My nutritious breakfast of the day – a coffee frappucino and some sun chips (hey, they’re multigrain!). See what happens when you are the third child? If I ever have another baby, I’ll probably be snorting cocaine for breakfast, chased by a rum-and-coke and beer nuts.
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I wandered around the bookstore yesterday, debating buying some books. I sat down on the floor and read the first chapter of Wesley Stace’s Misfortune, restrained myself from buying it, and went home to request it from the library. Because interesting as I found the beginning, what if the rest sucks? Hardback books are very expensive these days, it’s a big risk : ) I also requested from the library The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (who knows why?) and a book that just looked like it could be either a lot of fun or really deadly simple, Cordelia Underwood, or, The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League. Then I went home and started reading Mary Renault’s Fire From Heaven, about Alexander the Great’s boyhood. I have all of Renault’s historical novels because my mother was a big fan, but none of them ever grabbed me. But since I was too lazy to haul my pregnant self up off the floor at B&N, I just slid myself down the row, from the S’s to the R’s, and browsed among the Renaults. Fire From Heaven starts with a snake slithering into the 4-year-old Alexander’s bed, and rather than feeling threatened, he assumes it is his mother’s pet snake - I was hooked. So I am concurrently reading Fire From Heaven which is very likely going to turn out to be a good read but utter trash, and John Irving’s Son of the Circus. The phrase “dwarf blood” is just so evocative, don’t you think?
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Guardian summer book reccs, both commoner and celebrity:
Books on the list that also happen to be on my to-read pile:
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth; Perfume – Patrick Susskind; HP and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling.
Books I’ve read and that I can heartily second the recc:
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie; The Kite Runner – Khaled Hasseini; Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (his essay on his French class’s take on Easter traditions makes me giggle just thinking about it. It is possibly the funniest thing I have EVER read, even funnier than the Great Dane essay in - heck, which is it? - Barrel Fever or I think, maybe, actually, Naked. For a quick summary, read this. But take the time to get the book and read the entire thing, I promise it's worth it.)
List of books I need to decide if they sufficiently pique my interest to be added to the to-read list: My Summer of Love (this is the second or third time this one has crossed my radar, time to check it out); Memoirs of Hecate County (fabulously creepy cover); Our Hidden Lives: The Everyday Diaries of a Forgotten Britain 1945-48; Birdsong (Sebastian Faulks, and this looks like it just might be too similar to The French Lieutenant’s Wife for my taste…); The Glass Palace; The Promise of Happiness (Justin Cartwright, not available in the States).
I also just requested from the library Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, due to Jessa Crispin’s ringing endorsement coupled with my natural interest in the homeland of my maternal grandparents.
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My cool, suave, cynical husband got sucked into reality TV world last night with the INXS show. He spent many minutes reassuring me that *this* reality show was different “because it’s real. These are people who really want to front INXS! All the other reality TV shows pad the cast with fake competitors.” Uh-huh, dear. Pat him on the knee. You continue to live in your little fantasy world, it harms no one. But oh, how the mighty have fallen. And oh how the not-so-mighty wife is smirking.
I also would like to thank Dan for installing a ceiling fan in the bedroom this weekend. Keeping in mind the man has degrees in both mathematics and electrical engineering, I was the one who had to kindly point out that if you were to insert the remote control base skinny end first into the fan base and *then* connect the wires, it would be much easier than connecting all the wires and then jamming the fat end of the base, tangled in wires, through the very tight space provided.
And the dear one actually said to me this weekend, “You are very pretty. Sure, you had a weight problem but after this baby…” Um. Excuse me. I admit that of the past 55 months, 15 of which has had me more than three months pregnant, and 31 of which I was mostly either nursing (read: ravenous 24-7) or newly pregnant, I have indeed mostly looked at least three months pregnant. But honestly, cut me a break! I at least have those 15 months and two children to show for my belly flab. What’s your excuse?!
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My brother has left the state, on an eleven o’clock bus this morning. I don’t think I have ever felt relieved to see him go before. But as I said it was much like I imagine having a third child around will be, only the baby won’t drink all our Guinness and rum.
