the first think that needs to be discussed today is a wonderful person that needs to be thanked.  she is a delight and about as thoughtful as you can be.  (no, miss ego, this is not about you, this time).  in fact she managed to provide to me the only real surprise i received this christmas.  Not that the gifts i got weren't great, but they weren't much of a surprise.
   this wonderful person, michelle, is a online friend who i have never actually met. about a year ago we were talking about books that we had liked as children and i mentioned that my favourite book of my childhood was, 'the great brain.'  in fact, only a few weeks before i had been searching to buy the book but had not had any luck.  well, for christmas i sent her a card but when she got it she said back to me that she had sent me a surprise.
   A surprise!!!  we like surprises.  so i patiently awaited my christmas surprise, not, however, with as much quiet unassuming patience as my friend. it didn't arrive in 2 days, or 3, or any amount before christmas.  In fact it didn't actually arrive until the 30th of Dec (i found out that she was not aware that mail within the same province never travels with teh same speed as it can from provinces farther away. i think that this actually has something to do with the mail seeming more exotic.  anyway, in the package was a copy of the great brain that she had found.  it almost blew me off my chair.  so very cool. thank you michelle.  i read it yesterday.

   does this ever happen to you?

Not so very long ago i bought the book, The Wooden Sea, by Jonathon Carroll, my reasons for buying it were complicated and slightly strange but as it turned out it was a very good choice.  Everything about the book spoke to me on many levels and i found myself completely in awe.  I loved that book to death.  So much so that i immediately wet out to buy more books buy him.  Only there weren't any available.  It seems that he is not as popular as he should be.  Which, i guess, considering how much i like him, shouldn't be all that surprising.
   So after a little while i broke down and ordered some online from chapters.  it probably helped that they were having a free delivery sale. There was such excitement after i read the first that i was still so very excited when i ordered the others.  I was still quite excited when they arrived but since i was reading another book i was not able to pick one of them up right away.  Then i noticed that i had read another book instead of one of the two carroll's, and then another.
   It was almost as if i was approaching them with some sort of a sense of trepidation.  As if fearing the disappointment of not liking the next book as much as the first.  Or maybe the feeling of intense pleasure upon reading the first was merely situational or mood based and as such would i might not achieve it again. So i found myself putting off reading them.  I wonder if there have ever been poeple who have only tried heroin once because the thought of knowing that you would never be able experience that same pleasure again is too much to bear.  Crushing.  At least i have the consolation that i was unaware of any of this as i was avoiding the books. i was just avoiding them.  I always seemed to be able to find another book i wanted to read more.
   Then yesterday i was on my way out of the house late on my way to work when i realized i didn't have a book to read.  I just grabbed the first i saw on the top of the stack.  It was The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathon Carroll.  Of course i started to read it on the bus.  7 pages in, i stopped and stared at the page. i was awash in a pleasurable warmth.  i was already in love with this book as well.  i considered myself quite silly and am reading again.
   fear's dumb. don't have it.