The 35th Precinct

I wrote a measly 410 words of Flack/Stanhope. I would have done substantially more, but no sooner did I get home from class than I was besieged by a monstrous thunderstorm, complete with apocalyptic skies, sheeting rain, and alarming cannonades of thunder. Amazingly, the power stayed on, and I wound up reading eighty pages of East of Eden in the bathroom.

Toilet literature, it ain't. Thirteen chapters in, and there is scant plot to be seen, though I am awash in character narratives of varying degrees of interest. Cathy Trask nee Amesbury nee Ames is a melodramatic villain of the first water, and Adam Trask, her besotted husband, is a bumbling boob of impressive stripe. I would say that such rampant fuckwittery has no parallel in the real world, but sadly, I know better. Chalk it up to my Internet education.

The professor was most pleased with my pictorial, a fact which fills me with no little glee. As of today, there are three weeks, a paper, and a final remaining in the course, and then, I will be free of all academic fetters for nine glorious weeks. I plan to fic, watch DVDs, and see movies. I wanted to see X3 on Monday, but then the Roomie reminded me that Monday was Memorial Day, and ultimate Gimp Empowerment movie or not, I have no desire to be caught in the crushing tide of humanity likely to be wandering the malls that day. I'll just wait until Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I hope to put the keystrokes to the Flack/Stanhope vignette and if not finish it, then get one toe over the finish line.

( CSI:NY Season Finale Spoilers )

On Tuesday, I have my first REL1300 midterm, which will cover Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. I have to have read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha by then. I suppose that will be my Sunday activity, though I'm miffed because I'd rather continue my reading of East of Eden. I started it yesterday and am finding it very uneven. The prologue in which Steinbeck lovingly details the topography, climate, and fauna of the Salinas Valley is gorgeous, but once he moves into the story proper and introduces us to Daniel Sullivan and the Family Trask, the prose gets sluggish and uninspired.

I suspect the fault lies with me, as I found the Trask family unlikeable grotesques of the kind Flannery O'Connor would later write so beautifully. Cyrus Trask is a domineering monomaniac, his wife is a consumptive dishrag, and Charlie is a bona fide psychopath. Adam, the ostensible hero, is insipid and hopelessly naive in the opening chapters, and I'm waiting to see if this improves, thereby showing Eden for a rite-of-passage story, or if he remains a gullible, soft-headed and -hearted simpleton, boring me into catatonia.

The Flack/Stanhope vignette of which I posted a snippet last night proceeds apace. I achieved 1,049 words today and brought its total to 7,088 words. Hopefully, it will see the fandom crackfic light this weekend if I'm not waylaid by the lure of Animal Crossing or A History of Violence.