Day 59: Art of Drowning

well there's a thin line between the empty and complete
test my theory true on the downtown street
like water and oil you know the two will  never meet
walking side-by-side staring at their feet
people all around the world, staring at their feet

people sleeping the alley
drowning in the rain
people sitting in their mansions
drowning on champaign
and that's the art of drowning

and the town square the politician came to speak
the poor gathered around like pigeons at his feet
he said, "we made it through the famine,
it's about time we had a feast,
so promise me your vote and you will eat,
good people, promise me your vote and you will eat"

and they go standing in the full line
like they're standing in their grave
so deep into the lie they're unaware
that the dirt beneath their fingernails
is falling from the air
but they've been warned not to look up
so they don't dare

and that's the art of drowning
hey, that's the art of sinking down,
down, down
that's the art of drowning

throw yourself into dark water
you will never be found

well my father had temper like you wouldn't believe
he drank liquor like the devil did on christmas eve
and he'd go raging through the house looking for mommy
we would go hiding in the closet beneath by stairs
we'd take refuge in the closet by the stairs

he would curse her name, saying,
"bitch, you'd best come out!"
and i would hold her mouth
when she would scream
i threw my body against the door
'till he broke it down
she'd just wipe her eyes
and then come clean

and that's the art of drowning

hey, that's the art of sinking down,

down, down

that's the art of drowning

throw yourself into dark water

you will never be found

i won't let me lungs consume the water

i keep gasping for air

i'm waving my arms inside these waves

until i'm breaking the surface

i'm...

i'm kissing the wind that touches my face

i will not go down

i will not go down

down down

down

i am not drowning

go on, save me from these waters

i want to be found.

Day 58: Last Time

i'm putting off "root beer popsicles" one last time. today has been a weird, tiring, day. on top of yesterday, and really all of this week, i cannot write right now.

'night.

Day 57: Missing My Nemesis

Day 56: Just a Couple of Notes

i am planning to do a "real" blog on saturday night, but today and tomorrows blogs will just be short "nothing" blogs. out and away tomorrow, and today i have not wanted to spend time in front of the pc.

so... just a couple short notes:

i started reading the dark tower again at the week's start, on the second novel, the drawing of the three, and am really remembering what about this books mean so much to me. they're amazing, simple as that.

the brea library finally sent me an e-mail telling me the final (although it is a afterward/side story to the series) sandman story arrived. picked it up and have it sitting in my room. really want to start it, but probably won't until after drawing. blog about the series sometime after that...probably.

no job yet although i am in desperate need of one. eh.

after i reread the tower novels i'll get my eye tattoo, excited and hesitant about it. we'll see, i am slowly starting to look around for the right place and the right price.

lost is great, as always, but as i have said before: phineas and ferb is growing to be one of my favorite shows ever.

i guess that's it for today, "root beer popsicles", while overdue, is coming saturday. then? i don't know.

Day 55: You Run Away

blog doesn't want to format it smaller for some reason.

Day 54: Z...Z...Z...

blog is sleeping today.

Day 53: Horns (Part 3 of 3)

let me start this by saying two things; one, horns is without a doubt my favorite book this year, beating out gaiman's neverwhere and two, it is one of my favorite books ever.


---

ignatius parish is a man whose longtime girlfriend is raped, killed, and left near the town of gideon, new hampshire's abandoned foundry.

this causes the town to, somewhat naturally, presume that ig killed his girlfriend and he essentially becomes an outcast; untrusted, and, really, lost to his own devices. one day after a binge of drinking ig goes to the place where his girlfriend was killed, passes out, and wakes up with horns on his head.

from here things go out of control; ig realizes the horns give him the ability to have people tell him their darkest secrets, and as time goes on ig becomes more attuned to his newly gained powers. on top of this ig starts to unravel the mystery of who really killed his love and starts  the process of going after him.

i went into the novel thinking it would be a horror novel, but surprisingly it wasn't (at least to me). it had it's moments, and of course a man becoming a devil (the devil? lucifer morningstar?) is completely off the wall, but the book was heartbreaking, exciting, funny at times (although darkly), and just all out amazing.

by the end of the novel i really felt for the man who was wrongly blamed, hated the man who killed is only real love, and thought more about what really is moral. what really defines good and evil, what really defines, and drives human nature.

one of the best books i have yet to read, to me much better than hill's first novel in 2007 (heart shaped box). i loved the story, loved the way it made me think.

thank you joe hill.

