Suspense is like Anaphylaxis

I've been helping a friend edit her novel, every few weeks she gives me a new chapter. I read it and then return it covered in scribbles about grammar, possible continuity errors, awkward phrasing, word choice, phrasing I love, questions, and predictions. It's a great story, and getting the chapters so far apart means I'm pretty much perpetally dying to find out what happens next.

Early in the story, one character tells the protagonist that she definitely cannot ever be seen by another character. Halfway through the book, the protagonist arranges for the two to meet. I read this chapter right after getting my allergy shots. An important thing to know about allergy shots is that they have a slight possibility of causing a systemic reaction that makes you puff up and die. Allergists make you wait for 30 minutes after your shots because if you are going to puff up and die, it's probably going to be in that period. This systemic reaction is called anaphylaxis, and can progress to anaphylactic shock, where your airway swells up until you can't breathe. The cure for this is a shot of epinephrine and cup of weapons-grade Benadryl.

I read feverishly through confrontation scene, barely breathing through the suspense. I finished the chapter, and somehow still felt...suspenseful.

Apparently anaphylaxis feels a lot like suspense.

Fairies.

I recently acquired the book How to Find Flower Fairies by Cicely May Barker. It's a gorgeous pop-up book instructing children on the best ways to find signs of fairies outside.

We also just finished watching three seasons of "River Monsters" with Jeremy Wade.

The Battle of Waterloo

I decided to read the complete and unabridged Les Misérables, partly because I've found that most classics are classics for a reason, and partly because I felt like doing some masochistic reading. After finishing Lovecraft I wanted another good slow-read.

I went into this project well-prepared. I knew that only 1 in 3 chapters would contain actual plot, and that there was absolutely no way to tell whether a given one was a plot-chapter without reading the entire thing.

In particular, I was warned ahead of time that I would learn more details than I ever wanted to know about the sewers of Paris. Also that there was a giant chunk of the book devoted to the Battle of Waterloo for some reason.

While historically very important, Waterloo occurred 40 years before the plot of the book. There are 19 chapters about the battle, and only a tiny little nugget of plot at the very end of the very last chapter. I knew this before I started reading  Les Misérables. I knew that at some point I was going to have to abandon the plot and read a random book about the Battle of Waterloo. I often read several books at the same time, I was ok with this. I knew I needed to not be emotionally involved in the plot because at some point it would go on hiatus for a good long time.

And then I was reading intently along as Fantine died and Valjean escaped from jail and was on his way to rescue Cosette, when suddenly it snuck up on me.