Rainy days

what else would a book nerd do with a spate of rainy days but create the perfect reading experience?

and so it was that i curled up for a bit of last night and most of today with tamsin by peter s. beagle, the author of the last unicorn. those last three words should tell you volumes about the quality of the book i have just finished.

(never heard of or don't like the last unicorn? let me know. i must document you, you are such a rare breed.)

i actually bought myself tea to sip while reading it, TEA for godsakes, although i didn't know it was precisely for this book when i bought it. it was a nice chai black tea with lots of cinnamon in its scent, which went insanely well with the cold, gloomy, damp, rainy england-type weather (tamsin is set in england).

tamsin is a beautiful, beautiful book. i first read about it in the one-dollar fantasy anthology that marlon and i bought, where it was hailed as one of the best -- if not THE best -- fantasy book of 1999. the description of the book, though i forget it now, started me pining for it. thus i exploded into paroxysms of booknerdiness the other day when i opened a plastic bag of borrowables from gutsy (one of my favorite book nerds) and found it inside, waiting for me.

tamsin is the story of so many strange and wonderful things that i can't even begin to go into.

this is about as much as i can say about it: it's like listening to a fascinating, spirited person who can fluent speak every language imaginable, or can slip convincingly in and out of any accent you can name.

that's peter s. beagle in this book -- he shifts from the language of a bratty american 13-year-old girl (of any 13-year-old girl -- i mean, i could remember what it was like to be 13 and think that way!), to that of a self-assured 19-year-old; a lost seventeenth-century beauty; an older-than-time being; a boggart; a mysterious shape-shifter; a ten-year old british math whiz, and so many more, all without skipping a beat. it's superbly fluid.

bottom line: if you see this book anywhere, BUY IT WITHOUT HESITATION. or at least start reading it in the store and keep coming back until you finish it.

--

this bulletin board at the landing of kfc katipunan has always bothered me.

luckily, now that i have photoshop, i can calm my disturbed left brain.

--

totally unrelated but must be pinned down: it took me a while to put my finger on it, but i'm happy. i feel that i'm on the right track, although it probably doesn't look like i'm on any sort of track. the future looks good, and i trust it. i trust myself more now, too.