---

on a related note: i read hill's new short, "twittering from the circus of the dead" (found in the new anthology, the new dead), and although the whole idea of using the 140 character twitter format was odd at first, i really, really enjoyed it. gruesome. this short was, without a doubt, a horror story.

Day 52: Breathing

she's breathing, but slow. seizers have stopped, but every few minutes she kicks her back legs feebly and her front legs grab unto my arm, leaving welts and blood streaks. these weak kicks are her last ditch efforts to stand, or she is
---

running next to me, as i run, she runs. it's not quite a race, but my six year-old mind defines it as so. whoever can reach the sign post reading candor will be the winner, and i know she'll beat me. she has every time we have run this short marathon, my breath coming is great whooping gasps, her legs kicking like some small race horse. 


the street's end is coming, she is starting to dart just a tad bit ahead and i know
---


that this is just a deathwatch. the tears are coming down my face, and i cannot stop thinking to myself that this will be the last time i am able to be with her. dieing or not, i hear her purring, purring.

weakly, but i think the purrs are a sign that she is somewhat comforted. that maybe she feels my presence in whatever state her mind is in.

i sniffle, it feels as if this watch as gone on and on, and i keep thinking
---

of birds. lizards. sometimes mice. she brings them in and my brother and i always marvel at the fact that these gifts that she brings to us are usually still living. they show signs of struggle, bite marks, sometimes scratches along their flanks. 


my mom, my dad, ronnie; they always end up shooing the weak animal out of the back sliding door, but i always marvel
---


at how long she is holding on to life. no one is sure whether or not she has sunk into some sort of coma yet, her breath is weak, and she has lain in a single position throughout the night. crying out once, but otherwise quiet.

unmoving.

just breathing.

and i keep thinking, worrying, if in the depths of her mind and body she is thirsty. hungry? i keep asking myself this and the
---

tears come, buck had just died and i am sitting outside crying. 15, and my cat had just died, but sin comes to me, sits on my lap.


purring, trying to cheer me up. trying to catch the tears as the fall from my wet face and unto
---


her fur is so matted. she hasn't been able to groom herself in weeks, not well in months. my mom is holding her, and i know these minutes are her last.

she is breathing harder now after so long of breathing so slowly, so weakly. she is trying to hold onto life. trying to stall what is inevitable. she breaths, and i see her eyes, blind now, widen impossibly

and i know, know that her
---

breathing hard, i see her jump upon the wall. carrying a bird, or a mouse, or a something in her mouth. this one isn't a gift, i know. i look at her striding across the wall, slowly, almost preening. proud, a showoff with something to show.


hunting is what she is good at, and not all her captures have to be a
---


gift to us, she was, is, a gift to us.

goodbye sin.

Day 51: Ranking Stephen King (Redux)

going to start the dark tower series reread tonight, then finish nightmares and dreamscapes, and then re-read the stand sometime this year.

1. the stand (HS)

2. the dark tower (HS)

3. the drawing of the three (HS)

4. the gunslinger (HS)

5. the wizard and the glass (HS)

6. under the dome

7. the wastelands (HS)

8. wolves of the calla (HS)

9. song of susanna (HS)

10. bag of bones

11. salem's lot

12. insomnia (HS)

13. pet sematary (HS)

14. the shining (HS)

15. just after sunset

16. blaze

17. the green mile (HS)

18. hearts in atlantis (HS)

19. the talisman (HS)

20. black house (HS)

21. it

22. different seasons (HS)

23. christine (HS)

24. the eyes of the dragon

25. cell

26. lisey's story

27. duma key

28. desperation (HS)

29. four past midnight

30. night shift

31. the dark half

32. needful things

33. the dead zone (HS)

34. gerald's game

35. the regulators (HS)

36. misery

37. the coloraldo kid

38. firestarter

39. cujo

40. rose madder

41. from a buick 8 (HS)

42. dolores claiborne

43. rage

44. roadwork

45. the longwalk

46. cycle of the warewolf

47. carrie (HS)

48. thinner

49. dreamcatcher (HS)

50. the tommyknockers

*on writing would be around #35, but it is non-fiction.

