grammargirl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
grammargirl) wrote2004-02-09 12:50 am
grammargirl) wrote2004-02-09 12:50 am
Adventures in Escapism
Something I realized tonight when Aubrey and I made a Borders run after our music therapy session:
Well, okay, first some background.
I am a not-very-deeply-closeted geek. There was a time, in high school, when I was part of a role playing group. I was a huge fantasy and sci-fi fan (mostly soft, but I read my share of Asimov and Clark), and I devoured Piers Anthony books like candy until I got smart enough to realize that his books were terribly written, exclamation point happy pedophilic crap that all had the same plot. Eventually--to a certain extent in my senior year of high school, but certainly once I came to college--I started growing out of that genre. I still retained an abiding love for authors like Neil Gaiman and Neal Stephenson and of course my precious JK Rowling, but for the most part I rejected what I now thought of as literary junk food in favor of more serious, ironic, award-winning literature.
Every once in a while, though, I feel the need for some serious escapism. Not just my usual sanity-saving bedside not-school-related book to read for 10 minutes before I go to sleep each night, but something that I can just lose myself in for hours on end, something that will let me completely forget, for a little while, that things like my thesis and boystress and the looming Real World even exist.
So I retreated back into my geeky roots.
I came away from Borders' 20% student sale with Pattern Recognition, William Gibson's latest novel, and A Kiss of Shadows, Laurell K. Hamilton's first book--which, as far as I can tell, involves an L.A. PI who is in fact a faerie princess in disguise. I've never read her stuff before, but Narcissus in Chains has made two appearances on my friends page in the past week, so I thought I'd give her a whirl.
Anyway, I feel very geeky right now. And a little dirty. You know, in that good way.
Well, okay, first some background.
I am a not-very-deeply-closeted geek. There was a time, in high school, when I was part of a role playing group. I was a huge fantasy and sci-fi fan (mostly soft, but I read my share of Asimov and Clark), and I devoured Piers Anthony books like candy until I got smart enough to realize that his books were terribly written, exclamation point happy pedophilic crap that all had the same plot. Eventually--to a certain extent in my senior year of high school, but certainly once I came to college--I started growing out of that genre. I still retained an abiding love for authors like Neil Gaiman and Neal Stephenson and of course my precious JK Rowling, but for the most part I rejected what I now thought of as literary junk food in favor of more serious, ironic, award-winning literature.
Every once in a while, though, I feel the need for some serious escapism. Not just my usual sanity-saving bedside not-school-related book to read for 10 minutes before I go to sleep each night, but something that I can just lose myself in for hours on end, something that will let me completely forget, for a little while, that things like my thesis and boystress and the looming Real World even exist.
So I retreated back into my geeky roots.
I came away from Borders' 20% student sale with Pattern Recognition, William Gibson's latest novel, and A Kiss of Shadows, Laurell K. Hamilton's first book--which, as far as I can tell, involves an L.A. PI who is in fact a faerie princess in disguise. I've never read her stuff before, but Narcissus in Chains has made two appearances on my friends page in the past week, so I thought I'd give her a whirl.
Anyway, I feel very geeky right now. And a little dirty. You know, in that good way.
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