Welcome to my journal! Feel free to read, to friend, to be yourself. All I ask is that you treat me and the people in the comments with respect.

I also have an art journal, art_at_large, in which I post stuff about the art I do. I don't update it as often as I do this one, but it sort of goes in fits and starts.

I may or may not add you to my reading list. If I don't it's probably because I've looked at your journal and it didn't seem like something I would want to read. Sometimes it's because there's nothing but memes, sometimes it just doesn't capture my interest. If your journal is primarily friends-only and you think I'd enjoy your locked entries, by all means drop me a comment and tell me so. Also, if I don't friend right back, please don't take it personally. I have a terrible streak of procrastination in me and it sometimes just takes a while.

So, I think that's that. I do have filtered posts and I have a number of different filters. If I do know you IRL, let me know and I'll put you on that one.

Have fun and thanks for reading.

I feel as if I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with my niece, but I think that's a bit of an illusion. I taught her how to play dominoes, and how to set them up to be knocked down. We played memory and war and dominoes and went shopping for doll clothes. I wish I'd offered to read to her, but my Mom did quite a bit of that, which was lovely.

She and her parents went swimming next door several times and I wish I'd had a swimming suit and could have joined them. On the other hand, maybe they needed some private time. It's hard to know, sometimes. Another odd thing was that my family tends to be early risers, so when I'm there I get up around 7:30 or 8:00 am. Peter would come upstairs shortly after, and we would all have coffee or tea and a little breakfast and read the paper, and Iris and Lisa (her Mom) would join us around 10am, sometimes later. I wonder if they liked to sleep late, or if there was some private morning time going on. As a result, we never got moving as a group before noon. Perhaps that's why I felt as if we didn't get much done.

karenb2 and I went to see the latest Indiana Jones movie and I wish I hadn't. I know, I know, all the reviews from you guys were spot on. In the back of my mind there was a little voice that said "It's mindless adventure escapism, with Harrison Ford, how bad could it be?" Oy vey. As K said, it was cheesy and hammy right from the very beginning and never let up. You could play a drinking game with the number of times I felt the urge to exclaim "yeah, right" when something particularly impossible occurred. *sigh* At least I could lean over and whisper the odd snarky comment to K and she would laugh. This movie cries out for the MST3K treatment.

On Sunday I helped her move, which wasn't as stressful as it could have been. There were only a few of us (myself, karenb2, and troublebrewing and her brood) and two vehicles, but we managed to get the majority of stuff there in two trips. K took us out to eat at Culver's, which although I tried to get the lightest thing I could find was still a little more than I probably should have eaten. My calorie count for that day was over 1500! I did get quite a bit of exercise, though.

At home, we watched the latest Caedfal mystery on PBS (Iris had to go downstairs, as it was full of Adult Content (i.e. people being hateful, murder and suicide)), the second half of Sense and Sensibility (I've never read it, but was able to successfully encapsulate the high points for Lisa: "There will be walks on the moors, piano playing, a cad, at least one thunderstorm during which a previously unsuitable man will be revealed as one's true love, and a great deal of miscommunication." And lo, so it was. My Mother was annoyed with me.), a DVD of Betty Boop cartoons and finally Iris's DVD of Happy Feet. Unfortunately for the DVD viewing, there is something wrong with my parents' TV or DVD player, as there was a lot of static and video ghosting whenever we would play one, which made it hard to catch what people were saying.

My last day I got up early to go get my hair cut (thanks to a gift certificate from Lisa), came home for a light lunch, then headed off for coffee with maryread, which was lovely. We talked for hours in the comfy chairs at Ancora Coffee Roasters and managed to cover the recent reunion with the core group of friends from her high school years, many of whom I used to know, her calligraphy work and thoughts on art in general and my current obsession with food. They were closing up around us when we realized how late it was getting. Time just flies by.

When I got back to the house, my other brother, Damon, was there and we had a wonderful stir-fry dinner that my Dad made. It was nice to have everyone around the table one last time. Then we watched Happy Feet and I went to pack afterward, and missed saying goodbye to Peter and Lisa. I did get to say goodbye to Iris, who had come upstairs for her dolls.

Tuesday morning I had to get up very early to catch my flight home, though I discovered when I got there that it had been delayed a half-hour. This flight went through Cincinnati and there were thunderstorms there. I was concerned that I might miss my connection, but my flight to New Orleans had also been delayed and we left about an hour late.

It was good to get home and see the cats and take a shower with good water pressure and my own shampoo and sleep in my own bed. Now I have to make a grocery list and go shopping and do a little research on a project. More on that later.

