I so want a bookstore to sponsor me to read fifty books in a year. Heck, I am doing it without sponsorship! Unfair!
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I finished The Rebel Angels this evening – only my third re-read of this wonderful book. And I am not in the mood to continue in the trilogy with What’s Bred in the Bone. So I am all pissy and out of sorts as far as my reading goes. I thought about starting The Death of Vishnu; I picked up Best Food Writing 2005; I could go for a Laurie R. King but I am on the one that’s all about Kim, you know, Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, and I am not really into it; so I started the Rosamunde Pilcher-compared Facing the Light by Adele Geras that I picked up on the bargain table for four bucks. It’s kind of creepy. It may get better, but I am not in the mood for creepy. I am thinking that I am experiencing what I think of as “reader restlessness” and nothing is going to make me happy just now. Normally I reread, to snap out of the funk, but rereading is what got me into the funk in the first place. Because who can live up to Robertson Davies’ brilliance? Not many authors, I tell you. Maybe I will pick up Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude and see if I can get immersed in that.
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Did we have a romantic dinner, blah blah blah? Well, our babysitter called and cancelled due to flu, which I couldn’t be too upset about as she probably caught it from us. So instead we planned Chinese take-out, and I picked it up on the way home from work, along with some gooey chocolate-y desserts from a restaurant we both like, and I even ran over to the campus bookstore on my lunch and bought an anniversary card. I brought home two movies, Kenneth Brannagh’s “Henry V” (one of my all-time favorite movies, and one which H. has not seen and has expressed the desire to) and “Adaptation.”
So, we’re all set, right? Get the kids in bed, fire up the DVD player, open a bottle of wine, feed each other chocolate cake…yeah, yeah. No, it was not to be.
He picked a fight with me.
Over software. (See below.)But it could have been anything, really. He so wanted to pick a fight.
Normally I am the cranky one picking fights.
He is totally wrapped up in a project at work that is consuming his every waking moment, and this week is going to be bad as he has to fly to Florida Thursday morning for his mom’s birthday party that evening, and then get back for Friday evening’s gig, and he is missing two days of work, and he is all bent out of shape because while he wants to work on this project, he is HATING it as well…and he picked a huge fight with me.
So I folded laundry in righteous indignation, ate a bowl of General Tso’s and some of the cake, and went to bed with a book. At least Robertson Davies didn’t make me cry!
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Ok, all you scholarly types, has anyone exported references from Bookends (Mac) and successfully imported them into EndNote (PC)? Mostly I am just curious at this point. Because I HATE when I can’t figure something like this out. I think it’s either the version of EndNote I am working with (8), and/or EndNote’s damn “proprietary” XML – which freaking defeats the WHOLE ENTIRE purpose of XML, dudes! Dammit! Never mind. I think I just answered my own question.
9 comments:
You may have made me curious enough to want to read R.D.
I have no such anniversary stories to share but I do have a rotten Valentine's: I fell asleep at the symphony, we had a fight in the car (in gridlock in the parking garage) (this from the girl who hates fighting at all and especially making a scene). This was when he said, I don't think you're ready to get married and said that his mother agreed. I mean that's the kiss of death, isn't it, when he discusses something that big with his mom and admits it to you while you're fighting in a freaking parking garage where everyone can see you are NOT having the romantic night it was supposed to be. I have nothing against mothers per se, but I think bringing them into a fight that big is cowardly and mean. Yes, he is married to someone else, Hallelujah! Happy Anniversary, Babelbabe!
-SL
Oooh. Fight-picking drives me mental. I have spent my entire romantic life avoiding fights.
Not always with great success, I might add.
-J.
P.S. I don't pick fights, I only win them.
You wrote that lovely tribute about how you met and your courtship, and then he picked a fight. Men - can't live with them. Pass the chocolate.
Oh Andrea,
Those are like the Bertie Botts beans. My daughter got vomit once.
Vomit flavored, that is.
I pick them AND win them, but not on my anniversary.
I'm totally in one of those reading funks, too. I have a huge stack of to-be-reads but The Historian was SO FREAKING LONG that I haven't been able to get back into anything else. I finally put aside the extremely dry American Scream (not much in there I don't already know, and it's not like the ending will be a surprise) in favor of Rakkety Tam by Brian Jacques. YA fiction usually pulls me out of a funk, but not always.
Has he said "sorry" yet?
Blimey, Endnote; I haven't thought about that in *years*. Just had a librarian flashback! Of coursse, I have no idea of the solution.Hope yours was correct.
You do such a good job of keeping it real regarding love and marriage. How many times does the anticipation and preparation lead to tears and acrimony?! That's the good thing about a long stable relationship. It's only a little blip in the scheme of things.
He did apologize! In eleven years of marriage, it is the only time I can remember hearing the words "I'm sorry" pass his lips. I just about fell over.
But I'd already eaten all the chocolate cake anyway.
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