Tonight, I went with a friend to a book reading by author Jayne Ann Krentz (aka Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle) at the Ballard Library. Although I'm only mildly interested in the romance genre at this point--I've read one Amanda Quick book--I hadn't been to a reading in a long time and it just sounded good. I'm glad I went. Jayne is a sharp and polished speaker. In addition to talking about her work, she shared her insightful views on popular fiction and the writing process, from the conception of a novel to publication. I like her Darwinian response to the criticisms of pop fiction. If it's so weak and terrible, why has it survived and even flourished in spite of the literary world's persistent attempts to snuff it out? Yes, popular fiction is entertaining and fun, but, above that, she believes it appeals directly to our core values (courage, hope, goodness, etc) and the desire to see the hero/heroine do the right thing, as we hope we would do the right thing in a similar situation. Interesting take.

While discussing her latest book, Jayne also told us her theory on how people survive post-traumatic stress disorder. She believes the only way to do this successfully is by changing your personal definition of "normal." Basically, if you cling to the old version and attempt to mold your life in its current reality around it, you're screwed. This resonates as pure truth to me, but I think it applies on a smaller scale to everyday survival too. After all, if we didn't constantly modify and sculpt our internal beliefs about what is normal, how could we cope with life at all? I mean, if I stuck rigidly to my carefully crafted picture of a "normal family," instead of altering it about a million times, my relationships with my parents and sisters would be superficial and strained, maybe even non-existent in some cases. I couldn't deal with or forgive our quirkiness. Or, if I stubbornly held on to the mindset of my teenage self who believed normal is married with kids by the time you're 30, my nearly 29 year old self would probably sit dejectedly in a dark apartment feeling like an abnormal freak, rather than head out the door to enjoy her life. And so on.

Anyway, my friend and I followed the reading with delicious cupcakes (lavender is my absolute favorite) at Cupcake Royale and a stop for CDs at Sonic Boom. Some people might think that's not a normal way to spend a Wednesday evening, but for me it was perfect.

I watched 9 Songs last night, and I have to say I felt pretty eh about it. Even though the guy was easy on the eyes and should definitely be referred to as Mr. Big (stop, rewind), the girl was really obnoxious and irritating with a grating voice. This seriously diminished my enjoyment of "the happenings," as Em calls it. I dropped the disc in the mailbox this morning. No second viewing required.

Songs I'm loving now: Daggers by Airport Cathedral, Marching Bands of Manhattan by DCfC, and Like You Know by Film School.