---

there are four collections on the list (five if atlantis is counted, which is shouldn't be) but here is my list of those and the res

1. just after sunset

2. everything's eventual 

3. different seasons

4.four past midnight

5. skeleton crew

5(tie). night shift

---

what i have yet to read (no novels):

1. danse macabre (non-fiction)

2. nightmares and dreamscapes (collection)

3. storm of the century (screenplay)

i am also sure there are a few short stories, a comic or two, and such randomly. most of which (or all) would be pretty much unobtainable. as well as"weeds" which was an earlier short that was posted on a men's magazine (cavalier) site... can't find the story there any longer though.

---

this year another collection of novellas is out in november, full dark, no stars.

Day 50: Pixar Concept Art (Part 4)

only up and toy story 3 today, will probably add one more post to this set, a sort of coda.

---
up











i loved up almost as much as 2008's wall e
---

toy story 3








and because it's my favorite of the new characters thus far unveiled:



...and it's a "he".

funny.

---

probably will be doing one more of these... will be a reposting of the cars 2 art i posted awhile back, along with logos for other upcoming films. then i may (later) do one of these for all the theatrical short films (so no "jack-jack attack" or "mater and the ghostlight").

'night

horns is AMAZING.

Day 49: Perry the Platypus Theme

was going to write a real blog, "root beer popsicles" but don't have the time today so i switched this blog with that one.

Day 48: Phineas and Ferb

disney's phineas and ferb is quickly becoming my favorite cartoon show ever. created by the same creators of rocko's modern life and former writers for the teenage mutant ninja turtles and the simpsons it is simply one of the most creative and innovate television shows i have recently seen, even more so when considering the last three to five years have been terrible for fresh cartoon shows.

the plot lines, the way everything comes together within 12 minutes (for the majority of episodes), to the simple and effective art style, the show is without a doubt worth both the attention and awards it has been getting. but for me, oddly, what makes the show for me is the music.

it's really, really good. funny, but memorable while not ever taking itself to serious, the songs are amazing. i may actually post a song here and there (in fact one is already posted) depending on the song, and my mood.

so, this is a short blog, but i really needed to say that i love the show. one of my favorites of all time, period.

Day 47: Horns (Post 2 of 3)

horns in out today. super excited although i am still debating whether or not i am going to opt for the kindle version or a hardcover. i have nearly all the stephen king novels, collections, and non-fiction, so in a way i want all of joe hill's.

it'll probably come down to price though, so in a bit i'll be checking out borders.

part 3 is going to be a review, also i actually titled my next ten blogs or so... at least it'll keep me focused.

---

Day 46: The Sandman (Part 1)

i finished neil gaiman's the sandman last week and i have a lot i want to "blog" about in regards to the series... BUT i am going to put it off until i read the coda volume, endless nights.

suffice to say, the series is probably my third favorite story ever, behind king's the stand and of course the dark tower series.

anyway, here is some art from the series... hopefully a full blog wednesday, but it's sort of up in the air right now.

---












---

probably will end up posting more after endless nights.

Day 45: Words of Love

i remember when i was younger, when crushes would come and go almost without notice. i would believe i was in "love" with someone but being only 5, 6, 10, 11, or 15 you really don't know what the word means. you understand infatuation, you begin to understand lust early in your teen years, but love?

love is a different beast all together.