I am home again, and very tired. My flights were both slightly delayed due to bad weather in Cincinnati, but I got home at a fairly reasonable hour. And then I tried to catch up on LJ. Over 400 posts! Yowza. And now I'm totally brain-dead.

More maybe tomorrow when I can rub two thoughts together.

After 47 years of so-perfect-you-couldn't-get-better vision, I am coming to the sad realization that I'm becoming far-sighted. My up-close detail vision is slipping: I can't focus on things closer than about a foot away. My eye muscles hurt if I try. I had the devil's own time threading a needle, and that has never happened to me before. Damn it. I wonder if those little reading glasses would help. This is a problem because I need to be able to focus on little details for my glass work.

Thanks to brisingamen, I am now in lust with this book. Alas, it is out of my budget range at the moment. Of course, damn near everything is out of my budget range at the moment. But this, oh, this... *sigh*

I had a really nice day getting to know someone, and then getting to know their dog. We watched "Jumpers" and had wings ordered in. I like being social. I don't want to say too much too soon. I hope to have more info later.

In other news, there was some real excitement across the street. Something was arcing across a couple of power lines near the transformer next to the school--it was quite the pyrotechnics show, especially after dark when in addition to snapping and cracking the line was sparking bright blue and shooting red flames into the air. The fire department showed up and hung out for a while across the street. We kept waiting for Entergy to show up, but it took them over 3 1/2 hours. By the end, the lights in the school and the streetlight out front, and even the porch light next door were flickering on and off. It looked like a scene from a science fiction movie when the aliens are abducting someone. They must have shut off all the power to that half of the block, because all those lights are now off and the emergency lights are on in the school. I wonder if they'll be back tomorrow.

Cleaned the damned bathroom today. And I mean really cleaned it. As in scrubbed the bathtub and walls and everything. I still need to wash the shower curtain and the under-sink storage box. Then it's a simple matter of picking up all the loose bits of paper in the house, stacking boxes in the studio, dusting and sweeping. And then I should be ready to have a visitor. Oh yeah, and scrub the stove. Ick.

I have someone coming to look at the empty room tomorrow. She seems very nice.

I've been watching a lot of TV lately, on Hulu. Other than the first two seasons of Buffy, I've polished off the first season of Angel and all 14 episodes of Firefly. I guess I'm on a bit of a Whedon kick. I've also watched the first season of Bones, which gives me a nice double dose of David Boreanaz, too.

It's interesting, getting a slightly broader look at Whedon's mind. I've read a bit of criticism of his latest venture, Dr. Horrible, a lot of which is pretty valid. I don't think it's misogyny, though, that led to the killing of of the girl. Whedon shows a tendency to kill of love interest for the sake of stressing his characters to the breaking point. He does it to male as well as female love interests, as can be seen in several episodes of Buffy and even Angel. And he's one of the few writers out there who actually passes the Bechdel Test on a regular basis. (If you haven't heard of this, you need to read this.) He is awfully fond of the death-of-love-as-character-development paradigm, though, which gets old after a while. Even if it isn't literal death, it's often love-interest-revealed-as-evil or even love-interest-turned-evil. But I'm sure I'm not the first to have noticed this. It's rather blazingly obvious if you watch a bunch of his stuff all at once.

I do want to see Serenity now. I'm so far behind the trend it's funny.

86: A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown

A memoir by a woman who grew up with one of the most horrific childhoods I have ever heard about (thrown into the foster system at age 11 after her mother's death, given alcohol and raped in the first week and driven to take to the streets and prostitution and drug use). At one point, I was tempted to look the book up to see whether this was one of those memoirs that had later been revealed to have been faked, just because the situations seemed so over-the-top. But this is the real deal, and she has the research and references and testimony to back her up. (There's a pretty good story on this on EW's site.)

It's a horrifying look at just how fucked up a person can get and still pull themselves out and make something of their life. Some of the scenes are brutal, the language is crude, but it ends up being a compelling story.

I've been doing an analysis of the food I've been eating lately, and here's what I've come up with.

July 18: 675 Calories

July 19: 735 Calories

July 20: 898 Calories

July 21: 781 Calories

July 22: 986 Calories

So, given that various on-line calculators tell me that it takes 2322 calories to maintain my current weight, I am well below that. I think I can also safely add a little more food to my daily intake and be OK.

So far today I've consumed 625 calories, and I'm contemplating a dinner of about 500 calories. That should be good.

Man, I really wish I'd gone to see Journey to the Center of the Earth instead of Hancock. And it should have been good--I mean, superheros, Will Smith, what's not to like? As it turns out, plenty.

( Here be spoilers. Really! )

It's a shame, really. I need a showing of The Dark Knight to wash the badness out of my brain.

