Lately

So since my last post, which was what? About three weeks ago? I've maintained my voracious reading habit. It's gotten a little outrageous, but whatever. I'm enjoying my sense of escapism.

After finishing Catching Fire, I started Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, who also wrote Remains of the Day, which I'd like to read at some point I think, assuming its still being published? Amazon only has used copies. Never Let Me Go was good. Creepy. But interesting. And though I didn't feel particularly connected to any of the characters throughout the book (most of them are not very likable), the ending still managed to be heart wrenching. I was left thinking about it for days after.

Once I finished Never Let Me Go, I found my way to Barnes & Noble and discovered they have, or at least had, a sale for book clubs. You could buy two novels and receive a third one free. So I picked up The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and The White Tiger.

I started with the Elegance of the Hedgehog. I got about a hundred pages in, but I had a few problems. Firstly, this is probably the most French novel I have ever read. It's a translation, but many French slang terms and French pop culture references have been left in. Secondly, I found I'm not nearly well versed enough in Philosophy (particularly which philosophers said and wrote what) to catch about half of the jokes. So, I put it down and intend to go back with a pen, a pad of sticky notes, and a dictionary at some point.

I decided instead to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. That's a mouthful. It was sweet. It's written as a series of letters in the two to three years after the end of World War II. It seems WWII books keep finding me. At least lately they've been slightly different variations on WWII views. This one was about the channel islands just off the coast of France that were occupied by the Germans. And of course it was also a love story. I gobbled it up. Not the most educational book, but also not the least.

Finally I read The White Tiger in less than a day. It was, by far, my favorite of the three. A little background as to why: in the tenth grade, I took biology. As part of our biology course, we watched a video on overpopulation. A major portion of the documentary was on India. After that, I used to daydream about being able to go to India and fix things. Mainly I wanted to set up an orphanage and school for girls in India, girls being essentially worthless there due to how the dowry exchange is set up and how hard it is for them to find work outside the home.

Since then, I've actually had a lot of problems with the way India is run. Though I find Hinduism interesting, the oppression brought on by the caste system appalls me. As does the obsession Americans have for India as an "enlightened" place, and Indians have for America as a "modern" place. India caters to the rich by putting their money into malls, hotels, and other tourist attractions. But they spend almost no money on their infrastructure. Most of India doesn't have running water or electricity, it's filled with bad roads and corruption. The poor in the big cities are forced to breath in pollution and shit outdoors, while the small percentage of rich Indians spend money on American goods and attempt to look and live like western white people. It's sickening.

In any case, The White Tiger is about one man's journey from a lower caste, through the corruption of land ownership and politics, and into the western ideal of business ownership. He changes from servant to master. But what's ultimately depressing about it, is that though he does his best to be fair and honest in the end, he has no choice but to work within the system, rather than fight it. All he can do is to hope for a better India, as distant as that may seem.

Next on my list is Life of Pi. Not sure what I'll read after that. Maybe try out some Zadie Smith. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I am trying to make it through the books I have on my shelf, but I'm willing to throw in a few others here and there.

This really has been fun. I'm learning a lot and remembering what I loved so much about literature classes in school.

"there was nothing but scraps of words littered between her legs and all around her"

I haven't really had time lately for the internet. Saturday evenings are usually my catch up moments. I was reading a friend's blog and suddenly I'm craving the smell of crayons on a coloring book.

I've been reverting to my "old" self lately. High school me. Or some variant there of. It's a person I've actually missed greatly.

When I started at BYU, I thought books were everything. Then I moved away from home and suddenly people were everything. It's taken me five years, but I'm finally balancing back out. The pendulum has peaked on both sides, and is now maintaining a steady middle. Or at least has been for the past couple of weeks.

Since the end of February I've read: The History of Love, Everything Is Illuminated, The Hunger Games, The Book Thief, and currently, Catching Fire (the sequel to The Hunger Games).

