...the best books

i've read a lot of really good books. i've enjoyed a whole ton of books that weren't even all that good. and i've figured out why some books are just superior. why some books stand above the rest. why i'd read some of them over and over again... at least i've figured it out for me. but i can tell you what it comes down to.
it's pretty much about the characters really.
and the questions that they make me ask about myself, and the things that i'm inspired to want for myself and for the people i love, and the dreams they make me dream.
could i do what that character did?...that's who i want to be...that's what i want to do...that is the kind of person i hope i am...that is something i didn't know enough to believe in, to hope for, to try to find in my own life - but now i will, now i do...
i'm just stupid enough (in a good way?) to compare myself to the characters in the books that i end up loving the best. usually it's the heroes. sometimes it's the supporting cast, someone who is just solid, or loyal or has a big heart... someone who's strengths i just appreciate.
you might think it's a set up to failure, but it doesn't feel that way. i have a big imagination and maybe it's big enough to make characters real to me. and maybe it's where i find my examples of what the best of us can become. so maybe it's inspiration. i have been inspired to be a better person by characters in books. if i read fiction on this level all the time...might be i could sustain that kinda reaching and striving.
maybe i'm not that hero from that book, but reaching brings me closer. and striving extends the horizon. and hope is sort of a reason or a place or a feeling of something or somewhere better or more... you can survive without it, but you can't live.


don't i sound fuckin poetic.

btw. i'm reading a pretty special book right now - "Dream Wheels" by Richard Wagamese. (also wrote "Keeper 'N Me" - also brilliant and beautiful and amazing...)

phew...this week...kinda been through the fires...

whatever that means.
things have just been kinda tough this week. more new developments in the whole anxiety disorder thing. but not really in the treatment thereof.
awhile ago i mentioned that i often struggle with "scaries" (moments of acute panic/fear/trauma that have no relationship to what i am experiencing in that moment of my life.) these events just seem to happen out of thin air. and knowing that i have no reason to panic or freak out, i can pretty much avoid any outside manifestation of my inner trauma/turmoil. like i said before - i've probably had a 'scary' while we've been talking and there was no way for you to know - until this week maybe. i'm not sure if anyone noticed but i've some particularly awful attacks this week that have so completely whited out my brain that i've really struggled to maintain my composure, and i'm not entirely sure i succeeded all the time. on top of that, i basically spent a couple days on a 'scary' adrenaline trip...where i existed in a state of scared that sometimes spiked into panic, and occasionally dropped into worried.
it's taken a lot out of me. and my emotions are still feeling pretty raw.
have you ever gotten so high or so drunk that you woke up the next day and you were still high or drunk but in a really bad way? it's a little like that, or maybe like having to experience emotions physically, or like a constant pain. knowing you have a migraine doesn't help you to not feel the migraine.
it's funny how much easier it is to talk about this in a blog but i can't really talk about it when it's happening or face to face. i honestly don't know why. i'm not shy. i can't even tell people closest to me if it's happening. even with sarah i only end up telling her after it happens if i need her to go easy on me. cuz i kinda can't tell her. too large...too scary...too much...too something...

tgif.

i've talked to nurse at the medical clinic who will get some face time with my doc and try to set me up to see someone and hopefully i'll hear back today.

...what else has been happening though...
...raptors are playing some awesome basketball, now first in their division, in a these-guys-are-good-guys-and-they-deserve-it kinda way that makes it even more enjoyable.
...going to visit the grandparents, and my mom, and everyone else in cambridge this weekend - it's my mom's birthday.
...i dunno...not much to tell...i'm kind of in a state of amber alert, wondering/worrying about more panic attacks or something so i've been taking things easy and keeping a low profile...

oh yeah - greene king abbot ale is really really good. (i find the discovery of a new good beer to be newsworthy...)