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What I thought I was doing was reading DeLillo out loud. And what I said was, “…when he dropped the water of glass.” And then I realized, a paragraph later, what I had said, and, of course, what I had said was not what DeLillo had written. What I thought he had written was this: “…when he dropped the glass of water.” But I was wrong again. What he actually wrote was this: “…when he dropped the water glass.”

This novella, The Body Artist, it makes me dizzy. It’s Hemingway on an acid trip. Sort of. If the muses of Hemingway and Beckett could ever mate, this book would likely be their offspring. But maybe I exaggerate. But just a bit.

Mind you, I’m not saying it’s a good book. I’m saying it makes me dizzy. Which, really, isn’t a bad thing for a book to do...which may mean that, yes, it is a good book, after all.

Or maybe I’m still vertiginous (thank you, Roget’s Super Thesaurus) from watching Batman Begins this afternoon in an IMAX theater. Yes, my second time through. And in a way that makes absolutely no sense at all, I feel I’ve got a lot in common with this Bruce Wayne character.

(Don’t think I can’t crystal-clearly see and hear you scoffing, Mr. Wise…)

What comes to mind, now, is that swig of hot water from the Aquafina bottle sitting in my car all day. So hot, maybe, that the bottle melted into the water, melted just enough, to cause my at-the-moment inability to walk straight. Here I am walking into the walls of my grandfather’s house as if I’ve had a few too many shots of tequila. Here I am with the room spinning round and round. Which is fun. And besides, it takes my mind off things…

Though, it’s preventing me from finishing that DeLillo book…

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