You know, for a complete and unapologetic atheist, I am pretty superstitious.

Well, maybe superstitious isn't the word. I tend to think of it more as literary. Narrative-driven. Plot-arc sensitive.

Maybe it's just 'cause I'm an english major, so I see it everywhere. When my apartment burned down, my most powerful reaction was. "Wow. So what does this symbolize in our protagonist's plot arc? And where are we in that arc?"

In general, I've had the building blocks of literature tinkered into my brain enough times that I kind of look at life as a series of poetic moments and images, with all the peaks and valleys of a good story. So even though I'm pretty atheist, and I view the impulse to find meaning in the randomness of this world as an essentially religious one, when I see something potentially symbolic I look at it as a hint to the moral of the story.

I went book shopping today. I haven't read a good book in too long. And I was meandering through the shelves, feeling pretty blah about what I saw (I couldn't figure out what I was hankering for), I saw a plain, tan book, with an ambiguous but pleasing title: "The Icarus Girl".

I have, once in my life, bought a book specifically because I knew nothing about it. It was at a used bookstore (not unlike Black Cat) and the dustjacket was missing (like with The Icarus Girl) so I couldn't read the blurb. And in a moment of poetic, narrative-driven hipsteriness, I bought it. It turns out my life author has good instincts, because it turned out to be one of my favorite books of all time ("The Devil's Larder", by Jim Crace, if you're interested). So when I saw that unassuming, mysterious beige tome, I felt compelled, out of a sense of poetic happenstance, to investigate it. I picked it up and flicked through the pages experimentally.

The very first page that I opened to, right in the centre of the book, clinched my decision. A bright little wink to my obnoxious poetry obsession, a deep red leaf had been flattened in between the pages by some previous reader. It had been preserved beautifully, and the moment of revelation was gorgeous.

So, obviously, I had to buy the book. If this completely random and flakey decision pays off, it will be two for two. I should start doing my book shopping blindfolded.

Wrote a new poem today, but I'm not gonna post it until I like it, and it still needs some editing.

Don't forget to be awesome!