---

my parents were not the type to say, "son, i love your mother because..." or, "chris, the thing about dad is...". really they never needed to, even through fights, quiet arguments, and the more rare walking out of a room to get away, i always knew they loved one another.

even before i knew what "love" was.

---

first time i knew i was in love i am not going to recap here, not in this post, but it's also the first time i ever said "i love you" to someone who was not directly related to me in some way. in fact,  i have only said it to three people (including this first) since.

it's not because love is out of reach, i just look at it differently.

---

i don't think many people love one another, nor do i think that you have to "be with" the person you love. i think it just happens, i think it's rare, and it is more feeling, instinct i guess, than emotion.

i also think that you never really stop loving those who you have fallen in love with. you can drag them through the mud, be dragged by them, abused, whatever, and i still think deep down the feeling of love always remains. it's odd maybe to think about love this way, but really, love is just a weird concept.

---

i really don't know where i am going with this. i love, i know i do, but i don't love easily. i am guarded, quiet, and mostly keep to myself those thoughts and emotions that i hold dear.

i think what i am trying to say, what i think love is, is understanding.

Day 44: Rules, Hearts, and Promises

hey!
you there with the glasses!
check it out,
i swear i wouldn't lie to you or anybody else!

i know that right about now,
you can't understand this song
but i bet that you will before very long

i don't need a reason
for doing the things that i do
and it isn't treason to break it up again

rules, hearts, and promises
are much to serious
i'm almost always joking
because every damn thing is made to be broken

oh, there's a man over there
in a two tone chevrolet
he's got double diaries
with entries on every page

i'm not talkin' about planned obsolescence
like the microchip inside this fucking computer
but if you analyse why i always come in second
you'd realize that i am a lousy liar

rules, hearts, and promises

are much to serious

i'm almost always joking

because every damn thing is made to be broken

i don't need a reason

for doing the things that i do

and it isn't treason to break it up again

rules, hearts, and promises

are much to serious

i'm almost always joking

because every damn thing is made to be broken

---

real blog tomorrow, i swear.

Day 43: Hate You

every morning
after yawning,
i look forward to a new beginning
something better,
i wager
take odds on something true

i swear to you
no more misunderstandings
it's good,
so true
and i still hate you

you're so exiting
like lightning
a quick flash that comes without warning
but there's a dare,
in every prayer
and some prayers just might come true

i swear to you

no more misunderstandings

it's good,

so true

and i still hate you

everybody wants to be on top

that's all right

everybody needs a little time

that's natural

everybody wants to be assured

that's human

everybody need's a little love

that's too bad

i swear to you

no more misunderstandings

it's good,

so true

and i still hate you

Day 42: Horns (Post 1 of 3)

fucking looks exactly like his father; sort of speaks the same too.

february 16th. really, really looking forward to horns.

Day 41: Little Boy, Little Girl

i once knew a little boy
i knew his name
i saw his dreams
and played all the games
that he once played

but now he stands
with his back against the wall
crying out for someone to come
save him
save him
and take him away

i once knew a little girl
i knew her days were long
i knew she was alone in the night
and i saw the light
as it went from her eyes

but now she waits
with a red light glowing by
crying out for someone to come
save her
save her
and take her away

Day 40: The Man with the Guitar

the man with the guitar sits in the corner
gently strumming a five string guitar
he plays a song about a girl he once knew
who just fell, down and down
into the cracks beneath the world

he knows his life is a memory
to all the faces in this small town bar
at the edge of town

he plays anyway singing softly
about love
life and death
heaven or hell
he sings his song and he tells no lies

he strumms and his voice is true
but the place is an echo
and the girl he once knew
is dead someplace beneath the world

he ends the song
singing, "she never knew,
never knew just what i loved,
her eyes, her breath,
the lips i'll never feel again"

and without a pause
he goes on to the favorite of this place
a song about a small town bar
at the far edge of town
where everyone knows the names
of their habits and their friends

and he thinks, remembering the girl
"maybe i'm the one one who really knows"
gently strumming a five string guitar
and singing about a small town bar at the edge of town.