The difference this go around is that my pretense is gone. I no longer feel the need to make a statement with the books I'm reading, something I felt necessary during my insecure teenage years, when I thought a strong understanding of the classics should far outweigh any gravitation toward modern authors. I'm reading what interests me.

Someone echoed a statement I haven't heard directed at me in years: "Wait, are you starting ANOTHER book? Didn't you just start that other one yesterday?" In my defense, the last two and the one I'm currently reading are all young adult novels. Not exactly the hardest thing to read, but one of my favorite genres by far. When I thought I wanted to be an editor, young adult novels were my career goal. They're just so adventurous. And these days, adventures outside my own routine life are exactly what I'm in need of most.

(p.s. the title of this post is a quote from The Book Thief.)

ginger ale cough drops make my sick life ok

Mariee Sioux
Marissa Nadler
Diane Cluck
Vashti Bunyan

A yes and a yes and a yes.

Music in headphones is so much better. I'd forgotten.

Tomorrow:
Clean off my bed so I have a full bed to sleep on, not just half of one
Listen to loads of music
Sort laundry
Color in my coloring book
Read a bit from A Room With A View. Just because.
Finish something or other

#100

I have found that living in a place I like living and being with people I like being with means I spend much less time wishing I were elsewhere and pretending to be there by perusing the internet. What I'm getting at, is that I finally have time to read. I spend my real world time in the place I used to try to reach with my internet time, which means I spend my internet time reading books I like.

Current: The Savage Detectives by Roberto Belano
Next: Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Follow Up: Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

I feel like I'm finally returning to homeostasis.

Questionable Content

Ok, we are going to completely ignore any of the things that have happened in the real world the past few days and stick to the intar-webz. Because, ugh, I don't even want to think about it.

Thanks to my lovely friend Dane, I am officially 100% obsessed with Questionable Content. 1027 comic strips and 3 days later, I'm trying to force myself to slow down. Because eventually (cough tonight cough) I'm going to get to that point where I actually have to wait a day for every new strip. And I don't even know how I'm going to handle that (or not being able to just skim the guest strips and get back to the main story line).

The thing is, I relate to these characters. I mean reading this is like reading someone else's take on my life. Just, everyone is scarily better looking. But the conversations and the interests and snobbery! oh the snobbery! It's just so me and my friends.

I just got to the point when Steve and Meena are having the "what happened with your last boyfriend" conversation and it was astonishingly similar to my (somewhat) recent history. That overwhelming feeling of just not living up. Knowing if it doesn't end, you're going to make a really stupid decision just to get out of it. And all because the other person is simply too perfect.

How can I relate to drawings this much?? I don't even know!

Also reading Persepolis. My first foray into the graphic novel genre. It's wonderful so far. Our matching freckle is what first intrigued me (see the top right side of the bridge of my nose - no, it is not mascara), but after further investigation, I realized it was a worthy read for other reasons as well. I'm learning a lot about Iran in the process and I'm hoping once my French skillzorz are up to par, I'll be able to read it in it's original language.

Oh, and I guess I'll throw in two small tidbits about real life: 1) Neumo's need some freaking air conditioners! and 2) I've never seen Conor Oberst so happy in all my life (and all 4 times I've seen him) than he was on Wednesday. It was pure magic. I thought I'd eaten some rainbow slices and unicorns hairs and hallucinated it all. But no, I think it really happened. Conor Oberst was ACTUALLY SMILING. A LOT. Weird, I know! And yet strangely glorious.

Alright, I think I've taken a long enough break from QC. Time to finish this bad boy UP! (also, I just really want to see Faye get together with Sven already. I mean we could see that one coming from a mile (and two years) away!)

Man Beheads Hitler.... waxwork......

I woke up WAY too early this morning (6:39 to be exact) and got to work at 7:05. Yes I DID get ready in 10 minutes, thank you very much. It's been... slightly redonkulous (I use that non-word regularly these days. I don't know why). One guy didn't show up this morning. Cool. I had the pleasure of rescheduling all his appointments for Monday. We still haven't heard from him. He might be dead in a ditch somewhere for all we know. Awesome.

