Admittedly, I did not notice this sign until my cousin pointed it out to me, and for close to a year I’ve been wanting to visit. It’s not that often that I head up that direction, but I had time on my way home from my last Boston trip and thought it was time to stop in. As you can probably tell from my photo quality it was a dreary day in the northeast, and a pit-stop at a diner (with books) seemed like the ideal lunch break.

As advertised, there are books. And food. After I shook off my umbrella and stepped inside, I knew this was the place for me. Most dining establishments greet you with a counter or a hostess or some other food-related thing, but here we open the door to… books.

Yes, I do believe I will fit in.

I was seated beside a bookshelf, which I picked through while waiting for my mushroom and spinach omelette. They offer three free books with your meal, so I didn’t mind the $8 omelette so much. I didn’t want to look weird and mosey around the place while others were eating, but I did find a hardcover copy of Tim O’Brien’s July, July on a nearby shelf. Might as well swap it out for my old paperback version!

And if that’s not enough, they have a used bookstore downstairs as well.

I was anxious to get back on the road, since the rain was starting to come down again, but I could have easily lost myself in these narrow shelves. They have a great collection of old and leatherbound books, which I will definitely check out on my next trip. And they’re super-cheap, so I could feasibly leave with an armload of books.

If you ever find yourself crossing the Connecticut/Massachusetts border, check it out. Get your free books and some good old fashioned diner food. I quite enjoyed the break from the sudden downpour outside.

Write my music? When do I get time to write my music?
—Mr. Holland

If you’ve never watched Mr. Holland’s Opus (it’s practically required watching for former band geeks like myself), Mr. Holland is a composer. Or, rather, a composer who takes a music teacher job so he can actually support his family. And only teachers understand the whirlwind of being a teacher—grading papers; working after hours; aiding students who need the extra help. And in this whirlwind, Mr. Holland’s opus lies abandoned on his piano. He stares at it mournfully, plunking out some notes before crashing for the night.

When do we have time to write our opuses?

I started reading Jennifer Egan’s The Keep and our main character, Danny, is caught up in his whirlwind: life is New York. His cousin, Howie, invites him to the middle-of-nowhere Europe to work at an abandoned castle (I’m not far enough into the book to understand this), and Danny brings a satellite dish to stay connected. Meanwhile, Howie is going on a rampage about how media has corrupted us and people don’t create anymore because we don’t have to; other people create and we blindly follow.

Writing is hard, whether it’s words or music or whatever you’ve been planning to compose. And it’s only made more difficult by this whirlwind, by life. We go to work. We take work home, we updates our blogs, we catch up with friends. We stay up at night playing games, or watching movies, or being wrapped up other forms of entertainment that other people have created for us. Next thing you know it’s one o’clock in the morning and that Word document for your novel is still blank.

Howie, even though he’s probably scaring Danny in his triage, has the right idea. Not that I suggest we ditch our homelands and buy medieval castles, but we need to slow down. Do you have to spend two hours at night playing facebook games? Or watching The Princess Diaries for the third time that week? (Guilty as charged.)

But as composers, research is important. We have to keep up with what’s new, read the latest books, check up on some blogs. But we spend so much time on other people’s work that we ignore our own. Maybe we do need a cabin in the woods with no WiFi.

Occasionally when I’m be away from home, and don’t bother checking my blogs, I return and don’t see the point in going back into the social sphere. Because my mind is finally clear, and it feels like I have no obligations. We must clear our minds, and only then will we find the motivation and the time to create. Take a day, or a week, or even a month and disconnect. Yes, you have to work and take care of your basic necessities. But do you need to read your favorite blog the moment it’s updated? Or answer a text message the second it’s received? It will still be there when you come back.

Creation is a part of our identity. I feel empty when I’m not writing. Even this long-winded blog entry has sparked something in my brain, and I want to get back to outlining my long-overdue novel. Entertainment is great, but don’t forget about your own work. Don’t neglect your opus.

(I honestly considered changing my name, but I was first. So there.)

Of course, I jumped on registering. Right now, I’m only taking advantage of their mailing list and receiving book recommendations in my inbox. But even that is more than I’ve been doing lately—I rarely keep up with the latest and greatest, because my to-read stack is never-ending, so it’s a great way to keep up with new stuff.