---

obviously this is the third part of my "edge of town" poems, i am also starting to realize i am doing with these poems something i wanted to do with a series of shorts i attempted to write before... "perceptions".

Day 39: Untitled Short Story

i was going through e-mails and i happened upon this short story. it is dated june 2007, but i don't think that is when i wrote it. to be honest, i don't remember writing it at all. interesting either way though.

---
I. The Girl (Get Off)

       My phone rings.
      I answer, “Hello?”
      Silence.
      “Hello?” I say it again hoping for a response. Or maybe I’m not, maybe I am just wanting to hang up. “Hello?” I say it again. I don’t really know why.
      Finally a woman’s voice says, “Hi.”
      I realize I have no idea who it is one the phone. I wonder if someone saying one word is enough to recognize who is one the other side of the invisible closeness through distance.
      “Who is this?” I say.
      “Does it really matter?” She says. “Do you have to know me to talk to me?”
      This question is odd. I’ve never thought of it like that. I wonder if she has some point in her question. Maybe it’s a tele-marketer setting me up for some sales pitch. Something about how I can save on long distance by switching to AT&T.
      All of a sudden, me still not speaking, this woman, this unknown in my life, says, “I’m thinking of killing myself.”
      She says it just like that. A dread fact with no emotion in her voice.
      I still don’t know what to say, while I’m thinking she says, “I have a gun in my other hand. It’s held against my head.”
      Again no emotion. No anything. Just her stating fact.
      She sounds young I realize. I put her some where in her mid teens. Fourteen, maybe close to sixteen. Who knows.
      Either way my impression of her being a woman is taken away. She’s young.
      A girl.
      “I mean it,” she says.
      I can’t help but think, What did I do to deserve this?
      Selfish.
      “It’s really loaded. Bullets and everything.” This strikes me as funny. I don’t laugh. I just think about how young she is.
      A girl, I think again.
      “So what you’re just gonna let me kill myself on the while I’m on the phone with you?” Her voice creeps me out. It’s like she isn’t really real. Like a voice you would hear when you left your phone off the cradle for too long telling you, if you’d like to make a call please hang up and try again.
      I almost hang up at this.
      “Do you not care? Are you just gonna let me kill myself? Do you get off on that sort of thing?” This I think is the worst thing I have ever been told on the phone, and I still can’t say anything. Still can’t respond. I’m frozen.
      I think to myself again, trying not to, What did I
      
II. Why (Do I Care?)


“do to deserve this?”
      “What did you to deserve what?” She says.
      Then I realize I spoke. Said that I didn’t deserve this to a girl who wants to kill herself.
      “You didn’t do anything to deserve this.” She says in her press zero to talk to talk to an operator voice.
      “Why do you want to kill yourself?” I say this to change the subject.  To get away from the fact that I don’t care about this. I wonder if that makes me a bad person. I wonder if it makes me evil in a way.
      Silence for a while. Who knows how long. Just silence, and I think to myself whether or not she pulled the trigger. Would I have heard it?
      The BOOM!
      Ka-BOOM!
      Bang!
      Whatever sound a gun makes, and how ever you would put that sound into words. I wonder if I would have heard it.
      Finally out of the silence, and thus taking me out of my thoughts of comic gun shot word balloons, she says, “No one cares about me.” Stated as fact again. Dreadful. Unemotional.
      I think whether or not something could be dreadful but be unemotional.
      My head starts to hurt. I don’t tell her this. Don’t want to be accused again. I say, “Why do you think that?”
      “They just don’t. I’m ugly. People say I’m a bitch. My parents say I’m turning into a tramp. A tramp? A tramp? What do they still live in the eighties or something? Either way, I know they mean slut. They mean that I’m turning into a slut. I’ve had one boyfriend. He cheated on me. He fucked this other girl, a real slut. But my parents don’t look at it that way, my parents think I’m a slut.” She says this in a rush, and finally I hear something in her voice. Anger. Sadness.
      Depression?
      Maybe a hint of madness?
      “So what your parents think makes you think you should kill yourself?” I ask. I have to, I don’t know what else to say to this invisible person. This girl.
      “Yes.” Back to the operator voice. Back to the un-emotion. The non-emotion. “They don’t give a fuck.”
      Silence again and I think, why does she think I care?
      This time, thankfully, I don’t say it.