Every time the phone rings I'm terrified it's going to be Duct Tape Guy. He's schizophrenic and calls about 6 times a week on different lines to ask if we can get Duct Tape out of his carpet. When questioned on how it got there, his answers range from "I don't know" to "someone put it there" to "some people that I don't know came in and put it there... I don't know why." Apparently it's everywhere, and you can't pull on it or get it off the carpet, even when using knives.... Each time he calls it goes back and forth between "But can you get it out? But how much will it cost? But... can you get it out? Well, how much is it going to cost? Hmm... could you get it out though?"

I had a dream a few weeks ago that he was stalking me -- standing outside my doors and windows just waiting for someone in my family to come out so he could get it. When he called the other day, I answered and had to make someone else talk to him because I was so creeped out. My mom spoke to him on Wednesday and he asked if someone could call him Saturday morning to set up an appointment. She promised someone would. Guess who that someone is....

But I am NOT calling. Our tech manager is supposed to, except he's not here. So in the mean time I'm stuck praying every phone call that comes in will be a legit customer or sales call. Anyone but duct tape guy!

Luckily it's been pretty quiet/boring in here this morning (less moments of deep fear struck to the center of my heart as that little red plastic button lights up and the ringing begins). I've been reading random CNN articles and found these gems:

Man Beheads Hitler Waxwork - I'm pretty sure Hitler felt that one! This world is definitely a safer place now.
Faked Tiger Photo Sparks Web Furor - Who knew a poster of a tiger cut out and placed in some bushes could cause such controversy and get so many government officials fired?
$32,000 for Queen Mother's 'Pack the Gin' letter - Hey, the Queen Mother obviously knew how to plan an outing.
University given collection of 78 rpm records - Syracuse Univeristy got 50 tons of old 78s! Effing awesome! I want to venture there just to check out their sound lab, it's second only to the Library of Congress!

So that's my boring day so far. I don't feel like being productive per se, so I'm blogging/reading/dreading duct tape guy instead. I'm seeing Tilly and the Wall tonight, which I'm pretty excited about. And I may see Maria Taylor tomorrow night at Tractor Tavern. We'll see how it goes.

Cheese lovers: I finally tried Brie. And the consensus is..... I LOVE IT! This is literally the first time I have ever said that about a cheese. It was sooo much better than that hammy smoked gouda I tried. I like soft cheeses. I think next on my list is this Stilton I saw that had cranberries in it. It looked pretty delish. I might be coming over to your side. I can't say for sure, but if it gets better from here, then you've definitely won me over. Good lord. I will now have to inform people I'm not only a bottled water connoisseur and a picky vegetarian, but a cheese lover as well. I'm becoming the ultimate food snob.

This is getting lengthy, but I've got another 3 hours here, so Imma keep going (not for 3 hours, just... until I feel done haha).

Last night. 4th of July. I kind of hate big holidays like this because I can't really leave the house unless I want to deal with insane parking lots, crowded stores and bad traffic. So I stayed home and tried to read and ended up sleeping half the day.... crapola.... the phone... duct tape guy? Ah, no. A nice lady in Lacey instead.

Anyway, I got a bit cabin feverish by the end of the day and ended up sorting through my entire book shelf. I came up with a pretty big stack of books to sell. And I've got a stack of books to read and then sell. And a stack I've already read and want to keep. And many stacks of which I haven't read and thus don't know if I will keep. After that, the fireworks began.

Now, living on the lake, we get a pretty awesome show every year. We're practically surrounded by big fireworks. The guy a few houses down even hires a professional to do a half hour show around 10 and our entire cove stops their fireworks to watch. Except us. Because our show freaking rocked. My brother and cousins bought 200 mortars, screwed all the tubes to two boards, and while someone was prepping the right side, someone else was lighting the left, so the fireworks were almost continuous. It was the best show they've put on yet.