I feel like I ate a lot today.

Coffee with 1 C 2% milk and Splenda
About 1 C popcorn at the movies (I took about three to four pieces at a time and ate them slowly)
Taco Salad (see yesterday)
3 Hard-boiled eggs
1 not-quite-ripe-enough banana

Man, if I haven't lost any weight by the time I head up North, I'll be pissed off.

Also, ran some errands and parked at a good distance from the entrance so as to have to walk more.

84: Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

At first I didn't much care for this book. I have a hard time with depictions of people being horrid to each-other, and there was an awful lot of that here. And not just people who are in relationships saying mean things, but strangers showing no tact, sensitivity or compassion. There is a kind of callousness that seems to come to the fore in novels by British authors, this being one of them. I did eventually find some redeeming elements, some interesting insights into the human condition, but I came away actively disliking a couple of the characters.

85: Goodnight, Texas by William J. Cobb

It probably says quite a bit about this book that I couldn't even remember the title or anything about it in order to record it here. It was entertaining enough while I was reading it, but nothing stuck with me afterward. I suppose you could call it a kind of sorbet of a book. There are some uncomfortably realistic descriptions of going through a hurricane on the gulf coast and its aftermath, but again, nothing that stayed with me.

83: I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb.

This is an Oprah Book Club selection, which almost kept me from reading it. Because I'm anti-trendy like that. But beaten_grace lent it to me and I needed something to read at the video store yesterday. So. What to say. It's a big book, with a lot going on. There's family history, immigrant history, issues of child abuse, mental illness, twins, male-pattern anger, etc. As I said, a lot going on. I find it interesting to read a book that has a protagonist depicted in a brutally honest way--a flawed and damaged and damaging person--but depicted so well that you find yourself empathizing with him even as you are telling yourself that he's not a nice person and why are you feeling for him? But as the book goes along, a lot of the obstacles in the character's life get worked on, and it's a satisfying process in the end. There are parts that are quite unpleasant, but I think it's worth making it through to the end.

In which our hero finds herself strangely on the edge of anorexia.

I haven't been eating much lately. I'm not sure why. Yesterday at work I took a banana and a cooked chicken breast. I ate the former soon after getting there, and managed most of the latter around 3pm. I didn't eat it all, though, thinking I'd save the rest for later. Later came, and I just didn't feel like eating it. When I got home I made myself a bowl of mashed potatoes and had that for dinner.

Today I forgot to take the other chicken breast to work and simply found it easier to drink water all day. When I got home I made myself some more mashed potatoes (they needed to be finished off as they were getting shriveled and sprouting) and heated up the chicken. I made it through about half my dinner and couldn't go on, so I covered the plate and put it in the refrigerator.

I can't remember what I had on Monday, but it wasn't much. Over the weekend I know I had a bowl of steamed veggies at one point. Oddly, I haven't felt all that hungry, either. Strange.

81: Brick Lane by Monica Ali.

It seems I've been reading a lot of books about the condition of the immigrant in England lately. White Teeth and The Satanic Verses are two recent examples. This is a worthy addition to the genre, from a woman's point of view. Pretty damned good for a first novel, too. Some excellent commentary on Islam and the many ways it is interpreted.

82: Conversations With the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer.

Another first novel, and one which rang a bit too true and a bit too close to home for me. This is about two childhood friends, both overweight, one of whom has gastric bypass surgery and becomes the perfect size two with the perfect life and the other of whom finds herself stuck in a rut of self-abnegation and loneliness. The interactions play out fairly realistically, and the heroine comes to some uncomfortable but necessary realizations. This is definitely a "chick lit" book--a category that I tend not to read--but well done for what it is.

I recently went back and copied all my book log entries into a word document, and discovered that my numbering is off. This entry corrects that and brings the numbering up to date.

80: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson.

This was a light read, part travelogue, part memoir, part nostalgia trip. The author, after spending two decades in England, returns to his boyhood home of Des Moines, Iowa, borrows his Mother’s Chevette, and commences a road trip through the small towns and byways he remembers from past family vacations with his directionally challenged and miserly father. He goes off the beaten path, checks into cheap motels, eats in diners and searches for the perfect small town America. Along the way he encounters anonymous strip malls, towns with no center, both the kindness and coldness of strangers, and reconnects with his home-town.

In a way, I wish he’d been more thorough, as he skips over entire states (Wisconsin, for example), but I would rather have this than a monotonous travel guide. His observations are sometimes cutting, often kind, always honest and they paint a picture of the country that avoids the mawkishness of those works that extol the American dream and overlook its faults and yet never descends into cruelty and disdain. I would definitely read more by Bryson.

