The First

I was just online thinking about how much I don't know about the internet to the extent that it is more boring for me than it is for other people who know how to use it properly and I remembered this old website and decided to make my presence known to the wider universe. Not that I need to be known, or am searching for any great truth or anything like that. I feel like I have found and know truth enough to know where to find it in the future if I need to get filled up. For instance, if my tank is running low or something.
I have read 4 novels in the last week. Averaging a novel ever day and a half or less. All of them Dean Koontz. I swear that man is a genius. He has a perfect blend of humor and terror to his stories that makes them fun to read and a quick read for those who basically eat print with their eyes, which is what I feel like I have been doing. I am desperately starving for a good story and I'll consume with ferocity anything that has a good plot, excellent character development and something that will not fill me with an aching void, like so many other books will do. After I finished reading the last one I decided that I should probably move on to something else, something I haven't read three or four times before, (The Bad Place 1x, The Good Guy 1x, The Taking 3x, and Life Expectancy 3 or 4x I can't really remember, I almost picked up Odd Thomas again, but I just gave away the paper back version of Forever Odd and I don't want to start the first one until I get the second one. I have all of them in hard back except for Forever Odd). So anyway, I tried to start Livy's The Early History of Rome but I got stuck in the introduction. I was going to forge through it and try to get some learnin in me, but I came across the following quote which stopped me in my tracks: " 'fortunately, however, in those days authority, both religious and secular, was still a guide to conduct, and there was as yet no sign of our modern scepticism which interprets solemn compacts, such as are embodied in oath or a law, to suit its own convenience.' " I have read that quote now three times silently, once aloud and typed it once, just now, and still don't understand it fully. Its huge! I mean, look at all the punctuation! Its a monster sentence. So being sufficiently daunted, I put it aside for later reading, (when my mental testicals are sufficiently fortified and of equal size to the task) and picked up Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment instead. I thought about it last night, and picked it up this morning and have not gone farther than chapter three or four. Not for lack of trying or want, I just got distracted. That is one thing about the books I pick up, I like them to grab me tenaciously and hold on until I don't realize any more that its only printed words on a page, and am so engaged in the story that I have to find out what is going to happen next. To be honest I do have a little of that for this story so far, but not enough to pull me away right now and pick up the book again. (unless, of course, its to get up to grab the book and check the spelling of the author's name, which I have just done).
I also have a list of poets I would like to read: T.S.Elliot, for one. Koontz is continually quoting him in his novels and I would love to see what all the fuss is about. That and I recently found that I accidentally quoted Elliot in one of my own poems. The line that says "Teach us to sit still..."
I would also like to read some of Emily Dickenson's poetry. I have a book of poetry collections, but I have not picked it up and read through it in a while.
I also found something while I was searching poets on the internet- http://www.scaryplace.com/SuicidalPoets.html
I haven't read through it all, but what I glanced over looked very interesting. Something to consider because suicide has often been an intriguing notion, and a glance into the minds of the people who most often shared theirs with the world (most notably the suicidal poets) is something I find interesting.
Humans are complicated and beautiful machinery, looking inside to see how one works is always fascinating. Here I speak of the mind, and the choices we make and what leads us to make those choices.
Life is learning; if we ever stop learning we die, and we are here to learn from each other.

The Scholar