And afterward came the annual sparkler bomb. This year was supposedly the biggest they've done to date. It was 6 bricks duct taped (no, not duct tape guy) together, with one sparkler sticking out on the top. The boys had a tough go convincing my parents to let them do it, but eventually they gave in, so long as it was far enough away that no shrapnel would hit surrounding neighbors/boats. They floated it out about 80 ft from our dock and my cousin Devin lit it, then my brother pulled him back with a rope as fast as he could. A few seconds later came the house rattling BOOM and a title wave and pieces of Styrofoam everywhere. It was great! (if not eco-friendly).

So that's that. I think I'm done now haha. I've run out of things to ramble about and bore you with, so I guess this will have to do. I hope everyone had a safer 4th than the people across the lake who had an ambulance at their house for 45 minutes last night. Enjoy this (rainy in Washington) day!

UPDATE: DTG just called. Agh! I only talked to him for a second though and then made one of the technicians here talk to him (since I am not good at being mean/firm hah). But guess what he said? Instead of the usual, Marty grabbed the phone and duct tape guy said "I got it all up!" He called two more times, but realized he was calling the same place and said so, then hung up. Maybe this is the end of duct tape guy's phone calls! I hope so! Yaaaay!

P.S. I am so sorry this is so outrageously long hahaha

First Name Last Name, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha

I feel new today.

Thank you Jack Kerouac.

Of colons and crafts

Sewing: I bought a sewing machine and stocked up tools for a good sewing kit. And I've bought some cute fabric I'm going to make napkins out of. I've got to start somewhere! I'm using Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter as my guide into this wonderful world.

Crocheting: I also found that as cheesy as Vanna White is, her yarn colors by Lion Brand are actually tres tres chic. I bought a size Q crochet hook (i.e. a really huge one) and yarns in light purple and dark purple that I'm using simultaneously to make a small afghan (the blanket, not the person). It's really cute so far. I think I'll embroider some flowers or something on it when it's finished.

Knitting: I finally bought the belt buckle for my orange knit bag. So now I just have to finish sewing on the straps and the buckle, and that stretchy, completely impractical little novelty item will be finished! yay.

Cooking: I bought Veganomicon from the grocery store tonight and have started reading it. I am not a cook by any means. I know very very little about how to put recipes together or even what most ingredients are - I see the names and have no idea what kind of flavor they evoke or even what they look like. But this has a great intro into vegan cooking. The authors go into detail about what each ingredient is, where you're most likely to find it, and sometimes they even suggest specific brands they prefer. I'm not a vegan, but I wouldn't mind trying out vegan recipes at home. Especially since I'm a bit sick of all my regular vegetarian food.

Frenching: I've learned past and present tense. I feel much more complete.

Musicking: Laura Veirs and Bon Iver are my favorites at the moment. Particularly the latter. His minimalist recording is completely offset by lush arrangements of melodies and his almost orchestral use of vocals. Yummy. Honorable mentions for the week are Dosh, Bowerbirds, Tender Forever, Mariee Sioux, and Hanne Hukkelberg. All worth checking out.

Living: Life is good. I'm really tired lately but I'm hoping the vegetarian geared multivitamins I bought today will fix me up in that area. That and if I can just get off my duff and do some Yoga more than once a month, I think I'll be feeling much better.

Updating: That's it for now. Peace!

A week... or so's... worth of accomplishments

I finished The Book of Mormon. Finally. 2 weeks and 2 days from start to finish. It's been really neat. I certainly have felt the difference in my life. An added peace. It has of course brought me to a better understanding of my own shortcomings, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing :)

I'm going to read The Infinite Atonement next I think. Though I'll probably take my time with that, just reading a little each day. And of course I'll continue my scripture study, just not in such a ravenous way hah.

In other news I managed to finish 7 more squares for Warm Up America in the past week. I have also caught up at work and have a routine down finally. And the whole being a vegetarian thing is going pretty well, minus the whole family ganging up on me and trying to make me miss meat (which I don't) thing. I'm actually really enjoying the fact that I'm forced to think up other things to eat. It's making me more creative. So, 4 days down, another 26 or even a lifetime to go. I guess we'll see what happens!