I has it. Seriously, I haven't created anything in weeks. Maybe even a month. I lose track of time. Tonight I turned off the computer and got out my sketchpad and pencils and sat with my eyes closed trying to bring the vague ideas I had for some glass pieces into clear enough focus to start sketching them. And I couldn't. Every time I tried to touch pencil to paper, I couldn't do it. I reach and reach and there's nothing there.

Finally, I turned the computer back on and finished watching the first season of Bones, and then four episodes of Monk.

I feel as if my hands have been cut off.

To feed the video-holic, there's http://www.hulu.com , which has has a bunch of archived episodes of TV shows as well as various spots. It's not complete, and some shows have only a few episodes online (Monk, for example), but others have a couple of seasons (like Bones), so I'm looking forward to working through some of them. I've watched the episode of Fear Itself I missed, and the first two episodes of Bones.

I had a couple of ideas for some art I wanted to make, and went googling around looking for reference images. In the course of said googling, I discovered this amazing kinetic sculptor who creates a form of artificial life. Here's a video about him that's an excellent introduction. There are more out there, but this is the best intro I've found (you have to overlook that it has a message from BMW at the end, but I think that's a small price to pay).



Another amazing artist I discovered down the rabbit hole is Peter Callesen, who creates the most incredible paper sculptures. His web site is here. There are several different categories of work--I recommend all of them, but I especially love the skeletons.

I made plans to go to lunch and the movies today with beaten_grace, and she came over a little after noon. As we headed out the door, I noticed there was a package in my mailbox from Amazon. Hmm. I didn't order anything from them. I took it inside and started to leave again, but then I knew I'd be tormented by the mystery so I came back in and opened it up. Inside was a copy of The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Cool. I know a while ago I mentioned that I wanted a better reading copy but I did go ahead and read my little paperback. This is a nice reading copy--it's a book club edition so it's a hardcover, and it's clean and tight.

So to my mysterious benefactor: thank you! I suspect I may go back and re-read at least some of this book, so it's nice to have a better copy.

beaten_grace and I had lunch at Lebanon's, which was nice as it's been a while since I've eaten there. I've been eating at home more often than not to save money. Then we headed off to Elmwood for an afternoon showing of Hellboy II. That was a lot of fun! I loved all the steampunk elements, and the art direction was superb. I'm not a comics reader, so I'm not familiar with the original, but this series has really piqued my interest. Of course, I also have a big soft spot for Ron Perlman, so that was a win. I think I'd actually like to have that on DVD just for the visuals.

Then home and my usual pattern of internet, TV and then dinner. Oh, and beaten_grace also brought over a box of books from her collection so my to-read pile is now more than one book high again! Yay! I was down to The Plays of Sheridan, She Stoops to Conquer and School for Scandal, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, Of Human Bondage, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and a L'Engle book, Meet the Austins. Some of which are really more reference works than anything, and others I want to read at some time, just not right now.

How do you know you've spent too much time on the computer? Your mouse fingers are sore. Ow. My fingertips are raw. But lord help me, I'm an addict. And now I have to go brave the hell-beast upstairs. Argh.

[edit]Hellcat fed, no injuries to report. I went up with the squirt bottle, but didn't have to use it, thank goodness. He made a brief appearance in the far doorway while I was in the kitchen, but disappeared by the time I was done. I left a little pile of catnip in the spot where he had been lying in wait for me yesterday, so maybe that might help.

Courtesy of chowyunsmut, I present a brilliant cooking show from the BBC.



I had to watch every episode, and then subjected a visiting friend to the first one. Go watch. You'll thank me.

I'm taking care of the landlord's cat upstairs, and now I kind of wish I wasn't. See, he hates me. Really, really hates me. I've never been disliked by a cat like this. I don't know quite how to deal with it. When I opened the door to their apartment today, he was crouched on the stairs. As soon as he saw me he started hissing and growling and huffing. I let him sniff my hand for a bit, and then he lashed out and took a chunk out of my arm. Ow. He was guarding the stairs with such ferocity that I had to pick up the throw rug and use it as a little shield to get past him on the stairs. He seemed terribly offended by that.

I finished refilling his water and putting out his food and scooping his litter box, and then I thought I'd just hang out for a while and see if he came around a bit. I heard crunching in the kitchen at one point while I sat on the couch reading a magazine, but when I shifted a bit and looked over at the door, he was giving me that evil look. He stayed crouched by the doorway the entire time and it was touch and go getting around him to go down the stairs. He tried to take a swipe at my legs and I'm afraid I reverted to a primal nature and growled and hissed back at him. I did get out with my ankles intact, but a bit shaken. And I have to do this for the next three weeks.

