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Many aspects of editing fascinate me, but the effective use of language is more stimulating to me (for the sake of a now very extended metaphor) than a good cup of coffee. Language can be both startlingly aggressive and powerfully delicate. Therefore, I spend as much time as I can, while still making the rent, reading both literature and garbage. In the midst of a horrible novel I'll find a brief passage of lyrical brilliance that simultaneously amazes and depresses me. Amazing, because it captures and immortalizes a brief piece of truth; depressing, because the rest of the novel is so bad. In these instances, I flash back to a childhood fascination with those globe paperweights full of snow that look suspiciously like that Southern delicacy grits. The trappings were tacky, the snow swirled sluggishly, but at the heart of it was an immutable scene.
When I'm not dividing my time between the literary canon and whatever else in reach from the couch, I passively-aggressively garden in my window boxes (I will grow peas), ignore both my refrigerator and my treadmill (they cancel each other out in the great cosmic weight battle), see an occasional movie, and take an occasional walk.