Hansel and Gretel meet Soylent Green

I had the weirdest dream last night. It was almost exactly like Hansel and Gretel. Which is weird because I haven't exactly thought about that story in... years?

Anyway, I was wandering through the forest with someone else and we were lost. We came upon a clearing that had very green grass and tall pine trees surrounding it. In the center was a rather large sized, restaurant looking building made entirely out of very bright colored candy. And next to the building were tables, also made out of candy, with strange looking adults sitting at them. The people had oddly large, vacant eyes and they were eating hamburgers. And we knew instinctively that the hamburgers were made from ground up humans.

Somehow we ended up inside the building with a large group of other young people. There were two counselor type people at the front of the candy constructed room with clip boards. Our large group was doing something like calisthenics and the counselors were making sure we were doing everything right. We knew that if we did something wrong, our names would be taken to the big wigs upstairs, and we'd be next in line at the grinding machine, to be made into hamburgers. Needless to say I and my partner pushed the limits of the rules, but despite warnings, our names were never actually taken down and we realized none of us had ever actually seen someone made into hamburger. But we were still afraid. And the food they gave us to eat we knew for sure was made out of humans.

More happened, but that's all I can remember clearly.

How morbid though, eh? Nazi-type cannibalism within Hansel and Gretel. Very strange indeed.

The Age of Innocence is sadly at work, so instead I started Mrs. Dalloway tonight and will have to continue the other on Monday. But I'm enjoying Mrs. Dalloway so far. More than I did the last time I tried to read it actually. I think before I didn't have the focus for it, and Woolf's sentences are so long and complicated at times that between the beginning and end of one, I'd completely forgotten the original topic. This time though I like the sense of fluidity in it. The connectedness and yet the aloneness and the way everyone shares experiences and yet sees them separately, all at the same time. A teacher once said it's almost like it's happening in real-time.

I finished Crimson Skies today, haha. It's not very long. Well, that and I started it half way through because I picked up where I'd left off the last time I played it. This is maybe the second time I have ever finished a video game. Well other than Super Mario Bros maybe. But yeah. Kind of silly.

Also did some crocheting. I'm up to 6.5 plus another half I started and then my mom finished. I figured out today if I do double crochet stitches instead of just single, it actually goes way faster, so I'm going to try doing that from now on.

And in election news, Obama took Washington. Yay! The gap is closing and I have high hopes for him taking Clinton out. That would be good news.

I officially have less than a week until I am in California now. Poor B is sick as a dog this week. I really hope he feels better soon. I guess it's going around down there. No fun.

Well, that's my update. Off to bed. And I hope the human hamburgers are no where in the vicinity of tonight's dreams.

It's not a waste of time if you're enjoying yourself (my rationalization)

I haven't played video games in ages. But tonight I got the bug. The video game bug. So, I dug around in my brother's closet and fished out his old XBox games. Luckily he still had my favorite - Crimson Skies. It was so much fun to play for a while! I really wish I could play Mario 64. I think I'm going to ask my dad if I can have their old N64 and all the games. Ooo and the Legend of Zelda... I forgot... hah

I'm further in The Age of Innocence today. I'm starting to really like it. It could so far be described as a comedy of manners I think. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it. If I continue to like it, I think I'll read The House of Mirth next. Also by Edith Wharton. I've heard The Age of Innocence called Wharton's "apology" after The House of Mirth. She must have been incredibly hard on New York society in that one if this is her apology!

Democratic caucuses are tomorrow in Washington State. Exciting. I'm really hoping for Obama. I found out today that the Democratic primary here means nothing. As in not a single one of the delegates is chosen through the primary. All of them are allocated through the caucuses. What a waste of ballots! Seems a little bait and switch if you ask me. People think they're doing something good and all they're doing is wasting a piece of paper by voting. Dumb.

