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Sunday, January 09, 2005
book infatuation
(quick note: I updated the 1001 Days journal tonight as well. I won't note this here every time I do that; that site now has its own notify list; feel free to use it. Also, the link will continue to be in the blogroll on this site.)
This afternoon we went to the valley to pick up a few things, and on our way out of town we stopped by the library and I picked up the books they had waiting for me on hold. I couldn't start reading right away because I was the one driving on the way to the valley, but once we were down there T drove, and in the fifteen or so blocks between the hobby store and Wal-Mart, I discovered that I was in love with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I was reading sections out loud to T and I had a silly grin on my face and I had that twittery feeling like you get when you first start to think that maybe the person you like likes you back and you don't want to hope that you're embarking on something wonderful, so you tell yourself to expect disappointment, but under the surface you know you're totally lost and if this ship sinks you'll go down with it. (I did say that I have books instead of friends. Maybe I have books instead of affairs too.) Maybe I was just really ready to enjoy a book, I dunno. The narrator of this story is an autistic teenaged boy, and the first three pages (the first three paragraphs, really) immersed me in his world completely. I read in the car until it got too dark. I'd have done the trick where I hold the book up in the light of the headlights from the car behind us, like I used to do when I was little, but I wanted to save a little of the enjoyment for later. It couldn't last, though; as soon as the kids were in bed I just dived in, and I didn't come up until I finished the book a little after midnight. READ THIS BOOK. THIS MEANS YOU. The story is interesting, but it's the telling of it that sucked me in, and the insights into the mind of an autistic person are worth the read all by themselves. Having a son with a mild neurological disorder (Tourette Syndrome, for those of you who joined us recently; TS and autism are in the same "spectrum" of disorders), I saw several things I recognized. And not all having to do with LT; the protagonist (ahem) sees the text of a conversation in his head just like somebody else I know who may or may not be named Rachel (and also Kat!).
On the way home from the valley the twilight sky directly above us was clear (hadn't seen blue sky or stars in days) but there was a literally awesome bank of clouds built up against the mountains, and as we drove toward and then under them, there was an enormous thunderstorm going on. I think that will be one of those drives I remember when I'm eighty.