I don't know. I'm thinking maybe a little Rescue Remedy in his water might be in order. Have any of you ever tamed such a hostile beast? I've managed to train cats not to bite, but they were generally affectionate to start with. He really is Evil.

75: Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

I don't know quite what to say about this book. It's an odd one. It's billed as "a novel about the history of philosophy", which it is. But it's also a bit of a mystery and written in a very simplistic manner. The author is Norwegian, which is where the novel is set, which is a nice change. But the underlying ethos is still christianity, and it shows. I should have known, when the novel got a quote from Madeline L'Engle. It's a kind of existential mystery interspersed with a philosophy primer. Ack, I'm not describing this well. There's a spoilery synopsis on the wikipedia page, if you're interested.

74: Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

For a while I was really enjoying this story, rooting for Jude's happiness, feeling alongside him the joy of working toward knowledge. But I forgot that Hardy's characters are tested unto Job and often pushed beyond the limits of their endurance. Why oh why did I read this book now? I don't need things to further my depression. Unfortunately, all the books that remain on my tiny little to-be-read stack are of this nature. Perhaps why I haven't gotten around to them yet. I have one last novel in my bag for today. I am hoping with all my heart that it contains some goodness in it.

73: Naked in the Marketplace: The Lives of George Sand by Benita Eisler

Has anyone else noticed that every single non-fiction, academic book title out there follows the same formula? They're all Poetic Title: Explanation. Hell, it may be every non-fiction book, period.

Anyway, I picked this book up at a library book sale over a year ago and it's been lurking at the bottom of my to-read pile ever since. I tend to approach biographies with a certain amount of trepidation, especially if it's about someone with whose work I'm unfamiliar. That may seem like a contradiction--I mean, if you don't know about them, wouldn't reading a biography be a good start? Well, not always. A lot of biographical studies are written for an informed audience. I once had to put down a biography of a well-known editor because the author assumed the reader would know who all the people mentioned in connection with the subject were. Since all these people had been luminaries in the twenties and many had not passed the test of time, this was an exercise in frustration for me.

I am pleased to say that this biography was not in that mode. While I don't feel it was the most brilliant and insightful work ever, I did come away from it with a much better understanding of who George Sand was, and more importantly, the nature of her work and its context. I was particularly pleased with the way Eisler summed up each of Sand's novels before discussing it, so even an uninformed reader could come away with insight. The book also provided, indirectly, a bit of a history lesson of revolutionary France, a period which I find utterly confusing (perhaps made more so by an attempt to read Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the French Revolution which I got about half-way through).

Like fellow countrywoman Edith Piaf, about whom a wonderful movie was made, George Sand strikes me as a grand character--someone to observe from afar, but who you wouldn't want in your life. For some reason, France seems to breed this sort of diva: contentious, argumentative, abrasive, dramatic, and yet erotically compelling to the famous men of her generation. Perhaps it is a cultural difference between the two countries--here such an outspoken, flamboyant, overtly political and promiscuous woman would be denounced as a harridan even today and yet was celebrated in 19th century France.

Off to work with me, now.

Just a quick note. Worked today from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm on my feet the entire time dealing with people flying in for Essence fest. Don't know if there's more work for me tomorrow or not--will hear tomorrow, I hope.

Went to baseball game, which was good but my butt doesn't fit well in the seats and I was very uncomfortable. I had a beer and started to fade fast. Left with my friends when a promising tie-breaking end-of-inning at-bat was turned into a farce by a brilliant fake-out by the opposing pitcher that caught a runner off third base and resulted in a tragic run-down. Not even the promise of fireworks could keep me there.

Came home where I discovered my period has started. Oh, well that would explain the back pain, then.

Now, Craig Ferguson and then bed.

Motherfucking cell phones. I had a job lined up for tomorrow, but the goddam ass-sucking cell phone didn't ring, or let me know I had a message until fucking 7 hours later. I am so pissed off. They moved on to the next name on the list, which means I'm out a whole day's work at $15/hour. I am so pissed off about this. Hopefully I'll get an assignment for Thursday. This just shows I should check the damned phone every half hour just in case because I certainly can't rely on it to actually, you know, DELIVER MY FUCKING MESSAGES IN A TIMELY MANNER.

72: Meet Me at Infinity by James Tiptree, Jr.

I think I picked this up at WisCon last year, and I finally got to the bottom of the stack it was in a couple of weeks ago. It's taken me this long to finish because it's been my bedtime reading book. Usually I just read one book at a time, taking it to bed with me and then packing it in my bag to read at work. But the fact that this is a collection of short items makes for perfect bedtime reading. I can go through one or two stories or articles before my eyes lose focus and I turn out the lights and fall asleep. Conversely, it's the sort of book you don't want to read all the way through at one sitting.

