Eden Robins writer. adventurer. sometime dildo-slinger.

I was a voracious reader long, long before I ever wrote stories of my own. I was hooked from my first encounter with Go Dog, Go. I used to win public library summer reading contests (the prizes for which were always more books) and classroom contests designed to get non-readers to read (I was never very popular). Writing a good story always seemed so impossibly mystical that it never even occurred to me to try it until my early 20s. Those first stories were wretched — let us never speak of them again.

But the point is, the more I started to write, the less and less I read.  Not because I didn’t want to or because I was worried about copying, but because I became a jaded, hard-to-please reader. I’m not entirely clear on when this happened or how, or even what I can do to make it stop, but I’m ashamed to say it has become very very difficult for me to get through a novel. The reason I started writing is because I love reading, so what does this mean? I shudder to think.

Historically, I have had a couple of emergency books I could go to when the non-reading got really bad. Books I know I love and that inspire me. But — I don’t know. My reading ennui is turning into one of those antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. Sometimes, even the books I love can’t keep me interested. Which is why, when I started today to reread The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (by John Barth), I was relieved. Because this book is amazing, and inspiring, and I’m getting to enjoy it again… I may be a little more jaded this time, but I’m going to think of it as an ability to read with a slightly different perspective. I love this book. You should read it. And, now that I’m back on the reading wagon, I want to know what you (if there are any yous out there anymore) reread when you need inspiration. I need more books to add to this pitifully short list.

Both metaphoric and… hyperbolic?

First, metaphoric: lots of things have been going on. The biggest (and most nerve-wracking) being a new job that I’m starting a week from today. No more dildo-slinging for me, unfortunately, though once a dildo-slinger, always a dildo-slinger, I think.  I hope to still be a presence at the store in some capacity, but we’ll have to see how the new schedule works out. More on that soon. I’m also working on several projects; none of them finished.

Basically, I’m trying to justify these months of not blogging. Particularly since it was one of my New Years Resolutions. Why is this so hard for me?

Second: Hyperbolic. For your entertainment, a conversation I overheard at the coffee shop today:

A lady is talking to her friend about how dolphins are higher beings and how after the BP oil spill they committed suicide on purpose (porpoise? ba dum bum), washing up on shore to make a point to humans that we’re too attached to oil.

The other lady says: “You’ve never heard of that?”

First lady says: “I’ve heard of it, just never thought of it like that. Maybe I was just unawakened or unenlightened that it never appeared to me that way.”

Dolphins as martyrs to teach humans a lesson about energy consumption? Discuss.

So I’m reading John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, which is kind of like Ender’s Game meets Cocoon meets, I dunno, The Matrix. In a good way. Anyway, I just came across this line:

“…there was talk of naming the colony Eden, but it was suggested that such a name was karmically tantamount to asking for trouble.”

I often find my name used as metaphor in stories, but this is my favorite.