{"id":3160,"date":"2016-03-07T10:19:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T09:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3160"},"modified":"2016-04-22T09:52:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T07:52:09","slug":"page-45-my-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3160","title":{"rendered":"Page 45, My Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Page<\/a>

Page 45, Line 1<\/p><\/div>\n

I am reading The Bloggess. I love and hate the Bloggess for the same reason: she is hilarious. Not only is she hilarious but has the ability to write in a way that you feel she is writing just for you.<\/p>\n

Jerk.<\/p>\n

Today the Bloggess says that if you go to page 45 of the book closest to you, the first sentence on that page describes your love life.<\/p>\n

This sounds like a glorious way to waste a bunch of time so I reach over and grab the book I am currently reading. The Narrow Road to the Deep North<\/em> by Richard Flanagan. A book about Australian POWs working on the Burma railway in World War II. Aussies slaughtering the English language while being tortured by Asian men in a jungle. This book will somehow summarize my love life.<\/p>\n

Page 45: He imposed a levy on the officer\u2019s pay to buy food and drugs for the sick.<\/em><\/p>\n

Frankly, this isn\u2019t far off from describing how I feel about my love life at the moment. And if I do a close reading of the sentence, I can see myself as He<\/em>, the officer<\/em>, and the sick<\/em>. I could analyze the levy<\/em> and the food<\/em> and drugs<\/em> until I can make them about my love life, but instead of depressing myself, I decide to choose three other books and see what page 45 has to say about my love life.<\/p>\n

But which books?<\/p>\n

In the interests of not stacking the deck, I mentally scan my bookshelves. I will look at the last excellent book I have read, the best book I have ever read, and Charles Bukowski, because if someone can sum up my love life it\u2019s one of the gutter dwelling characters in a Bukowski story.<\/p>\n

The books are, respectively:<\/p>\n

The Last Werewolf<\/em> by Glen Duncan<\/p>\n

Blood Meridian<\/em> by Cormac McCarthy<\/p>\n

The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & other stories<\/em> by Charles Bukowski<\/p>\n

I go to The Last Werewolf<\/em> and eagerly open to page 45. This is the first line:<\/p>\n

This is what I\u2019ve reduced him to: a human whose raison d\u2019\u00eatre is keeping a werewolf alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hm. I guess this could work, but only if you do a liberal metaphorical reading of the sentence. Nouns like human\u00a0<\/em> and werewolf<\/em> can always be reinterpreted as penis, love, sex, or bitter collapse of senses. Plus, French. Who knows. But before I begin rewriting my love life into a short horror film starring G\u00e9rard Depardieu, I move on.<\/p>\n

I go to Bukowski. He won’t let me down. I pick up his happy book about sexual delinquents, hookers, drunks, drug addicts, and other dregs of society and flip to page 45.<\/p>\n

I left him there with his tongue hanging out, then threw her over my shoulder and made it back to my place.<\/em><\/p>\n

OK. At least we\u2019re in the ballpark. My tongue hanging out<\/em> certainly describes some aspects of my love life. And while I have thrown a woman over my shoulder<\/em> and carried her into my place, she had to carry me to my bed after it was clear that I had sprained my back.<\/p>\n

But to be honest, the Buke disappoints me. Or maybe it\u2019s just page 45. A cursory perusal of other pages proves that virtually any sentence starting any other page might have been more appropriate (or funny). A random sampling:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re pussy stinks!\u201d I yelled at her,<\/em> \u201cyou belong in a Tijuana whore house!\u201d<\/em> p. 135<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking crazy now!\u201d<\/em> p. 167<\/p>\n

Tanya laughed, got up, walked over and sat in my lap, a FUCK MACHINE?<\/em> p. 41<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re hungry?\u201d \u201cAnd how!\u201d<\/em> p. 215<\/p>\n

It is with some distress that I note that these random samplings all have a place in the summation and description of my love life. I replace the book on the shelf and move to Mr. McCarthy and his extraordinary tale of darkness, murder, and desolation in the Old West. Blood Meridian.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Those first days they saw no game.<\/em> p. 45<\/p>\n

Whoa. No game.<\/em> No game? Sadly, no game is the way one might describe my love life in a variety of social and lexical contexts. The main one relying on the slang term to have game. <\/em>A person who has game uses charm, wit, humor, or other means to verbally let a female know that he is interested in her. <\/span>And since I have the game of a Tibetan Monk, this is essentially spot on.<\/p>\n

And then I remember that I have also written books which include a page 45. I decide to look at my published novel (Senseless<\/em>) and the book I am rewriting now (The Accidental Dominant<\/em>). Maybe I am subliminally conveying a message about my love life in my own books.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t quite hit me yet.<\/em> p. 45, Senseless<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh yes. It<\/em> has many interpretations: potential interest, a mistake I have made, a morose sense of loss and yearning, a burning sensation in the nether regions. I feel as though I am getting closer to describing my love life with each book. Sensing the closeness of a major breakthrough or an epiphany, I open the manuscript of my work in progress, The Accidental Dominant<\/em>, and look at page 45.<\/p>\n

I am really good at analyzing my cat\u2019s bowel movements.<\/em><\/p>\n

And, we have a winner. Yay.<\/p>\n

Ding.<\/p>\n

Ding.<\/p>\n

Ding.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the first sentence on page 45 of the book closest to you? Does it describe your love life?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading The Bloggess. I love and hate the Bloggess for the same reason: she is hilarious. Not only is she hilarious but has the ability to write in a way that you feel she is writing just for you. Jerk. Today the Bloggess says that if you go to page 45 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/20160307_093955-e1457340381321.jpg?fit=1920%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-OY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3162,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions\/3162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}