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In which I adroitly avoid writing an actual entry

I am currently so tired that if I were to simply shut my eyes for longer than it takes to blink right now, my brain would simply shut down and I would wake up on the floor, passed out in an untidy sprawl and drooling on the carpet about three hours later.

I dislike work right now. Not because it is, in itself evil, but because it requires me to get up at 5:30 am, which should be a violation of some UN human-rights directive. Sadly, the red cross has not come to my aid yet, and I have little hope of being so rescued from my inexorable routine of get up, feel awful, go to work, feel tired, go home, feel tired, go to bed too late, sleep, repeat. 

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Have started a new English class, Fundamentals of Fiction, which purports to teach the basics behind writing fiction and getting it published. Bill's idea, as usual. Not sure how I am going to enjoy it yet. It is a very late class, and there is a lot of reading involved in the assignments, but the teacher has yet to mention auras or past-life experiences, which makes him an improvement over my last teacher, who so closely fit the stereotype of the fluffy fruit-cake Liberal Arts teacher that it was almost funny. Almost, but not quite, because when you have come to learn about poetry, it is frustrating to be told that you should get in touch with the poetic forms with which you have had positive experiences in your past lives. It's like telling me to fix my car by imagining a purple light shining on the transmission. I came for technical instruction and I got a lot of popular psychology and new-age nonsense. 

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Finished the first book of the Dark Tower series by Steven King today, and now feel informed enough to draw two conclusions about the author: 

1. He is male

2. He is one odd duck

Very weird fantasy/sci-fi/horror story. The end of the book explained pretty much nothing about all the questions it posed, or at least if it did I didn't notice. The thing I liked best was the main character's manner of speech, which was a strange but not unpleasant mix of archaisms and Old West lingo. I don't think I'll be reading the next book, however, as this one was not nearly as enjoyable as it was puzzling and sad.

Also, I would like to point out that whatever else he is, Steven King is almost certainly male. Halfway through the book the main character has already run into two females (one human the other some kind of oracular being that is not really explained) who have information he needs and are willing to trade it for sex. Both of them are apparently both horny and desperate, and this irritates me as in my (admittedly limited) experience, it is far more often the members of the male gender who are horny and desperate. I think perhaps Mr. King is taking the term "fantasy" a little too seriously. Then again, he may have been trying to illustrate some great point or theme and I just missed it. If that's the case, I really don't care because I dislike stories that are not stories but just coded out statements of themes. I am fine with themes, as long as they grow out of the story itself, but they annoy me when they take over and start putting their feet up on the furniture without taking off their shoes. Once a book is more theme than story, the story makes no sense on its own without knowing the theme, and that is bad.

So to make myself feel better, I have retreated to read Tolkien, who agreed with me about the themes thing, and whose narrative is like soothing balm for the rash my brain has got from trying to make some sort of sense out of the Dark Tower. 

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Do not actually feel like writing much else. I am tired, I disliked the Dark Tower and I like Lord of the Rings. That's about all I have to say right now. Instead, I am going to give my faithful readers (all five of you) a little homework:

First read this short work of fiction that I wrote for class.

Then, answer the following questions as far as you are able for me. Obviously the piece is intentionally vague, but I want to know what your impressions are.

1. Who are the characters? I specifically desire to know what gender you assign to each character, but also wish to know any other impressions you have of them.

2. What is their relationship to one another?

3. What was their argument about? 

Any other random impressions you make are welcome as well. My class is reading this over the weekend and Tuesday I get about 25 copies of it back with annotations from everyone. But I won't have the chance to specifically ask them these things, and I am curious. I made the scenario very vague because I liked the idea that the two people in it could be anyone, really, but I want to see if everyone draws the same conclusions about it as I do or if they all come up with different ones. 

So e-mail me your answers and anything else you have to say about the story, and maybe I'll include them all in a future entry. I promise to include at least my own interpretation and various explanations in another entry after I've received enough responses to make me happy.

Anyway, like I said I don't really feel like writing about much of anything else, so this is goodnight until next time.