the night is young

I've been watching a lot of Monk lately, thanks to Tivo and certain resourceful friends. My grandmother called me a couple weeks ago, which is cool because we don't call each other often really, but I found out she likes Monk too. I'm not sure when I developed the sensibilities of an old person, but I like the show very much. I also like saddle shoes and classical music and pulpy orange juice and Gary Cooper. I really do. Perhaps I was born late.

Whenever I watch a good show, or read an excellent book, I get a little sad, because if I keep reading or watching, I'll find out what happens and I'll never get to find it out ever again. That one moment where I'm swept away or shocked won't come again. The die is cast, etc. etc. Sometimes I manage to forget what happens, and I can get into it again innocently, but the surprise is never the same, it's just an "Oh, yeah." When I read Challenge by V Sackville West, I skipped to the end and read the last paragraph half-way through. It was probably the worst mistake I've made so far this year. I think I would have felt the book much more powerful if I'd let the author tell me what happened in the order she intended, and maybe gotten something real out of it. May I have the strength to never make that mistake again.

Right now I'm in the middle of Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, and when I get an afternoon where I don't need to function, I'm going to try to read Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning, about those older German policemen who killed all those people under the Nazi regime. I might not get through that one well, though, I'm not sure. I'm still not entirely comfortable crying, though I've felt a few healthy urges to do it more frequently in the recent past (at movies where Nazis hurt children, for instance).

I finished History of the Present by TG Ash a week or so ago. It is about Central Europe in the 90s, and full of penetrating insight on stuff that was happening while I personally was growing up and ignoring news, but it clarified a lot of things for me. I admired the way Ash spent a lot of time and energy exposing some of the travesties in Bosnia and Yugoslavia in ways that people with no connections to either place could relate to, and his continued insistence that Europe had a huge responsibility in those areas to make things better. He really thinks that the EC (which I find very, very boring, and he admitted he did too) has a responsibility to keep peace on its continent. Makes sense to me.

My thesis installment got pushed back, so I'm going to go watch more Monk, and ponder, on this, Valentine' Day eve, why I'm finding older men significantly more attractive recently. (likelihood they'd appreciate my ancient tastes, I bet.)