something... else...

I'm in a wanting sort of mood these days.

I'm not sure how to best explain that, actually.

But let's take the smallest possible example: I want new jeans. I need new jeans. I cannot find a pair of new jeans to fit me if my bloody life depended on it. Everything is too loose in the waist, too tight in the thighs, or simply impossible to drag past my knees. I think I cranked my back trying on pairs of pants today, actually.

And so now I'm woefully depressed and feel like failure to purchase new jeans is the rough equivalent to failure in life in general.

Not that I'm being remotely over dramatic.

So, to books.

Where, unusually, I am also left wanting.

Books and I just aren't really getting along. It's like everything I read is falling flat, or is sort of out of tune. It's not unlike how I can't seem to enjoy any romantic comedies released in theatres in the last three months -- on paper, every single movie appears to be exactly what I would like, and yet they suck. I'm looking at you, Leap Year.

Maybe it's a reflection, too, of what I've been trying to put to the page lately. It's like I can't stand the distance between writer and subject. Now I know I'm not making sense (but kudos to you for getting this far, friend). I just want... I want to be whisked along on a fantastic journey by a really great writer. I want poetry and awesomeness. I want a story I can believe in. I want... something other than what I've been reading or writing or thinking lately.

Bleh. Maybe I just need more sunshine.

I will tell you what has been a delightful break from my "I want, I want, I want"-ness lately, though. Vancouver, by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths. As I think I mentioned before, it's so formulaic I can't in good conscience recommend it.

Except, of course, that it's a really fun read. There's adventure. And deceit. And mystery. Characters you can't quite care about, but which have enough of a connection to the earth that you want them to make their way forward.

Vancouver is less a tale of a city, and more a story of an assumed mindset. If you assume those who find their way to the Lower Mainland seek new lives, fresh starts and something more for themselves, then you can go for the ride, from the story's start thousands of years ago with one man crossing the Bering Strait, to its end in modern-day Stanley Park and East Hastings. If you need a break from real life, it's not a bad ride at all.