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Snippets:
Steve Almond has a terrific article on Salon about the remake of Willy Wonka. I sort of want to see it but at the same time, his article makes me understand why I don’t *really* want to see it. Although, since I no longer get stoned, I could probably happily pass on the experience anyway. Best to have my memories. And this, which I cannot decide, is it funny-cool or just plain weird? (Or in the parlance of my teen years, funny-haha or funny-peculiar?)
Happy belated Birthday, Jessa! I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.
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Useless snippets:
“You will get caught. We will fine you.” Yet another brain trust storing her kids in the trunk of her car for a long road trip. **NEWSFLASH** If you need to put your kids in the trunk, perhaps you need a bigger car. And do you really think you will get away with this? Or maybe you will. The stern warning at the beginning of this blurb? For seatbelts. Of course, if you had enough seatbelts, you wouldn’t have to put your kids in the trunk, now, would you?
Shakin’ the dice: Why is gambling specifically the compulsive behavior exhibited? Why not hand-washing, or sex? What is it that targets that gambling gene? Isn’t that just bizarre?
8 comments:
Jean Brodie?!?! I had that play to costume design for my sophomore collaboration project. Its a very weird story.
I guess I am finally going to have to buy a Salon membership. I haven't had that thought since my PDA crashed.
At least she hadn't strapped them to the roof.
They'd at least have gotten some air if she'd strapped them to the roof.
Good morning, my friend. I write you here from the safety of your own, undisclosed-to-my-family, blog...
I started reading Toni Morrison's Sula last night. Had to stop because I got to a part where I couldn't read any further. I was too stunned and horrified. Which is probably what the brilliant author wanted. But I can't get past it. It was unforgivable. So I shut the book, right there, and tried my hardest for the rest of the ride home to forget what I had read.
That's OK, right? I'm fighting this sense of HAVING to pick it up and finish it, because that's what you do. You finish your asparagus (or whatever) and you finish a book. And I love books.
Thanks for the other recommendations. I'm off to the library this afternoon, list in hand -- and I'm returning Sula.
Peg - I haven't read Sula but I had the exact same reaction to Morrison's Beloved. I stopped reading and I wanted it out of my house and out of my brain. She is no doubt a superb writer but books aren't like asparagus. Don't feel guilty for not finishing. There's a difference between having to work at a book and having a book, however well-written, be so horrifying and/or upsetting that it disrupts your life.
Although I LOVE asparagus.
I have a similar attitude about movies, by the way. After seeing Schindler's List (and incidentally having it ruin an otherwise promising first date), I decided that I want to see movies to escape reality and be entertained. So I see no heavy movies anymore. Pure fluff. I feel like it's ok to have to work at a book, but a movie should be pure escapism. : )
Peg - I haven't read Sula but I had the exact same reaction to Morrison's Beloved. I stopped reading and I wanted it out of my house and out of my brain. She is no doubt a superb writer but books aren't like asparagus. Don't feel guilty for not finishing. There's a difference between having to work at a book and having a book, however well-written, be so horrifying and/or upsetting that it disrupts your life.
Although I LOVE asparagus.
I have a similar attitude about movies, by the way. After seeing Schindler's List (and incidentally having it ruin an otherwise promising first date), I decided that I want to see movies to escape reality and be entertained. So I see no heavy movies anymore. Pure fluff. I feel like it's ok to have to work at a book, but a movie should be pure escapism. : )
Peg - I haven't read Sula but I had the exact same reaction to Morrison's Beloved. I stopped reading and I wanted it out of my house and out of my brain. She is no doubt a superb writer but books aren't like asparagus. Don't feel guilty for not finishing. There's a difference between having to work at a book and having a book, however well-written, be so horrifying and/or upsetting that it disrupts your life.
Although I LOVE asparagus.
I have a similar attitude about movies, by the way. After seeing Schindler's List (and incidentally having it ruin an otherwise promising first date), I decided that I want to see movies to escape reality and be entertained. So I see no heavy movies anymore. Pure fluff. I feel like it's ok to have to work at a book, but a movie should be pure escapism. : )
ok, ignore the repeate comments, Blogger messed em up and I can't remeber hwo to delete extraneous comments.
Peg - Morrison's Beloved made this gyu's best ten supernatural novels list:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,6109,1528478,00.html
Just thought you might be interested.
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