13 JUne 2002 - 5:12 p.m.

I have a bit of time to kill since neither Gusnor his roommate are back from thier respective highly-structured days, and therefore I am not engaged in my barely-structured routine of making diinner for them. I came back to my place to change clothes since Gus and I are going to see Singin' in the Rain tonight, and I have to get dressed up because Morgan Fairchild is playing Lena Lamont, and I consequently need to look good.

Okay, that's not true. There is absolutely no need for me to look good simply due to the fact that Morgan Fairchild is playing Lena Lamont. I am just trying to keep things interesting, because people seem to be taking me off thier favorites list left and right.

Something tells me that Morgan Fairchild is not really the way to keep people reading. Hrrmph.

But for anyone who still cares what I do with my days, the answer is read. I started off with the first ten chapters of Lolita, mainly because it's here, and then took off to the library to read all of Private Lives, because I was hoping that a good dose of snappy, clever Noel Coward would inspire me to be snappy and clever in my own writing. Perhaps tomorrow.

I've been reading kind of compulsively, and only really good books - I finished The World According to Garp yesterday, and I plan to give Mrs. Dalloway another go when I am finished with M. Humbert - because I am trying to pad my perception with good writing until I can come up wiht some of my own. I'm not sure it's working.

I feel like I'm forever straddling the line between too much and too little. After a full fortnight (sorry, Nabokov and Coward in the same day will do that to you) of trying to work out the setting of chapter two of my novel, I finally came up with a list of lies, decption, intrigue and humor to fill 10 more pages or so, but have yet to formulate the proper reversal with which to end the chapter. And once I've done that, I'll have to begin the process again, and again, and again.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but it is really hard to try and be entertaining. It's particularly difficult to be entertaining without being sensational. and that's where I get into a panic. I want to examine things, not just weave a tight plot. I want to be subtle, but not boring. I know the only way to do this is to, you know, discipline my ass into working for a few hours, but it's scary. I feel like I'm devouring good books just to remind myself that I wouldn't be writing in vain, that good books are at least possible.

Okay, one more morbid sigh, and it's into a pretty dress and SitR, the one possible thing that can lift me out of my morose mood.

*SIGH*

That's better. Even though big people have little humor, and little people have no humor at all, and I am, funnily enough, quite a little person.

What I'm wearing:

What I'm reading:

What I'm doing after this: