I just finished reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham. It's a tricky beast to pin down and I still don't know what I think about it. For once, I loved, truely loved "Stream-of-Consciousness" writing in a commercial literary offering...usually novel-length SOC enterprises bring me to tears of boredom or embarassment for the author.

The characters lived vividly on the page...moreso than most books and stories I've read recently. While somewhat simplistic, the metaphors drawn throughout the work are spare and affecting; Cunningham uses just enough imagery to make the epiphanies believable, a quality most easily identified by the fact I missed one or two in my zealousness to read quickly.

As far as how I felt afterwards: hollow, hopeful. The book portrays humans as beings with qualities of beasts and robots, afflicted with a soul that doesn't come with explanations or instructions. We are special creatures, but mainly for our abilitiy to be tragic and hopeful (or to experience such feelings and thoughts and themes). While a complex and, consequently, authoritative-seeming picture of humans is painted, I have a feeling that human nature lies elsewhere. Thus, I found myself having blasphemous thoughts such as "This is a dangerous book...who will get their hands on this and not understand completely and kill themselves?...what if this book brings dispair and not hope?"--all the same lines that I despise from others.

Silly thinking aside, I'm learning to trust readers, not just of my work, but especially of others' work, especially of powerful, dynamic books such as The Hours.

Just bought The Hours in order to read it before Justin and I see the movie. I'll let you know how it is.

Cold

The temperature is steadily dropping in Orlando, FL and people around here have been speaking about the freeze as if a high profile celebrity was coming to town. When I arrived at work, the weather surrounding Winter Park, FL was a beautiful 65 degrees, crisp and even a little bit hot if you sat under the right amount of sunlight. More T-shirts and jeans than cashmere and merino. Soon, shoppers were popping into Restoration Hardware, hugging themselves and running into the warm recesses of our lighting room, which, with its 80+ incandescent light bulbs, must simulate the face of the sun.

"I hear that it's already frozen up in north Florida at least once," one customer says.

"It did in Ocala," I reply.

"It's coming down here pretty quickly. I hear that it'll be 26 degrees tonight," a man offers.

"I saw snow on the TV for Atlanta," the man's wife says.

"Yeah, my cousin called me from Atlanta this morning. She says that there was snow on the ground," I say while handing a bag to a customer in front of me.

"Oh," the customer says disinterestedly, holding her bag close and turning around to leave.

"I'll bet, I'll bet," the man says, "well, it's coming to town. That kind of cold is coming."

"This is warm for me," a woman says to me, placing a candle on the cashwrap for me to ring up, "I'm from Albany."

"What're you doing, bringing this down with you?" I say, service-y smile intact. The other shoppers laugh politely.

The woman explodes into giggles. "Yes, yes, yes! I'm so sorry. Really." More giggles. The other shoppers suddenly look as if they have indigestion. After a moment, the woman shopper gains her composure, checks to see if I'm still listening (I am, but I'm putting the candle in her bag), and continues. "But I'm sure that it'll be even colder in Albany, you can count on that!" She seems content in her moral victory.

With the descent of the sun, the heavy coats start appearing--fur, trench, denim, calf-length wool...only in Winter Park would everyone be so stylishly prepared for thirty degree weather. I started to regret ignoring my mother's advice to wear a coat rather than a sweater on each trip to our backroom, located outside and under the parking garage.

But the cold makes me feel alive. Hyper-alive. I love the whip of a heavy, chilling wind across my bare neck. Without a coat, there's nothing that I can do about it. I am drained of plenty of surface heat, but my core of warmth remains intact. It's a wonderful feeling. It makes me smile when no one is watching.

And I suddenly feel very secure. Amidst the chill and the numb fingers, my heart radiates with a certain security--security in love, security in friendship, security in being, security in thought. The events of the last week play across in my mind--where I once had concern, I have understanding. Where I once had mistrust, I have sheepish repentance. Where I once had worry, I have giddy excitement for the future. With the reddening of my cheeks, I have love, in specifics and generalities.

While those up north may laugh at my naievete, I love the cold.

I recieved a very heartfelt and encouraging letter yesterday from my ex-girlfriend. I had been dreading her finding out that I was gay because of all the baggage that could put on a romantic interest, mainly, "Did I make him gay?" Although the answer to that question is a resounding, "No! Of course not," I was worried because I knew she would hear about everything second hand and you really can't control that kind of thing.

I had nothing to worry about.

While the content of the letter is private, I can say that she sent some encouraging words of rekindling our friendship, support and consolation over my decision to come out and the hurt of being in the closet, and a resounding sense that she understood completely that she had no hand in my being gay. She then ended the letter by bringing up a piece of advice that I had given her (I had forgotten about the encounter) and that had led her through so many trials...I had said that it really shows the character of somone when they do something good or loving even though it isn't convenient or when the effort seems too great. Her encouragement brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my face. I love it when I get a good surprise.

Now that my stint in retail is coming to an end, I'm feeling the synapses in my brain fire again...this is not coincidental. For the first time in awhile, I actually sat down and read...for more than a few minutes. Over a large cup of Stardust coffee (on Winter Park Rd., near Corrine...for those Orlando natives), I devoured the first third of Raymond Carver's "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?", a short story compilation with an old favorite, Neighbors, and new favorites of mine, They're Not Your Husband and The Idea. While the Carver formula becomes apparent--seemingly simple first names spelled just a little bit differently, some infidelity (either real or imagined), and wind, lots and lots of wind--not too many people can do more with less words.

As for other moments that jumpstarted my brain (much to the rejoicing, I'll bet, of my longsuffering Justin, who's had to hear me say things lately like, "She's got herself two children" or "They is good at that which they do"):

- a visit to Prof. Schlow of UCF days fame. The last time I spoke with him, he encouraged me in my writing and then chastized me for not coming out to my parents yet. "They'll love you just the same," he said, "You just need to give them a chance." What can I say? He was right. I thought it was about time to let him know (and catch him up on my writing progress). He's currently teaching "Cinema Survey" to undergrads, so I stopped by and asked if I could audit for the evening. He smiled and loudly announced that he had a heckler. We watched "The Witness" and discussed Set design. "Discussed" may be a strong word. Let's just say that he spoke, I took notes, and the undergrads alternated falling asleep, throwing things, slurping on cola, or talking to each other. I'm not even paying for the class. =) He says I'm free to sit in and catch a flick any Wednesday. Pretty cool!

-A bit more in "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo. This guy's great with the whole sprawling aspect of novels. He's also pretty good at characters, quirky and otherwise. It's just some of the quirks are very strange--i.e. a young girl named "Tick". Hmmmmm...life is full of choices, why was that one made?

I capped off the evening with a few stolen moments at Florida Hospital with Justin. The stuff he has to do as a nurse makes my head spin. I took a few moments to read his book on assessing strokes and I met words I've never even thought could be strung together from the current collection of root words, suffixes, and prefixes...but, nonetheless, I bet he could rattle off definitions at will. Amazing. Cute too.

We then ate some rather blase Chicken Teriaki. Yet, somehow, this doesn't dampen my enthusiasm about today. =)