I can't sleep. This is a terrible thing. Mainly this is terrible because I've had a truly frustrating and utterly insane week (and a half...actually, going on two weeks almost), and I've been running on less than optimum levels of sleep as it is. Five hours a night is really crap. And tomorrow I have a meeting - one of those you know it's going to be a massive waste of time kind of things, but it's compulsory, so what can you do. And I have a shit-ton of work to do. But I haven't been able to shut my brain off. There is so much going on in there.
Things like...
Seriously, these past few days and last week were beyond some of my most difficult times at this particular job. I cry when I get tense or angry. People who know me know this about me. It's just a part of my emotional response. I tend to think that the tears are all the rage leaking out so that I don't snap and start throwing chairs and knocking books off shelves while I launch into loud monologues about how screwed up everything is while waving my arms emphatically for emphasis. I've gotten so many concerned looks, attempts at uplifting pep-talks, and hugs I know that it's been pretty obvious to most of those around me at work that I'm at the end of my "holding this shit together" tether. Man, I want this week to be over in the worst way.
Because...
MOSI! With M. To maybe see mummies. Fabulous. And I have books and goodies from vacation to share with her, and catching up to do.
And then there's the writing. I'm drafting a story based on the House of Tomorrow concept. The future was supposed to make our lives easier, with tasks automated to the point where we future-dwellers could experience a life of leisure and pleasure, unhindered by petty activities like vacuuming. And cooking. And wiping our own asses. Right? And, sure, we have some of those things we were promised by the visionaries of yesteryear, like our high def television, and our wifi and our smart phones. Sadly, some of these innovations we may never have. (I'm looking at you, flying car manufacturers of tomorrow. Get on that shit! Or at least make jetpacks a commercially available means of transportation.) But I think about the ways in which technology can go so wrong. Because it does. And that's the gist. Sort of like the old Chuck Jones cartoon of the two dogs that decide to check out the open house, but with no dogs. And maybe some carnage. Everybody loves carnage!
The other thing I was thinking about tonight was literature, and how, like any art form, it is framed by the time in which it is created. I was mentally writing an essay in my head about how I (sort of unintentionally, at first) read an infamous and particularly controversial novel by D. H. Lawrence. I'm sure you know the one I mean. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal if I hadn't been about eleven or twelve years old at the time. That was around the time that I was transitioning away from "kids' books" to things like The Hobbit and Lord of the Flies. Now, in my defense, I had no idea what the novel was about. To this day, I can barely remember the scenes that get closeted Puritans' knickers in a twist. What I do remember is a sudden sense of understanding the power of setting and dialogue to underscore the tone of a story. This was a book that presented itself as literature. Rich in subtext, and really at heart an exploration of upper middle class ennui and post-war class strife, there's a reason it's considered a classic of contemporary literature and is often still an assigned text in many literature courses.
In a day and age where the topics explored (with some level of ham-handedness, in my personal opinion) in the 50 Shades of Grey series are considered perfectly appropriate dinner conversation, people should not be ashamed to revisit some of the more...ahem, "risque" classics and enjoy them for the literary gems that they are. Think about them in the context of the day they were written. Begin to understand the morality of a different age, what challenges the writer would have experienced that our modern lives no longer present to us. Bask in the glory of something written to be enjoyed as a piece of literature, and not just to top a best-seller list so that it can be made into a movie and sell branded silk neckties made in sweatshops.
If they remade Lord of the Flies into another movie today, I wonder how they would market it?
Something like...
BEFORE there was THE HUNGER GAMES.
THERE WAS a LORD OF THE FLIES!
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