More Hamlet?

Well, probably not.

So, I copied out last night's blog post and sent it to my client, along with some other thoughts about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and other things:

The rest of what I've been thinking about the book, and which may help you (or not) decide whether to reread it, is that, for one thing, it seems a bit dated. I'm sure in the late 60s or early 70s when it was published, this seemed brand-new, earth-shattering stuff. Some of it, particularly his attitudes towards his friends Sylvia and...well, whoever Sylvia's husband was ... seem almost naive. No, not naive. Not sure I can describe what I'm feeling here.

The other thing I kept thinking, esp. at the beginning, was how much of a guy he is. That some of his observations kept missing the point or were incredibly obvious and that, if he were a woman, he'd know better than to be that obvious or be able to see beneath the surface better. Not saying this is good or bad, really, though it's certainly one of the things that brought on that whole wanting to throw the book against the wall feeling.

I should mention that I'm reading the book in small doses, as it's my bathroom reading--and you shouldn't make any assumptions about that, it's just that, when I realized a few years ago that I wasn't reading anymore, I needed to figure out ways to get it back into my life and the bathroom was one obvious place. The kitchen is another, while I'm waiting for water to boil or something, I can get in some reading (these days, it's "The Making of the President, 1960"--which is fascinating). And the bedroom, of course (right now, "The Brothers Karamazov"--I don't have a working TV right now) and something lighter to take to the laundromat or on the subway (right now, Glimmer Train Stories). And all that was way more than you needed to know, but in some ways I'm finding each of these (except for Glimmer Train) to be interacting in ways that I didn't expect. And the center is actually the Dostoyevsky, with its religion and politics and philosophy, but it's all food for a lot of thought, thought that is really making my head hurt and is occasionally crazy-making, but good for me, I'm sure, nonetheless.

I'm sure I'll wake up in the morning and wonder why the hell I sent her all that.

Anyway, for some reason, I started getting an actual headache earlier tonight and I ignored it and ignored it and ignored it because it wasn't very bad and I didn't want to take a pill when it was such a minor annoyance, really. And then, of course, it finally started to get much worse all of a sudden and I know that, if I had taken one Aleve when I first noticed it, it would have gone away and, instead, I had to take two Aleves to get rid of it. If the folks in "What the Bleep..." are right, then I think I need to find a new paradigm, rewire some brain cells.

I do like that idea.