So we all know I have noise issues, yes? So tell me this – in the grand karmic view of things, is it fair that 1) the saleslady at the dress shop followed me around the store, eventually going into painfully unnecessary details of her personal life, or 2) that the only other person in Supercuts was an ancient woman with a hearing aid carrying on a VERY VERY LOUD CONVERSATION with her stylist, right next to my chair? I don't *mean* to be a horrible person, but that karma, it bites me in the ass every time.
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Today I meant to:
- Buy joint compound, Liquid Plumr (why is it spelled like that?), curtain hooks, and muslin
- Finish the living room curtains
- Grocery shop, especially for the half-dozen white eggs Primo requires, hard-boiled, for preschool tomorrow. Goddamn Easter bunny.
- Run, or at least walk a bit
- Sort out the boys’ outgrown clothes
- Write a nice, meaty, bookish blog entry
Instead, I:
- Sat at the coffee shop noodling with the tablet PC and drinking tea
- Spent an hour and a half trying on every article of clothing in the store (The Dress Barn! What man thought up THAT name?!), eventually buying two dresses, two shirts, and a skirt. None of which I then wore to work since I was very self-conscious about my displayed cleavage. Not that I didn’t think I looked nice – I did. Perhaps I’ll post pics tomorrow. But what self-respecting librarian displays cleavage, I ask you? Nancy Pearl wouldn’t!
- Got my hair cut, not that you can even tell
- Fed the baby
- Was twenty minutes late for work.
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The library book sale wrapped up this evening. I have been stockpiling books all over the place – in my cubicle, in my locker, at the ref desk – I bought two boxes last year and still haven’t taken them all home. So I recycled those and will begin the new migration on Saturday when I have my car here. Mostly I picked up fiction – some mysteries by Ruth Rendell, whom I have recently discovered, and Colin Dexter, whom I love. When I need brain candy, I go to a mystery. It’s always nice to have some on hand. Also some classics – Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, The Naked and the Dead, The Brdige of San Luis Rey. I also bought the sequel to Jaws. Why? Because it was there, and free. And this book: Orca. I mean, could YOU resist this sort of cover copy: Orca…he has one mate, and if she is harmed by man, he will hunt down that person with relentless, terrible vengeance – across seas, across time, across all obstacles.. Now tell me the truth here, am I just a freak, because that blurb made me laugh out loud.
I first tried to picture a whale time-traveling. That was amusing enough.
But then I sort of crossed it in my mind with Moby Dick. More giggles.
But then, the coup de grace: Orca competing in the obstacle course of Battle of the Network Stars.
They made a movie out of this book, with Bo Derek. It just gets better and better.
It’s written by the same guy who wrote the masterly The Swarm, also made into a quality film (although I don’t think it’s the bee movie where the kids get trapped in the school bus...I could be wrong, as those were Saturday afternoons long, long ago, in galaxies far, far away. Or at least New Jersey which is practically the same thing).
And he is also the same guy who wrote the not-so-bestselling How to Write Almost Anything Better and Faster.
Now I ask you, how could I NOT own this masterpiece?
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I bought The Sex Lives of Cannibals on half.com recently and just got it yesterday. I am reading it on both Badger’s and Blackbird’s recommendation. I also intend to leave it lying around the house when my mother-in-law next visits.
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Badger, you have not yet steered me wrong in a reading recommendation. I am pretty much taking your entire list of Required Reading and going to the library. No pressure. Just thought you'd like to know.
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I generally don't shill for other people's blogs - unless they really merit it. And the latest installments of both Finslippy and Mimi Smartypants made me laugh so hard I cried. Hence, merit. Go forth and read. And also, looks like Julia might actually be pregnant, and I am deliriously happy for someone I have never ever met or even emailed. This Internet, it is a crazy thing.
11 comments:
Well I laughed out loud, not something I generally do while sitting at my computer. That is some whale.
Greatly looking forward to seeing some cleavage tomorrow. Now stop farting about on the computer and go boil some eggs.
Christopher and Banks--this is my new place for "work clothes." I got three tops and 1 pair of pants before I went to Boston and apparently they are always having sales. There's one at Ross Park Mall. Very nice. It does not break the budget.
Supercuts? Do tell! (hair do? oh I crack myself up...it must be past my bedtime...)
And you are even more ambitious than I: I did my taxes this morning, answered a ton of reference questions this afternoon and then got nothing done at work after dinner b/c I was so brain dead. And I don't have kids! (Meaning, cut yourself some slack, darlin' you're doing miracles.) Darn DST! Have you been using that "Women who do too much" calendar I gave you??
Really, you are working miracles. And we love reading about book sales just as much as we like reading about books you've read. I love that title, "sex lives of cannibals."
Must. go. find. bed.
When you mentioned Orca I immediately thought of the film, produced by Dino di Laurentiis, grandfather to Giada di Laurentiis, who is an otherwise attractive human, save for a rather outsize cranium and a VERY Mary Lou Retton-esque smile.
As re. the "cannibal book" my mind is aswirl with stupid, off-color wisecracks.
-J.
Thank God I have refrained from posting about the crappy genre stuff I read in between the good books. We don't need you busting out the Jim Butcher or Rachel Caine.
I can't get past the name Dress Barn. Do you know of/remember the Fisher Price Little People's barn? With the door that made a kind of non-commital MOO sound when you opened it? I have enough problems with my self-esteem, thanks. I don't need to buy clothes from a store that makes me think of cows before I even get in the door.
Yeah, I felt the doom. Sigh. I'm in that pleasant frame of mind where I wish I could just walk around draped in a bed sheet, because, you know, a bed sheet would fit.
one of the dresses reminds me of bedsheets circa 1970, albeit cleavage-baring bedsheets.
and since our laundry tub just simultaneously exploded and clogged in one spectacular mess, and fixing it means i can keep us in clean clothes, i am tempted to return everything. i don't want to feel guilty about buying clothes for work - i haven't bought them in many years. but i do feel guilty.
I loved the cover copy for Orca! I'm always pointing things like that out to coworkers.
I can just hear the barn mooing - my dentist had one of those and as kids we'd just sit and obsessively open and close the door while waiting for appointments.
I always feel a bit self-conscious when I wear something that's not all prim & proper (or funky & striped) to the library. Especially working in children's. And with all the bending over shelving things. But sometimes I wear those shirts anyway.
I cried with laughter reading Finslippy.
I thought I'd left a comment but must have just thought it: show that cleavage! There's nothing wrong with being a lipstick librarian, is there?
I have one (two) of those fisher price barns but the moo broke. :( I also have the Western Town and the Houseboat. Getting way off topic here!
Time traveling orcas - snicker.
And Gina - you aren't the only one feeling fat. I was standing in front of my closet today waiting for some clothes to jump out and yell, "Surprise we still fit!"
Carolyn, all my clothes leap out and laugh uproariously, sniggering and pointing at my jiggly fat.
And the ones that do fit cower in the back of the closet, because they are esentially rags and are ashamed to see the light of day.
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