They also have this great recommendations page, where you input a book that you like and it shares with you similar titles. I just plugged in Everything is Illuminated (one of my favorites) and it gave me a list of books I’ve never even heard of. Bonus points! (I dislike “recommendations” that only pull from what’s popular.) It seems I must now look into Wunderkid and Going to See the Elephant.

For better recommendations you can also track what you’ve read, but with 550 books on my shelf (thanks for that number, Goodreads) I don’t think I’ll be doing this anytime soon. Unless they implement an “import” option.

In short, I recommend it. Even if you do nothing but sign up for their mailing list. Much like myself.

Let’s ignore the fact that my “getting back into blogging” posts often include videos. (Truthfully, there are a few things I’ve been meaning to blog about so stay tuned.)

In the meantime, enjoy the trailer for Ender’s Game. It looks awesome. They better not botch up this book.

If you haven’t read Better Nate Than Ever, get on it. My glowing goodreads review should be enough to convince you.

But back to the event. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the same room as an author speaking, and I nearly forgot how much fun it is. He’s also a Broadway dancer; he began taking over the Broadway stage when he was still in high school. Needless to say, his stage presence is fantastic. Or, conference room presence. (You take what you can get in an office building.) He read a bit of the book (which I had finished reading myself all of that morning) and it brought out so much more of the story. The book is lovable to begin with, and his reading just amplified that.

He’s also super-patient and talked to all of us in line as he signed our books.

If you have a chance to see him, I recommend that you do. Whether on a book tour or in a show. And even if you can’t, at least read the book. You’ll like it. I promise.

What? No, that’s not autobiographical at all.

To get back into the swing of things, I’m going to make you watch (I mean… I recommend you watch) this year’s Academy Award–winning animated short film, Paperman. AKA, my new favorite thing ever. A side note: I made my mom watch it with me and in the first two seconds she said, “He is totally your type.”

If you’re here because you want me to complain about the movie, as I usually do with film adaptations, you’ll be highly disappointed. It stayed pretty true to the book. There were a few things cut out, but I didn’t mind that so much (the whole zombie marriage thing, and I distinctly remember a scene in the book that included a lot of drinking). But when you take out all those details, the movie is exactly what the book is at its core—a love story.

If you’ve read my book review, you’ll know I didn’t completely buy the love story. It didn’t have much basis. But somehow, it worked better in the film. R’s love for Julie wasn’t just because he ate her boyfriend’s brain—it developed on its own, and we knew it.

Even if zombies aren’t your thing, go read it. And see it. I promise it’s not gross brain-eating all the time. R may be undead, but he’s adorable.

I see bloggers with their resolutions to read X number of books by year’s end, or they actually have a list of books they plan to read (I’m not that good), and despite completing a challenge in the past… I don’t want to.

Reading became more something I had to do rather than wanted to do. In the last week of 2011, when my book count was only seventy-four (only, right), I deliberately picked a short YA title to finish off the year. It was cheating, yes, but it was on my to-read shelf, anyway.

In 2012, though, when I wasn’t counting, I enjoyed reading again. When I participated in the challenge, my number was always in the back of my mind. This is book number seventy, I would think, knowing I had a month to finish five more. Did I even enjoy those books at the end? What did I read?

Challenges are great for people who don’t read, who don’t have two shelves of books waiting for her at home and two hours on public transportation. While I could force myself to read one hundred books in 2013, I have little desire to. I’ll continue going at my normal pace, enjoying the tales in front of me, and leave the challenges for people who don’t already have their faces permanently stuck in a book.

Unsurprisingly, we are not the first to wonder. People have attempted to recreate the sounds of English into nonsensical terms, which are quite fun to listen to. Adriano Celentano’s 1970s hit Prisencolinensinainciusol (don’t ask me to pronounce that) is a catchy little tune made entirely of nonsense verse. And while the words mean nothing at all, it sounds like English.

Truthfully, this tune is a now a starred track on my Spotify account.

If soap operas are more your style, the short film Skwerl has a similar effect. You understand what’s going on, even if you don’t understand the dialogue.

It’s a little eerie, like eavesdropping on someone’s disagreement. But that’s why it’s so fun.

If anyone has other examples, I’ll gladly listen to them. It fascinates me to think that the language we hear every day is complete nonsense to non-native speakers. Of course, they may feel the same way about us as well.