I create this blog with confusion and feelings churning between euphoria and depression. It sounds like a manic state, but I would say more of a state of less-than-blissful unknowing.

I have felt for years my life was on the wrong track, or perhaps a less desirable one that the feelings in my chest wished for. Naturally shy, I strayed away from gatherings of people and group events. I reasoned to myself and those around me that I was a loner and it was only natural. I hardly think now it’s even the case. My feelings of comfort, belonging, and happiness seem to only grow stronger when I’m in a group of good individuals. (What good actually means remains to be seen because my growth has found me accepting things I’ve previously rejected and pushing away what I clung to for familiar comfort.)

I feel as though now I’m at a crossroads. I mean this in many ways for my life. This year there are large cuts being made where I work, and there’s a good chance I will be included because of my seniority level (quite low). This has both made me thrilled and seemingly upset. I found comfort in knowing I could count on my job and had insurance through it with a steady paycheck. At the same time I know this isn’t where I was meant to be, nor where I want to continue to be. Losing my job would be the push I lacked courage in giving myself. I graduated with an associate’s but somehow found myself in a 17 dollar an hour job with everything to boot I could need or want. I believe I need to continue and move on to bigger and better things, even if it means less pay and benefits. It certainly feels strange typing that, but completely sums up how I feel.

I feel as though I’m distancing myself from everything I clung to out of familiarity because of clean memories associated with it all. I’ve since purged almost every familiar friend from my life for one reason or another. Although the reason of the purging is because the friendship soured and became warped, it was still a difficult cord to cut. But after taking time and reflecting, suddenly I felt like I had been fiercly paddling through an underwater current trying to pull me underneath and I finally was able to break the surface, madly gasping for air. The painful wounds begin to heal and any mangled psychological damage you sustained begin to repair themselves to prep you for better things in life if you only allow it to shape you in a positive way without bitterness weighing you down like an anchor. I used to believe that anchor was my stability, now I can see it for what it is: a way to remain stagnant and ignorantly unhappy.

This blog will be a representation of my changes. I will talk about my own prolific and mundane vents in no particular order. I’m now a more aware growing being. I hope to continue this trend for the rest of my days. And as my name shall state, I’m now a stranger in paradise.

Someday I’ll be the guide.

Take my hand, I’m a stranger in paradise
all lost in a wonderland, a stranger in paradise
If I stand starry-eyed that’s a danger in paradise
for mortals who stand beside an angel like you.
I saw your face and I ascended out of the commonplace into the rare somewhere
In space I hang suspended until I know there’s a chance that you care.
Won’t you answer this fervent prayer of a stranger in paradise
Don’t send me in dark despair from all that I hunger for.
But open your angel’s arms to this stranger in paradise
And tell him that he need be a stranger no more…

I’m gotten pretty sick of Robert S. Parker lately– Spenser has gotten old, and I don’t mean just physically, what with all his honor and code mumbo-jumbo and the tedious Relationship dialogue between Spenser and Susan:

“And that’s what defines us?
“Our refusal to define us?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
I poured a little more 90-year-old Hidden Skye single malt and reached across the table to take Susan’s hand. Pearl IX, the wonder dog, barked.
“Yes.”

OK, so that may be a little harsh.  Parker can still tell a good tale, as he did in Spenser’s most recent outing, Now and Then, but the character no longer resonates with me the way he did in the earliest novels. Even Hawk fails to amuse.

This is not so with Jesse Stone, the main character of Stranger.  Sure, he’s got Relationship Issues with Jen, his former wife, but they’re easier to ignore.  The dialogue with his shrink is sort of Meaningful Breakthrough Cryptic, like getting caught in a closet eavesdropping on Spenser and Susan, but I’m fascinated by Dix’s (Jesse’s shrink’s) wardrobe and office, so that moves along.  Maybe it’s a little like skipping the description and metaphor in Moby Dick and just reading for plot, but it works for me.  Jesse and  his town are a breathe of fresh air.  I love his colleagues, especially the young cop Suitcase and the obligatory feisty female, and mother of four, Molly Crane, who mainly mans the desk.  She’s got some great lines here, and Suitcase blushes. 

The best part of the book, though, is the return of Crowe, Wilson Cormartie, who in an earlier book leaves town with ten million dollars and without harming the women hostages his gang of armed robbers has taken.  He’s a great character. He’s currently on a mission to find and bring back the daughter of a major Florida drug lord, a job he declines to complete when the instructions are tailored to include killing the girl’s mother.  There are subplots involving the gang the girl’s messed up with, have and have-not issues, Jesse’s drinking, and, regrettably, yes, his Relationship with his ex-wife Jen.  I liked it.

If I stand starry-eyed
That’s the danger in paradise
For mortals who stand
Beside an angel like you…..