On Eggers, Burgess, and why, as I sit in starbucks this sunday afternoon I can't feel my legs (or at least, nothing below the thighs)...

Two things: (Have you ever seen or read "Shopgirl"? This isn't one of the aforementioned "things", rather an explanation of why I would begin a sentence so poorly as to number the "things" that said sentence would describe. In "Shopgirl", a flawlessly delicate masterpiece of a book, and later adapted film written and starring respectively Steve Martin, Jason Schwartzman's character occasionally begins sentences containing 2-part questions with the declaration, "two things" - accompanied by a casual right-handed peace sign.)

1. I have terrible circulation. I don't know why, but I have for a long time. If I sit in a chair, or worse, on the toilet for more than, say, 15 minutes without moving my legs or otherwise adjusting my position, I'm numb. From the thighs down.
   
   
2. Dave Eggers has the ability to make mundane and "normal" things embarrassingly hysterical, just as Anthony Burgess has the ability to make menacing and disgusting acts so intricate you can't help but turn the page to read on.
   

I'm reading "How We Are Hungry" by Dave Eggers, and "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess today, and have found myself glued to them both for hours. Any time I pick either up, I find myself stuck wherever I was when I started, 3 hours later.

This is why, as I allowed my bowels to move and my mind to wander reading such heartbreaking work of staggering genius, I can no longer feel my legs (or at least, nothing below the thighs).

Hey, It's me.

I said "good" when she asked how I was doing, and my face started burning. My ears swelled and started closing and the whole world muddled like a yawn. I could hear my throat constrict and the insides of my eyelids grew shards of glass and I blinked. I smiled. My eyes felt like burning... I'm not just happy... Strike that. What I meant to say was

I'm Just.
Not.
Happy.

I'm enthusiastically miserable. More than is acceptable. I'm unhappy enough - and have been for long enough - for my blandness and cold misery to call for a good tough love cleansing speech from a friend or worse - my mom. I can hear her saying "enough is enough, it's time to snap out of it and move on already" underneath her "dad and I really love you" speech. If she only knew how bad this feeling hurts, she'd understand. And she'd want to kick my ass.

"Well that's good to hear, darlin'."