The republicans allocate 49% of their delegates during the caucus, then 51% at the primary. That seems fair. And at least our ballots count for something! Sheesh.

Maybe tomorrow will give us a clearer picture of the Democratic race. I hope that picture doesn't include Hilary Clinton. Time will tell... I hope...

The rich get richer and the poor get - children

The stimulus bill passed the Senate! Yeeeessssss! What does this mean? This means that because I made between $3,000 and $75,000 last year, I will in fact be getting a $300-$600 rebate check in the mail some time after April.

Aaah, I can't wait. (Says the girl who's been complaining about the $3.1 trillion Bush's administration asked for last week for the 2008 budget. Hah)

Romney is out. It was bound to happen after Tuesday's turn out. Which means I will now be focusing intently on the Democratic primaries. I wish I could go see Obama speak in Seattle tomorrow, but alas and alack, I have work.

I finished The Great Gatsby today. Loved it. I like the symbolism, and I feel there is a lot to be taken from it about the wealth worship and immorality that is explicit in today's society. I've just started The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I'm not far enough into it to say how I feel, but as always I'm hoping for the best.

Days until California: 9

Love and Mathematics

Smoked Gouda: Okish. It was cheese. It tasted a little like ham mixed with cheese.

Republican Race: Ick. I may end up voting for a Dem. Sigh.

The fact that I have Brandon obsessing over the very same pattern of triangles I've obsessed over for about 6 years: Hilarious. Draw a square, now put an X through it (connecting the corners) and then draw a triangle on each of the four sides of the square. Now try to trace that shape without picking up your pencil or retracing any of the lines. Yeah, it's impossible. And I've been trying to come up with either a way that it is possible or a reason, mathematically, why it is not possible, since I was probably about 12 years old.

The Tower of Hanoi: Interesting. I figured out the pattern and I've been amusing myself with it for the past fifteen minutes. I haven't tried past 5 discs.

The Great Gatsby: Loving it. I started it earlier today and I'm nearly finished. I'd forgotten how much I love hearing about the Jazz Age. And I like Fitzgerald's tone.

Crochet squares completed: 5.5

Days until I leave for California: 10

Blacking out the friction

What is going on?? Southern California has been flooding and much of it is without power. This is just months after their huge wild fires. China has evacuated 850,000 people from blizzards. Pouring rain caused a bunch of car accidents in Argentina. A volcano erupted in Colombia last Thursday. A few weeks ago a volcano erupted in Chile. There have been tornadoes in Arkansas. Unexpected snow in the southeast.

When I start reading about the death tolls and the amount of damage done by these natural disasters, my heart just breaks for the families stuck in the middle of all this. And it just seems like lately there have been a lot of freak weather changes. So weird.

I woke up to a couple of inches of snow today. Nothing disastrous. Yet. It's supposed to get worse tonight. Particularly because it's a bit warmer with the cloud coverage, which means some of the snow melts, then when the sun goes down it all freezes over and is impossible to drive on. Fun times. Sigh.

So I'm reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's an easy read. I can't decide yet if the instability in voice is intentional or not. I find that when the narrator is recalling childhood memories, the story has a soft fluidity about it, but as soon as the narrator brings it back to her present or recent past, the voice is clunky and I come out of my reading reverie. I guess I'll have to finish it to decide.

Oh! My coat came this weekend! I love it! I'll have to put some pictures up later, but it's better than I'd hoped for! Yay!

I felt like I was back in high school the other day when I found out Death Cab for Cutie are releasing a new album this May. Hah. I remember just being so excited I could barely breathe when I found out Plans was coming out. It didn't quite hit that peak this time, but I am still really excited. I don't listen to them that often anymore (Plans honestly wasn't that great), but I obsessed over them for so long in high school and early college that I just can't help myself. It's that same giddy feeling I got when Ben Gibbard came on the stage last spring. I couldn't keep from grinning and just loving the music.

And also on the topic of things I'm excited about, I cannot wait for 19 days from now. Central Coast Cali, here I come! (Please don't rain on me).