A real, live author
We have this regular at work named Neil. She leads the english department at Mills college and drives a blue Audi TT. She's an author. She writes in our store, on the top level, with a venti-non-fat-extra-hot-no-water-no-foam-chai-tea-latte (typing that out might make me a tool). Now, I want to discourage the idea that I'm a stalker, but a few weeks back I found her most recent book on Amazon.com.
I spent all of Friday afternoon reading it, then finished it up this morning. Normally, I don't read books like that. It took me two weeks to go through Perks of Being a Wallflower and that's like 70 pages shorter, but I tore the hell through this one. It was incredible and captivating. I started reading it on a whim after pool-time on friday and suddenly all of my plans went out the window. I made some lunch and kept reading. I made some tea, sat on my futon and opened up the big windows, and kept on reading. The main character played violin, so I started cycling through Puccini, then Philip Glass, then Chopin. My tea got cold but I drank it anyways and kept reading.
My quick obsession mimicked the various tragic relationships in the book. And I couldn't help but try to apply all of the events in the novel to my own life. There was a character in the book that had to watch his twin brother die, which is basically my worst fear. I don't even like typing that out. The main character, the violin player, seemed to have been modeled after one of my close friends. There's something about a person that commits that much time in the pursuit of perfection, the influence that it has on one's personality is ... powerful, I guess. I kept comparing notes, things my friend did and things the main character did. It was eerie. And large parts of the book took place in Berkeley.
I didn't tell Neil I was looking for her book, I wanted it to be a sort of surprise. I'm scared that the next time she comes in I'm just going to wet my pants and hide in the back. No, that's not true, I'm excited about talking to her but I need to not be wearing a green apron when I do manage to corner her. I want to come off as a student not a barista.
I spent all of Friday afternoon reading it, then finished it up this morning. Normally, I don't read books like that. It took me two weeks to go through Perks of Being a Wallflower and that's like 70 pages shorter, but I tore the hell through this one. It was incredible and captivating. I started reading it on a whim after pool-time on friday and suddenly all of my plans went out the window. I made some lunch and kept reading. I made some tea, sat on my futon and opened up the big windows, and kept on reading. The main character played violin, so I started cycling through Puccini, then Philip Glass, then Chopin. My tea got cold but I drank it anyways and kept reading.
My quick obsession mimicked the various tragic relationships in the book. And I couldn't help but try to apply all of the events in the novel to my own life. There was a character in the book that had to watch his twin brother die, which is basically my worst fear. I don't even like typing that out. The main character, the violin player, seemed to have been modeled after one of my close friends. There's something about a person that commits that much time in the pursuit of perfection, the influence that it has on one's personality is ... powerful, I guess. I kept comparing notes, things my friend did and things the main character did. It was eerie. And large parts of the book took place in Berkeley.
I didn't tell Neil I was looking for her book, I wanted it to be a sort of surprise. I'm scared that the next time she comes in I'm just going to wet my pants and hide in the back. No, that's not true, I'm excited about talking to her but I need to not be wearing a green apron when I do manage to corner her. I want to come off as a student not a barista.