Yes, as you may have noticed, I've been out recently. I intended to keep up a more frequent blog in 2011, but working six days a week caused my entries to fall off sharply in late 2010. And I've sort of spaced out these last few weeks.
Why?
I've been sick.
For nearly three weeks, yes.
First they thought it was mono. Then they didn't. Then they thought it was again. Then, apparently, they thought it was "some sort of viral infection that will probably go away by itself."
Unquote.
Great. That's lucid.
I was prepared to ride it out. All I had was a fever and some aches. No sniffles, no sinus problems, no cough, nothing. I was living large, not going to work, mooning around the house in my bathrobe all day, Moby-Dick in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate in the other. (But please don't ask me how much writing I've done during this sudden unexpected vacation. You're better off not knowing.)
Heck, I thought I was on the road to recovery. I was feeling pretty good. I even went back to work. It sure was grand to be back in the Mooney and flying 6,000 feet above the desert floor. My right ear refused to pop coming back down again, but I shrugged it off.
Then the sore throat began.
It came out of nowhere that very evening. All of a sudden I was wincing as I swallowed. A stabbing whack of pain bolted from my palate to my tonsils every time I did.
Certain people near and dear to me insisted that I go back to the doctor. (Thanks, Ma. Still looking out for me.)
So, one doctor's appointment and a gag-inducing throat swab later, it became apparent that, not only do I have strep throat, but also an ear infection.
Now that's just mah-veluss.
What we figure is that the ear infection came on first, which explains the fever and aches I had for the first two weeks. Then the strep throat bacteria just saw its opportunity (my immune system already compromised) and dove right in.
Oh well. At least I have a definite diagnosis now (and drugs, huzzah!).
I'm kind of glad it wasn't mono. That means I stand to recover from it sooner. Mono would've created an extremely awkward situation, given that my girlfriend doesn't have it.
Speaking of my girlfriend, she's been an absolute angel throughout all this. Despite long days babysitting five rambunctious children and giving her friends rides down to lesser Los Angeles, she's never missed the chance to come up here and look after me. I still get hugs and kisses even though I'm sick and greasy and disgusting. I feel at once fortunate and extremely humbled. Thanks, Miss H. You're a doll. When this is over, you and I are heading out on the town. I'll treat you to the evening of your life.
There's just one last thing left to settle before I can do that, though.
I want those three frickin' weeks of my life back.
Somebody owes me big for this, and I'm collecting.
The hammer-headed cross-eyed lame-brained weevil who gave me this ear infection is dead. I'm going to string him up by his thumbs and burn the epithet "WAX-MEISTER" onto his stomach with a branding iron. He's cheated me out of a fortnight's pay.
And as for the scene-stealing four-flushing irredeemable ass-hat who transmitted the rest of this bacteria unto me...well, if you're there when I catch up to him, I just hope you turn away. Just look in the other direction. You've been given fair warning. It'll put you off your lunch for the next 10 years. It'll make the Spanish Inquisition look like a pillow fight.
Anyway, that's why I've been out. More and better posts should be coming within the next few days. There's exciting news in the offing, on all fronts. Stay tuned...
P.S. Oh yeah, I have a question to ask you guys. Does anybody know how to change the color of your blog title with this new blog editor thingy? I want to make it lighter. Can't hardly see the dark blue print against the control cabin of that B-17...
Never mind. That's a horrible name. Who cooked that up, anyway?
I realize it's been a long, long while since I did one of these. Last time I was talking about, what, Vonnegut? No, that's right, it was Robert F. Scott and Antarctica and all that jazz.
So, I finished The Escape Orbit. You know, James White's obscure science fiction novel, found in a used bookstore in Lucerne Valley. (Finished it a looooong time ago, in fact. Just didn't have time to blog about it.) Awesome read, really grand. Good sci-fi authors never cease to amaze me with their ability to present a problem (or minor annoyance) whose cause turns out to be so much grander and more sinister than initially suspected. The Escape Orbit, as I've mentioned, concerns a group of human soldiers marooned on a tropical prison planet by their insect-like enemies. The planet is inhabited by monstrous creatures (somewhere between sharks and elephants) who won't hesitate to gore, trample or chomp the unwary. The book's protagonist, Sector Marshal Warren (the planet's highest-ranking officer and newest inmate) arrives and assesses the situation. There are two groups vying for influence among the new arrivals: the settlers, who consist of former military personnel who have abandoned their uniforms and now live peaceful civilian lives in communal villages; and the Escape Committee, a much smaller group of devoted officers who have retained (or manufactured) uniforms, military discipline, and protocol, and who are tirelessly working to effect an escape. Tensions between the two groups are extremely high, nearing open war at several points in the book.
