the in-between

I'm reading Tender is the Night (for the first time, actually) by Fitzgerald.  And, while I'm only a few chapters shy of the first book - there are 3 - I'm in love with it.  I love Fitzgerald's characters... and this is probably because I love celebrities.  F. Scott was a total rockstar back in the day and he writes about celebs so well.  I think Rosemary is so effin cute.  She reminds me of a Disney starlet (a la Miley Cyrus?) that is trying to break free of her good girl role and dive into depths yet uncharted in her world - coincidentally with one Mr. Diver.  I love how easily she falls in love and becomes enamored with things.  I suppose she reminds me of myself in that respect - I easily fall in love with things (things, not people... well, in a way I do fall in love with people too, I think, but not in a romantic sense necessarily).

There is one passage that I read last night, that I skimmed over again today, that stuck with me.  

Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy - one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.

I think that's what a lot of people tend to do.  Get so caught up in future plans that they don't pay attention to what is happening in the in-between and then later look back on that time and romanticize it.  I do this, I know.  The most fun times can be when you are waiting for your plans to actualize, not the actualization of the plans.  And some of my favorite "alive moments" (as I call them) are when I'm actually mentally/emotionally present and enjoying the in-between.

I don't know if this even makes sense.  I use far too many dashes I'm sure.  I'm also reading a book called Possession which is littered with letters of fictional Victorian poets that use so many dashes and I think it has stuck with me.  And for the record, while it's a very very dense read, I'm greatly enjoying Possession as well... it's just a slow-going venture for me, as it's a very British novel and there is so much poetry and prose and so many letters that interrupt the story.  But it is really genius.  I can't even imagine how long it took A.S. Byatt to write.  

Ugh... all I do is talk about books all day and here I am spending my free time blogging about them.  I'm going to rest a while before I go to hot yoga tonight.

xx