I’ve fallen into a weird sort of depression. Instead of spending my time worrying about my career and my writing and money and the state of my life as I approach FORTY!, I’ve decided to ignore all that to worry about Owen Meany.

I’m neck deep in A Prayer for Owen Meany, the novel by John Irving that I often credit with changing my life, and it’s all I can think about. It’s all I want to talk about too, which makes me extra annoying to be around.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been known to randomly shoe horn an Owen Meany anecdote into every conversation I have. Yes, I’ve told people about Mrs. Brocklebank, Johnny Wheelwright’s Toronto neighbor; the statue of Mary Magdalene; and Randy White the new headmaster at Gravesend Academy. It doesn’t matter how tenuous the connection, I need to talk about Owen.

This time around, I’m listening to the novel. I’ve read it twice before and have been known to skip over some of the blah blah blah about Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair. Listening to it is forcing me not skim those parts and I’m surprised to find myself a little enamored with John Wheelwright’s political rants.

But as I said, I’m neck deep in the novel and that means all the big, bad, sad stuff is at my ear drums. My heart is heavy and I’m dreading it. Part of me wants to just stop listening right now as though if I don’t finish the book (SPOILER) Owen won’t die. But the other part of me wants to spend all my time finishing it so I can just be done. So I can go back to thinking about things other than New Hampshire and the boy with the broken voice and what it is about this book that captivates me so much.

Last week, when I was obsessed with Weeds seems so long ago and so quaint now.