would you want me when I'm Not Myself?

Oh, man, what a week I've had.

I spent this week fighting a cold, which would be bad enough, except that I also spent the last three days at a conference in a hotel. Its one thing to battle illness in a business setting like an office. Its another thing entirely to spend virtually your every waking minute in a coporate environment while simultaneously feeling like your head has become so filled with sickly fluids that its simply going to topple off your shoulders.

I make it sound worse than it was. By Wednesday I was definitely on the mend, and although I was still afflicted with a runny nose and cough my persistent headache had finally mercifully passed. And although the 8 hours a day of en masse training got a little grueling at parts, there were also some good moments. It was nice to do some networking across the company, nice to meet different people from different offices at the same stage of their career. It was nice not to have to wear a suit every day (let's hear it for business casual.) It was nice to finally go out drinking at night with my training class, something we had miraculously avoided until now. And I learned some things in training that I just hadn't gleaned from the reading and might never have understood if I hadn't been forced to really work with the concepts actively.

Still, I'm not going to lie, it was quite a relief to get back to my apartment last night and just flop. Shut my brain off, turn on the television, and be by myself for a while. It was also nice to let the corporate mask drop again. I don't notice it in my daily routine, but when I'm forced to be that normal for more than a day at a time, it starts to weigh heavily on me and I find myself in a very weird place mentally and emotionally. I like my dorky hobbies and my friends outside of work, and I need to indulge in them every now and again, and that's a good thing. I think.

Today is mostly catch-up, answering missed e-mails and organizing all the tons of material I brought back from the training here at my desk. A lot of the folks who came in from out of town took today off in order to stay in town for the baseball game last night, or even for the weekend. My whole training class is definitely envying them, as I don't think any of us are particularly feeling work today. The conference wasn't that bad, it was just... draining. If I can just make it to the end of the day, it'll be the weekend, and I can really cut loose.

On a completely unrelated note... about this Green Day song. If you are a friend of mine, I would like to warn you that I will not, in fact, be the one waking you up when September ends. I like that song and all, but due to its release date, I was sort of over it before September even began. And now it just keeps cropping up everywhere, and its starting to make me twitchy.

photographs and brightly colored paper

I've started reading Eragon, partly because Eldest is out now, and I feel compelled to find out whether or not I actually have any interest in the series. There are definitely bits of this book that feel like they were written by a teenager, which is unsurprising given that the author started it when he was 15 and published it when he was 17. Some of the dialogue, particularly the expository stuff, is inarguably wooden. And yet I find myself oddly drawn in and compelled to read on.

I say "oddly" because, as sleetfall will happily confirm, I'm not actually a big fantasy guy. Oh, sure, there are certain sub-genres, particularly those influenced by Asia, that I get fired up about. But aside for a sort of grudging respect for the Tolkien oeuvre (although I agree with theferrett that, from a certain point of view, they're bad books) I'm not actually one to get into long fantasy series. Science fiction will call me like a moth to a flame. But fantasy, well. The first time I have to read a blow-by-blow description of any sort of hand-to-hand combat, or find the story put on hold so that the author can serve up 50 pages (or more!) of "necessary" history regarding his mythic lands, or worse still find a character I had come to enjoy abandoned utterly in favor of completely new people 300 pages into a 500 page book, with the tacit understanding that he'll probably show up again, down the line, a book or so from now... I admit it, part of me tends to just give up. Maybe its a short attention span. My mind wanders.

I want to think its more than that. I enjoy the fantasy genre; I love a good fantasy movie (which comes along rarely, in my opinion), or television series (which is so rare it might just be mythical or imaginary.) And as I said, I'll often find myself reading long science fiction series without batting an eyelash. I get involved, and my interest is held. And its not like I don't read anything under the general heading of "fantasy" that's long-form. So-called "modern" fantasy? No problem. Graphic novels? Check. Harry Potter? Try and stop me. Sure, I might re-read extensively, but I tend to do that anyway, and if I find myself using it to refresh the salient details of a complex tale, all the better. But I don't know, most "classic" high fantasy just escapes me.

But I'm going to keep plugging away at Eragon. For the moment its got my attention, and I might even end up liking it.