III. Gun (Where are you?)

      “They just don’t care what happens to me,” she says this again. It’s starting to sound like some sort of chant. Maybe in some odd way it is reassuring her. Giving her a reason for her cause. “They just don’t pay attention. They're never around. My mom is always just gone. Where to? Who knows? Shopping. Cheating on her husband. Something. My dad is always working. Even when he is at home, he is always working.  It's him who is the slut, always working. Always gone. No part of my life. Either of them. Unless it’s when they have to see me to call me their little slut.” 
      For some reason this strikes me. Makes me sad. I don’t know why. “I’m sure they care,” I say. It shocks me to here the sympathy in my voice.
      No, that’s not right. The sadness. After all I have a daughter of my own.
      “They don’t,” she says.  Again, like a mantra.
      I reach over to the small desk radio on my desk, turn it on, and Billy Joel’s Only The Good Die Young comes out of the radio.
      Classic rock from KLOS. It’s a Tuesday. Two-for-Tuesday. I can’t help but wonder if this is the first or second of Billy’s songs they are playing.
      As the ending chorus comes up, Joel singing, “you know that only the good die young/ onnnnnlllly the gooooood dieeeeee young”, followed by ohhs and ahhs, I hear the girl say, “Are you even listening?”
      I say yes, and I realize it isn’t a lie.
      “I need to let them know. Show them that there are more important things than work, money, whatever it is they are gone for so long to get.” She says this and this time her anger, which was once the operator voice, is tinged with a deep sorrow. A misery.
      I think then that I will never forget what the feeling of being alone sounds like. What I hear in her voice is a sense of alone-ness.
      I barely hear the DJ on the radio announce that Pearl Jam is next on this two-for-Tuesday.
      It’s at this point she says, “My dad is even here right now. Right down the hall. He won’t even know until I pull the trigger.”
      It’s at this point I wonder why she called me. Where she got my number.
      Minutes pass.
      Pearl Jam’s Alive ends, and the DJ says that Daughter is next.
      Again I’m struck with a sense of sadness.
      “Alone…Listless…Breakfast table in an otherwise empty room…Young girl vio…”
      I tune it out. Realization strikes me then, the girl, I hear her breathing. Everything in the room is magnified but nothing is clear.
      I realize that my eyes are watering as I say, “Where are you?”
      Silence.
      Breathing. 
      Silence.
      I hear Eddie Vedder’s voice as I look at a faded picture framed on my desk, “…The picture kept will remind me…”.
      I say again, this time looking in my desk drawer where I keep a lockbox that’s never locked and inside a Kimber 1911 Compact, “Where are you?”
      I take the box out.
      I know what I will see. I pray I’m wrong.
      I open it.
      Nothing.
      On the radio, Eddie Vedder’s deep, somewhat, grating voice singing, “the shades go down, the shades go…go…”
      I go. 


IV. A Slow Single Thought

      Everything is going in slow motion.
      I feel my legs moving.
      I know I’m running.
      So slow. My daughter's room is too far.
      I’ll never make it.
      I have this sense of tears on my face.
      Falling, falling.
      My mind goes to a single line of thought.
      A single sentence.
      A single dreadful sentence.
      A slow single thought.
      I’m going to kill my daughter.

