A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Unhealthy

I fell into a coverage gap. The prescription coverage I had from my former employer ended on November 30, and I couldn't pick up Medicare prescription coverage until January 1. But I ran out of my meds -- a generic anti-anxiety drug -- last week and had to pay full price. One hundred seventy-seven dollars. For sixty little pills.

I look at these small white pills and think: Each one of you costs $2.95.

Somebody is making out like a bandit on this deal.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

I watched a football game tonight. That Patriots-Giants thing? It was fun, too. I mention it only because it's not something I normally do. Sports, that is.

I sometimes tell people that I'm just not interested in sports, but the truth is, I'm afraid I might get too interested in them. I know that I have a tendency to get addicted to things, obsessed by them, preoccupied with their minutiae. I mean, for god's sake, I wrote a whole book about the Academy Awards. And I can see myself becoming one of those guys who comb the agate type in the sports section for statistics.

So for now, I treat sports as an occasional thing, being careful not to show too much interest in them, lest I get drawn into another pastime (like surfing the Internet) that will occupy my attention.