Okay, so I made a deal with Keren, and my end of the bargain involved me going to bed as soon as I could after I got off the phone with her...unfortunately, I'm a creature of habit(and insomnia), so without pills, I'm fucked. I just took them, though, so I should be induced to sleep soon. But, as for the habit part, I've gotten used to the blog thang...documenting all the books I read complete with quotes and contextual basis in my life, so I can't stop now...Today(Thursday morning) I finished Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill. I've never watched anything by him before(or read for that matter)...He's the author of The Iceman Cometh amongst others. Wow. It was pretty sad. It reminded me of my family in a lot of ways, which makes me relate...My mother's parents were heavy drinkers(I didn't know that liquor could be delivered to your house like milk until I visited them and was old enough to answer the door and realize what was going on) and my father's mother's mother was severely mentally ill(enough to be institutionalized for much of her adult life) so both facets of a family life I am quite familiar with. So, in a nutshell, this play is about a family of four, and the mother is addicted to morphine, because when she was having mental issues, a hack doctor prescribed it for her. She is overly dependent on her family because she is lonely as hell, but that makes her feel like a burden, so she uses...The father of the family is an actor, who is also a cheapskate, and a heavy drinker, though at times in the play it is argued that he drinks because he has to deal with the mother, and the shortcomings of his boys, Edmund and Jamie. Jamie is the father's namesake and an actor as well, but he spends all of his money on booze and women...Edmund, it is discovered early on, is creative, a poet of sorts and a big reader, but also deathly ill of consumption...The mother, Mary, cannot deal with that very well, so she needs to use her drugs as an escape, but by returning to her artificial solace, her family's unhappiness grows, and consequently they drink more...It's a vicious circle that whirls and whirls around. The love in the family unit is evident, but their state of miserable reigns. There are of course, as per usual, some quotes that I loved...Mary says "'The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future, too. We all try to lie out of that but life won't let us'"(O'Neill 87). And, a few from Edmund, the poet: "'Don't look at me as if I'd gone nutty. I'm talking sense. Who wants to see life as it is, if they can help it? It's the three Gorgons in one. You look in their faces and turn to stone. Or it's Pan. You see him and you die--that is, inside you--and have to go on living as a ghost'" (O'Neill 131). He also quotes a prose poem by Baudelaire that I had forgotten about(I love Baudelaire, but haven't been a French poetry junkie for a while) "'Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken'" (ibid 132). And, my last quote is also from Edmund, though slightly morbid(I apologize) it is lovely..."'It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death(ibid 154)'"! Mmmm...I have always loved plays. Seeing them of course, I LOVE the stage and everything about it. Though, next to of course reading novels and poetry, reading plays is one of my favorite things. For me reading a play is like reading a "Choose your own adventure" novel. You get guidelines from the writer, for stage directions and how a character should act and obviously what they say, but you can be your own director when you read a play, you're in charge. You can decide what they look like, how they dress, what the stage looks like, and even how you want to have them carry out their lines...It's so open-ended. This play was good and nutritional too! But, I still have a weakness for Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee and Tom Stoppard...geez what I need to do is find some female playwrights. I'm not an O'Neill fan from just this play, but I'm open to what else he's written. I'd also like to see some of his stuff performed. That would be very cool. The play's the thing, right? Junkie is still on vacation from the lists...And is also rapidly growing sleepy...Who hoo!