Fear and loathing and the American Dream

Hannah says that when I don't update, she thinks about calling the emergency services. That amuses me slightly and makes me wonder about expanding on fire, police, ambulance, coastguard, mountain/cave rescue, etc., etc., to include Non-Appearance On LJ. I don't mock First Post Private - far from it - and would go so far as to say LJ can serve as a valuable public service.

I started today with a driving lesson. It wasn't as bad as usual - actually, it was. My driving instructor is a nice guy and does not shout even when I drive into things, but he does say I think too much to drive well. Apparently people who think struggle, because "you're always wondering about what could happen and what terrible accident might be round the next corner and that's why you drive like you're drunk."

Which I do. That is not slander.

So after that, I spent most of the day reading Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. After the death of Hunter S. Thompson, I decided I really ought to read it, and filled in a formal library request. I've always suggesting books, but Mrs Barry says as long as I don't write them down she'll never remember. Because I have a ridiculous sense of humour, my suggestion slips are comically detailed - down to ISBN and publication date - but usually get accepted. The book arrived last week and I hadn't had time to read it until now.

I love it. I can't articulate exactly why, but it's something to do with the corrosive, hedonistic use of language, the descriptive madness, and the sheer self-destructive exuberance of the world it portrays. It's crazy and drug-addled and crazy again, and I'm loving it.

I still haven't finished it - about two thirds of the way through, now - but I was reading it on my way into Liverpool this afternoon, and put it down on my lap as I had a sudden and welcome revelation. As most people know, I am a card-carrying Philistine. I don't like English Literature, and the idea of my doing it for A-level seemed like hell on earth (I adore combined lang/lit, but that's another story). I don't get Dickens or Shakespeare (actually, I do like Shakespeare, but that's different) nor George Elliot, and I hate Jane Austen with the fire of a thousand suns. (Really. I hate Pride and Prejudice as much as most people love it.)

But as I was sitting on the train and thinking, I realised one or two things. I like On The Road and all that beat stuff, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird and the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, I thoroughly enjoyed Death of a Salesman and the political undertones beneath The Crucible. Judging from what I've read today, I'm going to like Hunter S. Thompson, too.

In conclusion - I don't like English literature. I like American literature. I'll read anything with "the American Dream" in the blurb, but always in the negative - Fear And Loathing is described as "a savage journey to the heart of the American Dream", and Death of a Salesman has much the same theme. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but at least I'm not as much of a literary vacuum as I thought.

While I was having all these thoughts, I was becoming increasingly aware of the sunshine. In the last two days, the temperature has leapt eight degrees and there are daffodils and cherry blossom about. Even the railway line through the docks looked curiously washed and clean by sunlight, and by the time I reached Central I was carrying my coat over one arm and wondering vaguely where winter went.

To me, it feels like study leave. Those long hot days where the sun hurts your eyes and the books on the table glare at you in their own special inanimate way, the way the daffodils are superimposed on a background of sweltering examination halls and the weeks that stretch out afterwards, sunlit but aimless.

That is me. To Hannah, who seems to suffer from some form of SAD, the sunlight and spring are an excuse to skip with happiness. And some of that happiness is definitely contagious. We didn't skip, but we went happily around the city, shopping. I got a rainbow belt to go with those jeans I got in London (they keep falling off me, which is embarrassing) from the Bead Shop in Whitechapel, and Hannah bought shoes. While we were in that general area, we also got a fantastic birthday present for balthaser, but I suspect we both just wanted an excuse to buy it.

And after that, we went up to Starbucks on Bold Street and sat on one of the chessboard tables between the ground and first floors, looking out through the glass at the street outside (I forget what it's called, but it runs parallel to Bold Street). She had hot chocolate, I had mocha, we both had whipped cream, and we sat there until closing. Hannah saw Peter Pan last night and told me earnestly that she believed in fairies while I giggled. I will forever associate the phrase with shoebox!Remus. "I do believe in commas, I do, I do!" along with "FUNNIFICATION IS NOT A WORD MOONY oh how the mighty have fallen."

During this dialogue, a woman stepped out of a gallery on the other side of the road (gallery of photgraphy, apparently; I'd never seen or heard of it before and neither had Hannah). We watched her through the glass, walking up the pavement, and after a moment she stopped, took out her camera and took a picture of us sitting there with our drinks. She smiled up at us before leaving. I don't suppose we'll ever know what that was about.

At six o'clock they chucked us out. A barista came to hurry us up, then disappeared. The place seemed empty, so I kissed her by the glass and decided there and then not to care who was watching. If the barista was anywhere about, fab for him, I'm sure he just got a long-held fantasy fulfilled, and we wandered dreamily out onto the street, where it was beginning to get dark and the Radio City tower was lit up.

And that was my day. Hannah has gone out with Clemily and some others to Liverpool tonight - I wondered what was the motive behind not inviting me and Colleen, heh - and I'm sure they're savouring the night life as I write this. In the meantime, I've ambled home in a relative daze and now I'm going to finish reading in a perfectly good mood.