The parts of the book that I found most fascinating were not, as I had first imagined, the short stories, but the non-fiction bits taken from letters and interviews over the years. I loved the letters from Mexico and the various travel bits, and I thought Jeff Smith's selections were just right. (Jeff was the editor of several fanzines and was Tiptree's closest correspondent over the years. It was to him that Tiptree confirmed the revelation that he was in fact Alice Sheldon.)

There has been a surge of interest in Tiptree over the last ten years or so, including an eponymous award (given to work that explores gender) and a recently completed biography that went on to win that award. I feel privileged to have been at the WisCon where the founding of the award was first announced, and doubly so to have been standing in the small circle of women when they came up with the idea of funding the award through bake sales and a cookbook (Jeanne Gomoll and Pat Murphy were the instigators. I forget who else was with us.) I contributed a recipe to each of the cookbooks that were subsequently published (The Bakery Men Don't See and Her Smoke Rose Up From Supper) and provided many a sweet to bake sales over the years. I even created the award for Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang. And yet for all that, I am a peripheral figure in the history of the thing. It is my great regret that I didn't do more at the time.

But back to the book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone just discovering Tiptree, rather, it is a book that appeals to those who have read the short stories or the novel and want to know more about this enigmatic figure.

It's gone all dark outside and there's thunder and some wind. The lights just flickered and the microwave beeped in distress in the kitchen. Fingers crossed that we don't lose power. We've had afternoon thunderstorms every day for the last four days. Good thing I don't have to be anywhere.

That book meme that’s going around. I thought I’d done this already, but a search of the last 200 posts of mine show that, no, I haven’t. Parenthetical comments are mine and not part of the original meme.

( Read more... )

70: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

I'd been wanting to get a better reading copy of this books as the one I have is small, dense type on high-acid paper from the 60s, but I'm getting to the bottom of the bookpile and don't have money for more books right now.

What to say about this book. First, I should not have read it while working at the pr0n store. I'm afraid I was not terribly nice to some of the men who came in. This is a book that sucked me in so thoroughly that it was a wrenching jolt to be pulled out of it to attend to business. I am continually awed by Lessing's ability to so fully inhabit her characters that you feel every small thought, every brush against the skin. He characters despair over the inability of the written word to capture the essence of the experience and then she proceeds to do just that. I never feel as alive and aware in my body as I do when reading one of her books, even as I am dismayed and disaproving of the choices her characters make. Reading this was a kind of intellectual flaying, of cutting through layers of thought and feeling and experience and laying the whole of it out as if in an anatomical display.

And then I read the foreword (which should have been an afterword) which was a brilliant essay in itself on the many ways in which this novel had been interpreted by the readers and critics, and how she feels about the way lit crit is taught in the schools (which mirror my own feelings to a fare-thee-well). I then proceeded to write a long letter to her in my head which, of course, I will now never write down because I can't hope to capture those phrases again.

I had to walk around for a while and stand outside the door watching storms roll in over the swamps and clear my head before I was able to pick up the next book, which was

71: Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This was much better than I had anticipated from reading the back cover blurb. The style of writing is so much simpler and less dense than Lessing's, which is undoubtedly a good thing, as I needed a bit of a palate cleanser, so to speak. It was sweetly written and I was able to fall into the created world quite easily. The blurbs claim this will make you believe there is a God, but I found no such thing. I could read about and appreciate the faith of the central character without feeling that I was being preached to, which is a lovely quality. I don't mind so much reading about other people's spiritual journeys as long as they are not didactic or bombastic or overly sectarian. This was not any of those, and in fact was pretty ecumenical. There are a few charmingly uncomfortable scenes of how Religion gets in the way of faith, which I thought were resolved entirely too easily given the Religions involved, but then, this is, after all, a kind of fable.

What the blurbs fail to inform the reader is that this is not, in its entirety, a book about surviving in a small lifeboat with a tiger. The entire first half is about growing up in a small corner of India called Pondicherry, once a French Colony. Pi's Father owns a zoo and so there is quite a bit about the behavior of animals, which serves the boy well in his ordeal at sea. Pi's spiritual journey begins there, as well as his physical one. Unlike magical realism, I never came to a place where I had to adjust my thoughts from this world to a slightly different one in which impossible things happen with ease. Even the most unlikely scenario is presented so well that my inner critical reader allowed the extra credulity without much fuss.

