter of The Post-Birthday World. I think I'm just worried about the whole sliding doors scenario and keeping up in written word).

Scarlett Thomas - The other adult writer (I'm sorry, truly, but there's something about writers who aim for adolescents, they have such a scope you're not allowed to have with adult books, yet they don't have to rhyme all the time, or fit a word pattern. As much as I may love reading The Gruffalo with my offspring, I do crave proper chapter structure too). Scarlett Thomas was actually a key to me making my realisations about J.K.Rowling, she talks a lot about homeopathy in her books, and at one point she mentions Monkshood, which was referenced in Harry Potter, and she explains it's use in the context of poisons and homeopathic treatment and well, it just made me realise quite what an effort Rowling made. Anyway, The End Of Mr Y? Brilliant! But whenever I try to convey to someone the storyline they look at me like I'm mad, or I read strange and unhealthy things. But they can watch the Matrix, and Being John Malkovich, and the two storylines have parallels in the book so I must just explain it wrong. Either that or it must be out of expectations that I'd read something like that (craziness. If all I have to read is the signs on a train, I'll stare at a poster and re-read, and re-read, and re-read). PopCo earned me similar looks, but I was a little disappointed by how black-and-white her conclusion was.

Sarah Dessen - The woman this title is about. She's becoming quite a cult figure for girls of a certain age. I can see why. Her books aren't exactly gripping fantasies or complex mysteries like all the other books I've admired above. They're pretty samey actually. Girl having hard time is put/puts herself in an unknown situation, creates new friends, competes with elder siblings, carries burdens brought about by elder siblings, new friends help take the weight off, boy gets involved, girl goes a little crazy from not being able to cope with the change, yours truly starts to blub like a baby, girl has an epiphany, everything works out.

But they still appeal. It's because she's so character-driven. You can feel the emotions, and you can relate so well to the upheaval because most girls have felt that way at some point in their adolescence. Hence why I always cry.

I like one thing she does, which is that all her characters are from the same places, Lakeview or Colby, and all the lead girls are a few years within each other. If she wrote an earlier book, she'll take a place from that book and reference it in the newer one. Characters make reappearances (Remy and Dexter from This Lullaby spent one evening with the girl from Just Listen, the restaurant the girl works in from Keeping The Moon is visited by the characters in Along For The Ride, which also has a character from The Truth About Forever in). It's like she's working her way through this town. I also like that in Someone Like You, she has a character called Scarlett Thomas. I kid you not.

I'm mainly blogging about Sarah because I just finished Along For The Ride, by the way. But it didn't make me cry so much as the others did. I don't know, I think some of the other characters had more to deal with than she does, and I was distracted by the parental figures in the book a lot. I wanted to kick the dad's butt for being so blah about his newborn daughter, but that's another story entirely. I think I was distracted by the aforementioned linking. I kept trying to guess if I'd read this scene or that scene or this character or that in another book. I will be re-reading tomorrow to find out (day off, and in London no less!). I am that bad.

I'd normally say more (yes, more!) on the subject, but I do actually have a huge headache, so I'm going to crawl off to bed now. Goodnight!

(P.S. Watch this space. After Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher is pretty top. If he does another book like that, he's definitely in the top five.)