V. I Love You (I Love You)

      I get to her door. It feels as if I had been running for hours, sweat is running down my face, mixing with my tears.
      I open the door.
      She is sitting there, tears running down her face.
      I see her and all I can think is, what have I done?
      She looks over at me, she is still holding the phone to her ear and the gun is pointed to her head. I know it’s loaded. After all it is my gun.
      I always thought that having an unloaded gun defeated the purpose.
      “Please.” It’s all I say. It’s all I can say.
      She continues to look at me, her tears coming harder. She starts to sob, her shoulders hunching up and down like she had hiccups. 
      She continues to looks at me when she says it, says what I couldn’t say myself, “I love you.” She says this and I watch her finger press harder on the trigger. Watch as the knuckle of her index finger turns white.
      I’m frozen. Frozen. I can’t say it back even though I think it again and again in my mind,  I love you I love I love you I LOVE YOU. My own mantra.
      Nothing comes out of my mouth.
      Her finger presses down more.
      Finally something snaps inside me, loud, deafening, like the shot of a gun, “I LOVE YOU!” I scream. I’m crying harder than I have ever cried now. “I love you.” I say it again.
      She is looking at me. She looks at me and I see a glint of distrust in her eyes. I bit of doubt.
      My heart breaks.
      She presses harder.
      Then all I hear is nothing.
      I see everything.

Day 38: The Great Job Hunt (Begins)

gonna be writing a "real" blog tomorrow, but for now... nothing.

again.

that said, i am going to start looking everywhere for a job for the rest of february.

woo for me.

Day 37: Blah

today is just one of those days... i was thinking of writing a story type thing, then decided i couldn't get a good starting point down...

so, happy rainy day...

Day 36: Long Road

Day 35: On Harry Potter

i remember the first time i even heard about "harry potter", talking to ezra about it, or rather asking him about it way back in 7th grade language arts. this was probably around the time the third novel came out, maybe a bit after.

i remember him being worried about reading them, worried that his minister father would find out that he was reading a novel about witches and wizards, about evil, and good. i remember wondering what was it with these books that he would risk some damnation from his father for. i went home one day after one of these talks, and i remember begging my mom to take me to the (then) waldenbooks at the mall to find the first novel.

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i was amazed when i got it home, started reading about the boy who lived. the books took me away to someplace that was so fantastical it was almost real, almost as if we were all living in a world where behind every brick wall there was a wizarding train, or place where wizards secretly congregated in order to protect us all from some evil villain that had a name so taboo it was almost cursed.

or maybe just behind the wall was a place where that evil lurked, waiting, biding time until someone would bring it back into true being, so it could finish what it had begun ten years before.

i blew through the first novel, the second, the third, back-to-back-to-back they took me someplace that was so far from my own little place in the world but was so accepting of me being there. so willing to let me go along for some adventure that i knew i would never even come close to experiencing in life.

i waited with some obscene, obsessive longing after i finished azkaban for "year 4". not really reading anything else, i was just stranded, lost in some summer vacation that wasn't really mine... waiting for my own vacation because i knew that was when the next book would once again take me away.

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goblet of fire did take me away again. it was the first hardcover novel that i bought on its' release day, it was the first novel i really waited for with bated breathe. what was odd after i cracked the cover for the first time was how slow i read it. i knew it would probably be years before i was taken to this world again, and i knew that if i went through it too fast i would flounder, asking myself again and again, "what is going to happen next?".

so from july until september i first myself to read the fourth novel horrendously slow just to try and speed up the wait i knew i would have to endure for book 5.

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and wait i did, but not without help.

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you see, the first four potter novels made me fall in love with reading (and story writing). i don't think i really really read anything until the first harry potter novel.

but right after i finished order i started to read other things, mostly fantasy. i started with dragonlance and realized that harry potter's world wasn't the only place i could escape to. krynn was even more of an unbelievable world, but just as fantastic. a larger cast of characters, a bigger world, sucked me in maybe more so than the allure that potter had the previous year.

like potter i read all 20 or so essential dragonlance novels pretty much in a straight run, and loved, like harry potter, each and every one.

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then 9th grade came along and i discovered the dark tower series. these were another series that i would have to wait four years to see the end to, but these are the novels that changed my life. rockie, these are my way to keep me out of my world.

the way the sai king wove all of his novels into the tower mythos is something i don't think i'll ever experience in another author, and the way it was done drove me to read everything that king wrote; but not only king, the series drove me to read everything.

if harry potter made me love to read, stephen king's dark tower (along with the stand) epic taught me to read. that may not make sense, but it's the only way that i can describe it.