I never know how much detail to go into in these little mini-reviews, because I know that I, as a reader, want to know just enough to let me know if this is something I might like to read, yet not enough to spoil the book for me. I try to err on the side of spoiler-free as much as possible, with the result, I'm afraid, that my writing tends toward the general and cryptic rather than the specific. I hope you will forgive me.

68: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

For a while, I didn't think I'd ever finish this book. Not because I didn't like it (which I did, very much) but because I made the mistake of leaving it at a friend's house at Thanksgiving. Yes, 7 months ago. I finally retrieved it earlier this week when I went out there for a little quiet time after losing Sam. It is a serious testament to Ms. Kingsolver's writing that not only was I still interested in reading it, but that after all this time and nearly a hundred books read in between starting and finishing it, I remembered the story and the characters clearly and was able to simply pick it up and continue reading as if no time at all had passed. I find this remarkable, especially since there are books I have read within the month that I have forgotten the plot and characters of. (Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. It happens, and grammarians are a lot less twitchy about it, I have discovered.)

69: Collapse by Jared Diamond

After a recent comment of mine about populations outstripping the food productivity of their environment, several people recommended this work to me. Delightfully, Joe happened to have a copy (given to him by Andy Hooper when we were in Seattle last summer) and he lent it to me. It's taken me a while to get around to it, but I'm glad I did. This is a thoughtful and very thorough examination of the many factors that can lead to the collapse of a society, with a solid grounding in science. It would be easy to come away from such an examination with a very pessimistic view of our future (our meaning the entire world, as well as us as a first world industrialized nation) but Mr. Diamond manages to end on a note of cautious optimism.

At the very end of the book, after all the acknowledgments and further reading lists, there is a short section on what we as individuals can do. Donating to environmentally active organizations is one he recommends, but another is to be an informed and activist consumer. He cites changes to forestry practices and gold mining based on demands by retail giants such as Home Depot, Lowe's, and Tiffany's. And those demands in turn were driven by the growing interest among consumers in socially responsible purchasing. Where government ineptitude and corporate malfeasance made real change to environmentally destructive practices unlikely if not impossible, the power of the marketplace is beginning to drive corporations to adopt greener policies in recognition of changing market demands. I know that reading the descriptions of Chevron's highly responsible management of oil drilling operations in environmentally sensitive places such as Papua New Guinea has made me more likely to fill up at their stations over those of other companies.

Yesterday I took a friend up on her very kind offer and escaped the house for the wilds of Slidell. We spent a nice evening talking about everything and then we watched Charlie Wilson's War, which was really pretty good. And that's saying something, given that I generally don't like war movies. Of course, this was done more as a comedy, but with serious undertones. At the end, I turned to my hosts and said "and that's exactly why Bin Laden hates us." A point which I rather wish the movie-makers could have slipped in there somehow.

I stayed over and had a nice sleep, then headed back just before noon. As I was coming across the twin spans, my phone rang and it was Jim Brooks from Madison, who is visiting with his lovely wife, Nancy. They were on their way in from just West of Baton Rouge, so we made plans to meet after they got in. I spent some time at home checking email and LJ and petting the kitties and then I took a nap. Jim called around 6-ish and I headed down to the CBD, where they're staying. We ended up going to dinner at Palace Cafe. I can't believe I've lived here ten years and this was my first time there. It was lovely, and our meals were just right. I had the andoullie crusted gulf fish, which was mmmm tasty. Jim had the scallops, which were absolutely delightful, and Nancy chose the pecan-crusted fish. All in all, we were very happy with our choices. We eschewed desert on my suggestion that we ride the streetcar up to mid-city for gelato and pastries at Angelo Brocato's (I know I was just there--it's really good, OK?). Unfortunately, we got out there to discover they are closed on Mondays. Alas.

We had an interesting ride back on the streetcar, with the same driver, and also a couple who had inquired about how far the line went and did it turn around. We got to see a bit of street drama unfold (thankfully, there was no gunplay) and made it back to the CBD in fairly good time. It was getting a bit late for them, so we said our goodnights and parted ways. Since I got home, I've been watching TV and reading LJ and playing computer games. Now it's time for bed, that's for sure.

Tomorrow they're having breakfast at the Bluebird and then they'll call me. I'm planning another iteration of the disaster tour for them, since they seemed interested. I advised them to take the St. Charles streetcar to the Bluebird, and then continue on to get to me. The line finally opened up its last segment on Sunday and now runs all the way to S. Claiborne and right past my house. I love hearing that sound again. I had planned to ride the line on the first day back, but my heart wasn't in it. I am looking forward to being able to take it downtown again, though.

