Caution: Train windows may cause melancholy.

On the train leaving Alghero, Italy 2009

Have you ever stared out of a train window and caught yourself with a melancholy expression, or an expression of longing, or an expression of plain yearning?

Trains are so good for the dramatic soul.

I finished Notes from Underground. Well, to be perfectly honest I have two paragraphs left and it has happened before that the last two paragraphs change my mind completely about the book, but the previous pages were fantastic, just what this melancholy soul needs. One of my favorite things about Russian authors are their complex and accurate characters- I found this character highly relateable in his exaggerations as he calls his detailed fantasies. What I love most of all is how self-aware he seems and yet can't escape his own guilt, or shame. What is self awareness if you cannot change yourself? Change is everything- it is constant, and essential, fluid.

Some things do not change (God).

I think I'm going to read another Dostoevsky book, and then perhaps some Camus? What is life without fiction? without books? without change? Hardly anything at all.

Fiction and change. Bring it.

and this (I need some nature. Good thing I'm in the fields of WI for the next few days):

Of course, one MORE thing. Congrats to Mel who had baby Caroline on Wednesday!! Much much rejoicing. Also congrats to Shen who ran the Boston marathon on Monday!! I am so proud of my friends!