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rockie, i get your compulsion, your need for the books. i don't mean to take away from that, because when i first started reading the potter books i had the need too...

but i also stand by what my last post said, i have read enough outside of potter to see that, while a great series, it is not what i will go back to time and again. it is dry to me now.

i don't mean that in a bad way (and i bought books 4-7 on release day, and loved reading them, guessing what would happen next)... because of what the dark tower means to me, and how it ended, and what it meant to me, it is the series that every other series i ever read will be held against. it spoke to me in a way the potter novels never did, it ended in a way that didn't feel like a cop out, and it defined me in ways i still can't wrap my head around.

i love harry potter really, i love how rowling explained snape probably more than any other villain has ever been explained; that everything was done for love really made me respect snape.

i owe to rowling my love for reading, but in many ways, i owe my life to the dark tower.

Day 34: An Old Harry Potter...

...post. this is one i think made rockie a little mad when i posted it, but hopefully tomorrow's "on harry potter" quasi-essay/blog/memory/story thing will sort that out. or at least make up for it a little.

anyway, this was a blog on unraveling seems and i am only posting it for my own reference down the line.
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["harry potter": july 13, 2009]

you know, the further i remove myself from the harry potter series the more i wonder why people are so hung up over it now.

in truth, i think it is that many people stopped reading outside of the modern genre defining novels in-between releases. even now, i think (twilight novels) that many have refused to move on.

they just move from one similar type of novel to the next.

i'm not saying that the hp novels are bad or anything of the sort. i actually love the series, and they were one of the defining series of what i have read thus far.

what i am trying to say, is that after reading a good amount of fantasy novels before and since, they are nothing new.

nothing particularly special.
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i read lord of the rings (finally) earlier this year, and so many of the characters in rowling's opus seem to come out of the novel. yes that issue is inherent in many, many fantasy novels, but it's too apparent with the archetype characters, the villians, everything besides hogswarts itself.

yet, even then, magical schools are nothing new to the genre (dragonlance).

i also, for whatever reason, have a gripe with deathly hollows. the 700+ concluding novel it just a tad too agsty. i don't know what it was, it was almost too much of a departure from the preceding six chapters.

plus, none of the novels seem to have any "felt" threat. you know voldemort is coming back, you know he is powerful but outside of glimpses, you never feel like anyone is in any danger. you don't feel the effects he is having outside of the uk area... if there are any.

it almost all seems simple and overblown
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again, i don't hate the potter novels. i actually, really, really, like them.

it's just that i feel there are so many books, both in the genre and out, that do more.

king's dark tower and the connections that run through the majority of his works seem like more of an achievement. not only do you feel the effects of the main characters story in his main story, but you see and feel those effects across most of king's non-series books.

martin's a song of ice and fire are better fantasy novels as well, more original, and again, you feel the threat of something wihin the novels.
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i'm glad i read the books, but i am sad that people are stuck in that series. reading is just a huge part of my life, and every book i read opens a new door. a new place for me to explore, and i think it is something that many don't feel.

Day 33: Lost

:)

tomorrow, a look at harry potter (again)... just for rockie.

Day 32: February

i was planning to do something with the blog for the month of february, but for the time being, i am going to put it on hold.

i will be doing a few more "memory" (see tags) blogs this month, which have been pretty personal. i also plan on doing a "childhood loves" set of blogs. just blogs on things i liked growing up... or crushes i had, or something. some of these will be duel blogs and fall into the "memory" category, some will be more reflective in nature. these reflective ones will be what i thought then as compared to what i think now.

i'm really curious as to how those turn out.

happy february.

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oh, as a note, there may come a time where i don't post a blog. these blogs WILL be written, but i may not post them for whatever reason... i'll keep them and post them towards the end of 2010. there WILL be 365 days of blogs, and all will be written on or close to the given day it represents... i may just hold onto them for whatever reason.