It's pretty quiet around here. Still not used to not being bugged for food by a loud-mouthed, pushy, stripey feline. It'll take some time.

Thanks so much to all of you who have commented to my latest journal posts with your hugs and condolences. Even from so far away, I feel surrounded by fellow-feeling from people I care about. It does help. I'm a little too overwhelmed right now to be able to go back and comment on each and every one individually, so I hope you'll understand if I just say thanks here.

Still having kind of a rough day. Harley and Beamer are acting wary and skittish--they know something is wrong, but not what. Beamer occasionally looks at me and meows questioningly and I don't know what to tell her.

After I got home this morning and made my post, I cried some more until I was absolutely exhausted. I went to bed and slept a bit. That helped.

Old friends Jim Hudson and Diane Martin were in town today--their last day in New Orleans and my last chance to see them. I'd called them in the morning to let them know what was up. I called again around 2pm and we made arrangements to get together. I was hoping that getting out of the house and doing something would keep me from obsessing. The skies opened up and it poured and thundered for about half an hour before tapering off. I waited until the worst was over, then headed into the quarter to pick Diane and Jim up. We rendezvoused at the end of the French Market, and we headed Uptown. They hadn't really had a chance to get out of the French Quarter, so I did my Uptown tour, with a stop at Plum Street Snoballs. What a good idea that was. Mmmmm. Strawberry with condensed milk. I have discovered that the smallest size is perfect for me.

Then to the house for a brief stop. They got to meet Harley, who was a bit standoffish, as is his habit. It made me realize that my two party cats--the ones who would always come to see who was visiting and climb on laps, are now gone. The two who are left are shy, with one vanishing beneath the bed and the other being a real Mama's cat. Sam was my ambassador cat, my greeter. There are a lot of people who will miss him, I think.

We talked a bit, and I showed them my pictures of Sam. We eventually decided to head out to Bucktown for traditional New Orleans fried seafood. I took them to P & O and we had seafood platters, which were just right. I ate just a little of mine, but it was plenty. The leftovers came home with me. Our ride home took us past the site of the 17th Street Canal floodwall breech, which is always a sobering sight. There was a lot more new construction since the last time I'd been out.

We stopped at Angelo Brocato's for desserts to go and then I delivered them to their hotel. They have an early flight, so I dropped them off to give them time to pack and get to bed early.

It was really nice to see old friends (and fellow cat people) and they were a welcome distraction from my sorrows.

Joe had suggested I could come by in the evening, so I gave him a call and headed over there. I gave him my leftover food (which was a lot), as it is better eaten fresh than re-heated. We ate the cannoli I'd bought and watched a movie (I only saw the last half, but that was OK).

Now I'm back home. I'm so tired and my eyes still hurt from crying and my nose is raw from the tissues. I'm tired and yet I don't want to go to bed. On my way home I kept second-guessing myself--wondering if I'd really made the right decision, if maybe Sam could have been that one-in-a-million success story and I'd robbed him of his golden years. I hate this. With Anais I knew 100% that I was doing the right thing--she was so clearly ready to go. Sam was still so strong and fighting hard, but I could tell he was in terrible pain. This is the worst. I'll be alone with my thoughts and anguish all night. And there's nothing I can do about it.

( What happened )

I didn't expect this to be so sudden. I am absolutely heartbroken. My Sam had been with me for 16 years. He slept under the covers with me in the winter and beside my pillow in the summer. He drove me crazy sometimes, but I always forgave him. In the evenings when I was on the computer, he would curl up in my chair next to me and as soon as my lap was free he'd take it over. He was loud and demanding and loving. He had a heart-shaped pattern in the fur over his shoulder and a spotted belly and the softest fur I've ever felt right behind his ears. Like most tabbies, he had a little M shape in the middle of his forehead, and I named him Sam after Sam Moskowitz, because that's the name that popped into my head when I saw his markings.

I will miss him terribly. I already do.

67: Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Another brilliant novel about change, growth, family, prejudice, love, power and pride. I have now read three books by Butler and am aware always that there are a finite number of them and that there can never be any more. As I finish each book I am taken with a deep sadness at this injustice.

I am beginning to see common themes emerging with each reading. Themes of exploration of what it means to be human and not-human, to be female, to be of color, to be evolved or evolving and how the culture around us and even our own families and loved ones react to these changes. And throughout it all, the characters come through so fully realized that it is almost painful to be done with their stories. You almost feel as if their lives continue on even though you are not allowed to observe them anymore. That is a great gift, as a writer.

This book in particular felt as if there were more and more stories to come. I'm not going to do a synopsis, because it's easy to Google such things and I don't think I can do justice to the many layers of this work.