Warren, after some consideration, joins the Escape Committee, along with his staff.
Why?
Because he sees a deeper necessity for escape, aside from returning much-needed personnel to the front lines of the war. If the Escape Committee is not taken off the planet, and tensions between them and the settlers are allowed to mount...
Well, I'll let you read the book and see what a brilliant premise White has laid down.
I'd give The Escape Orbit 9/10. I hardly ever give anything a perfect rating, you see. Ordinarily it'd be 10/10. The ending felt a tad rushed. Nah, that's nitpicking. It didn't really. I just don't want to give this thing a perfect 10 in case another novel comes along that really deserves it.
So, on to Herman Melville's galumphing behemoth of a seagoing adventure story: Moby-Dick.
How far have I progressed across this vast ocean of maritime literature since last we spoke?
Not very.
I read the foreword, the etymology section, and got started on the extracts (Melville saw fit to collect a hundred or so quotes regarding whales or great fishes and stuck 'em in the front of the book; pretty neat idea if you have the patience for it).
Then I promptly fell asleep.
Haven't trucked much with the book since then.
Come on. It's huge. Daunting, somehow. It's only fitting that a book about a leviathan would be leviathan-sized, isn't it? Poetic justice, I think they call it. Moby-Dick is just a little bit intimidating, like a literary black hole sitting on my beside table, sucking all thoughts of lighter reading out of my head.
I was unsure how to proceed. Should I knock the smaller items off my "to-read" list, and then tackle the monstrous Moby-Dick? Or should I wrestle with that one first and put the rest of my library on hold? I was perplexed. Neither choice seemed pleasant. Especially since I had attempted to read Moby-Dick before and found it drier than a year-old soda cracker.
But since I finished up with The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. IIA, which has occupied most of my reading time, I've had an epiphany.
Yes, yes, I know it's two days too early for an epiphany. The Epiphany happened on the sixth of January. But what's two days between you and me?
Here's the big idea.
Since it's the new year and all, and 2011 stretches out bright with promise for 360-plus days, and I've usually got about thirty minutes of free time in the evenings no matter what I'm doing, why don't I try this:
I'll read a chapter of Moby-Dick a day.
(No "dick-a-day" jokes, please.)
One chapter every day, until I finish the dang thing. It'll be quite a span, but it'll keep me from drooling and going all glassy-eyed from trying to read too much at once. I've always wanted to read a book one chapter at a time. You know, get into bed, put on my glasses, take out my bookmark, read a few pages, put the bookmark back in, take my glasses off, turn out the light and go to sleep with a big silly grin on my face. That would be a "novel" way to read books, wouldn't it? (Ho ho ho!) I usually just swallow them whole, gobbling up five chapters at a stretch. Call it an obsessive compulsion. I've never allowed myself time to sit back, relax, take the work one chunk at a time, and mull it over in a leisurely manner.
Well, I'll have plenty of time to mull this over. My edition of Moby-Dick (complete and unabridged, Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.) is 605 pages long and possesses 135 chapters. That means, then, that if I read the first chapter ("Loomings") tonight, and keep the regimen going without fail, then I'll be done sometime in late May.
As my brother so aptly asked, "Are you going to remember what happened at the beginning of the book by the time you get to the end?"
We'll see, bro. We'll see. Only way to find out is to try it. There but for the grace of bookmarks go I.
And if it does work, then I'll do the same thing with Joyce's Ulysses.
If it happens that I tire of Melville's heavy hand and want to take the evening off, then I've got A Clockwork Orange to sustain me. I picked it up at the used bookstore a while back. Heard a lot about it and decided to see what all the fuss was about. Of course I read some background on the work and its author, Anthony Burgess, beforehand. I was...impressed, to say the least. By all accounts this is a controversial book. I was lucky and got my hands on one of the first versions to have the infamous final chapter put back in. (Previous publishers mysteriously decided that it wasn't necessary.) But beyond that, this book apparently has some rather graphic violence in it. Everywhere I researched A Clockwork Orange, the phrase "ultraviolent" kept jumping out at me—even the author's foreword. So I'll read, and probably wince a bit too. I'll update you lot when I finish. Maybe I'll see the movie if I'm feeling charitable towards Hollywood. (Don't hold your breath.)
And now, to finish up, please enjoy one of my very own de-motivational posters! Straight from the heart, folks:
