Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I have a dream every few months in which I’m sitting in an airplane. The plane always has an unusual seating configuration, not always identical, but it is wide across, and only a few rows, in a full sized plane. After we take off, there’s always trouble, from flight gear problems to full fledged crash. What on earth does that mean?

Last night I was in a plane that had maybe 10-15 people sitting across, but only about 10 rows. It was mostly empty. I was happy because I was in a bulkhead row, so I had a ton of leg room. I stuck my bag under the seat caddy corner to the left of me. The flight attendant then came on and said she needed to add a row, so she swung one into position right in front of me. We took off and developed engine trouble right after – had to land immediately. I wondered if I had accidentally left my cell phone on and caused the issue. Resolved to turn it off as subtly as possible so that nobody would arrest me.

I wasn’t really surprised when it happened. After all, I’d been having the dreams for years. A slow drift up, a kicking off, and I was afloat. Like air was water. Like I was on the moon.

Most people, when they have flying dreams, imagine themselves zipping high through the air, looking down at the ant-like specks of people below. Zooming, like a jet. Targeted. Ballistic. Not me. I dream-fly in lazy, languid arcs, a casual flick off whatever stationary object is nearby used to change my trajectory. More a low-gravity leap than flight, really.

And so the day after the night of a week’s culmination of insomniac tossings and turnings in bed, my consciousness itself was drifting in one of those lazy arcs. I felt caught between the tasks of the day and the siren song of the snippet of dream from the night before (or was it two nights ago?) – I was arm in arm with a friend, and we were skipping in long, powerful leaps across the — oops?

As I daydreamed, I tripped. As I tripped, my dream memory took over and I instinctively leapt. As I leapt, I stayed afloat in the air, wide eyed, afraid to look down in fear that I would encounter Wile E. Coyote Syndrome and reality would come, literally, crashing around my ears.

I extended a leg. Pointed it earthwards. Came drifting gracefully, if a bit wobbly, down. Looked around. Nobody notices anything in this damned city. I’m undetected for now.

So now what? I can float through the air. What sort of heroic incredible power is that? What am I supposed to use it for? I mean, something like this, I should be wearing a cape and have a fancy pseudonym and join a consortium of similarly-enhanced individuals, right? Because to be honest, all I want to do is go out on a moonlit night to the park and jump, and jump, and jump.

What’s this all about? Visit My Super First Day to find out.

The problem with finding a good book is that, when it’s over, I go through a sort of grieving process. For the characters and the story. I miss them and wonder how they’re doing. And I want to have another experience like that again, where I get so incredibly involved in someone else’s world for a while, but the prospect of kissing frogs while searching for a prince is just so daunting that I have grown ever more hesitant to pick up another book. So the more books I’ve read that I love, contrarily, the less likely I am to take a chance on another book. An overall trend, perhaps, of wanting to stay comfortable in my own little zone?

What’s got me all angsty, you might wonder? I just finished The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and even though I knew I was hastening it towards its end, I couldn’t put it down. Instead of getting out of bed this morning and brushing my teeth, I picked up my book and carried on from where I left off last night when I fell asleep reading. For a girl who grew up reading and re-reading Jane Eyre, it was absolutely wonderful.

But.

To get there, my previous two books were The Road by Cormac McCarthy (supposed to be incredibly powerful and moving; I found it pointless) and Within the Shadows by Brandon Massey (puerile).

I feel like my time is too valuable to waste on crappy books, but who am I punishing by going on strike? I need a royal book tester, is what I need. I had high hopes for Goodreads.com, but their search engines are really… sub par. Every “Best Of” list has at least one Twilight book on it. Honestly, guys? And I dunno, my tastes run maybe not 90 degrees, but some discernible difference from the pack. The Historian only has 3.5 stars on Amazon, but I think it’s the best thing I’ve read in years.

Sigh. I dunno. I’m gonna try some Agatha Christie next, I think.