Since graduating from a masters program I’ve had a lot of time for reading- or at least few enough things to fill the day with that I’ve done more reading than usual.  I’ve gotten through the first four Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, Love In The Time of Cholera (finally), The Power and the Glory, My Name is Red, and sadly Twilight, New Moon, and Skinny Bitch.  The last three were mindless distractions, but were at least enjoyable.

Of all of these, the two that have affected me the most are Love in the Time of Cholera and My Name is Red.  Perhaps it’s the descriptions of emotional passion, be it for people or careers or memories, that put these two books in my top book list.  After reading One Hundred Years of Solitude a few years ago, on the suggestion of a dear friend who did an entire art project based around the imagery in the book, I’m suprised it took me so long to read another Gabriel Garcia Marquez book. And even though I loved Cholera, I still think Solitude is the better book.  Reality is s ofar removed from the book that you spend half of it feeling like you’re reading it while standing on your head, which I can’t help but find more interesting than a love story- albeit beautifully written and constructed with moments of such truth that you have to stop to record sentences so you don’t forget them.

And what I like about both books, Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red is the cultural settings that I am so far removed from.  Marquez’s South America is a place I understand only through being not so far removed geographically, and from knowing  people from that area.  Pamuk’s Ottoman Istanbul, though, is a world I will never experience beyond the pages of his book.

The romance in the book is not it’s strength, which was just the author’s intention, I think.  The best moments are the inner thoughts of the Sultan’s miniturists and The Murderer.  The passion he gives to their beliefs and convictions make me wish I could feel a calling the way Pamuk’s artists do.

In both cases, I am left longing to be doing something other thant tearing through books, sending out job applications, and knitting all day.  Can something please finally break?

Now to decide between finishing Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, or starting either Middlemarch or Eclipse (darn you Stefanie Meyers and your addictive story-telling).

The hunt continues.

They always tell you how difficult and stressful looking for a job can be, but it never truly hits you until you’re stuck in the middle of it.  I’ve come to London for a few days to stay with friends.  One has a full-time desk job while the other works freelance in the film industry.  Both are enviable to me.  After my time in retail I know I don’t want to be on my feet eight hours a day.  I also know that I want a job where I actually feel like I’m doing something, and where my work is actually appreciated, rather than claimed by a superior.  My last job in retail, though, was far better than any other.  I learned that I love working for a small company.  Working for larger corporations always felt soulless, but with a smaller company you can actually feel like part of a team.  So hopefully I’ll be able to find a role in a small to medium sized publishing house where I can really learn the publishing business inside and out.

Until then, I’ll just continue applying to anything I think I might be happy doing to pay the rent.

In other news, my digital camera has died after 5 years of love and I cannot take any pictures of the knitting and crochet projects I’ve been working on.  I really love having something to do with my hands while I relax after dinner and have also become an absolute yarn-nut.  It’s very disappointing that there are no nice yarn stores where I’m living right now.  Despite that, I’ve made some fingerless gloves for a friend, am working on a scarf for another, and am half way done with my first big afghan for myself.  The afghan is the first pattern I’ve ever bothered using and is going pretty well,  Hopefully it will help keep me from being constantly cold.   That and lots and lots of tea.

Tonight: Cooking for the two friends I’m staying with who I’ve known since 5th grade, and the younger brother of one.  Salmon fillets with soy sauce and pepper cooked in aluminum foil pockets with rice and green beans on the side. Yum!