Duh.

After a summer of wearing Rainbow flip flops (very comfortable; not at all squishy) almost exclusively, taking an evening walk in athletic shoes feels like heaven.

(What are these things on my feet? Springs? Maybe I can complete today's burpee challenge after all!)

Life, by the way, is rolling steadily along. Had quite a bit of drama in the family/close friends group over the past six months: a long hospital stay, a twice-broken ankle, a cancer scare (that is to say, it was indeed cancer, but it's been removed), a bipolar relapse...but things have been leveling out, and there are also several weddings coming up, and there's been a good amount of playing in waves and sand, and a couple of friendships restored and others renewed, and a new camping hammock, and more reading than I've done in quite a while. Things are good.

It's late.

I've been doing my angsty-boy-problems thing. Feeling whiny about problems that, in a broader context, aren't really problems. Wishing for jobs and looking for apartments. Watching the skies.

The night skies have been cloudy and overcast, and I don't mind the rain, but I don't love the humidity and I miss the stars. Fall has been approaching with tantalizing slowness--it still feels like summer half the time, and a handful of the leaves began to change and then seemed to stop in their tracks. The air is as muggy as August's. Two nights ago the sky was grey when I knelt to the ground and pressed my face to the blacktop, and when I struggled to my feet the clouds had moved away, revealing stars for the first time in days. I felt very grateful. It seemed symbolic.



Some of the books I've been reading in the past six months:

the Mistborn trilogy (Brandon Sanderson, fantasy)
BAM (Best American) Science Writing 2010 (various, essay)
At Home: A History of Private Life (B. Bryson's brand of research)
Sandman (vol. 1) (Neil Gaiman, graphic novel)
AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (David Miller, memoir)
A Hat Full of Sky (Terry Pratchett, fantasy)
The Hunger Games (don't you already know?)
I started something by Charles DeLint tonight, but I can't remember the title.

I have begun and (for the time being) abandoned several more, including a book about leafcutter ants, and another of Bryson's amateur researcher books, and probably several others.


Elsewhere I wrote about a conversation I'd like to have, and produced a train metaphor. Then I typed up a short, one-draft poem about it:


Life runs on ahead, and we jump
from train to train, moving too fast
to read destination signs, packing away
our lives into hankerchiefs on staffs, tied up,
minding the gaps and wondering what lies
ahead.

On giving.

I have discovered the world of Livrivox, of free audio books, and somewhere deep inside I am overwhelmed.

I've been listening to samples. Chapter one of The Little Princess, of The Jungle Book, of Peter Pan, and so on. There are so many, and each time I click "play," I hear the voice of a stranger reading. The voice of a person just like me, who loves books, who loves to read, who values so much "the public domain" that he or she, for free, sat down and read a book into a computer, and donated it to the world with love and affection. I like to imagine them sitting in their living rooms or at their dining room tables, book lying open in front of them, and the world happening outside as they read aloud to anyone who might one day want to listen. I like to imagine that if we knew each other, we might be friends.

All I'll say on the subject, I promise: the night is so gorgeous tonight. So clear! So much sky! So many stars! And the trees are magnificent.

Has it been since Thursday already? Oh. Oops. Well dinner (ish--I had half a pitiful sandwich and a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie) with David was okay. I think possibly I realized that It (capital I, referring to the two of us) isn't a good idea. Obviously I have come to this realization before, but what I mean is that possibly it's beginning to take. Isn't that something?


I think I also mentioned that the Book To* End All Books was sitting at the library with my name on it. It wasn't on the hold shelf--it was behind the front desk. The reference librarian who found it for me thinks that "it just got put there," but personally I believe that they were afraid someone would just walk off with this most precious of books.



No, I'm serious. Do you know how many holds are on that book? When I requested it, on November 27th, there were already sixteen holds. It came out on November second. I didn't expect to get it until March. 2012. And the thing is eight hundred and forty three pages long. In hardback. The fact that I have it in my hands right now is very little short of a miracle.



An aside: vanilla iced cream with cocoa powder right before bed is a horrible, horrible, completely delicious habit.



























*Come Right Before The Book That Will

I need to stop buying myself stuff. REALLY. (Help.)

I have a sexy new candy-cane-stripe dress. (And by new, I mean vintage.) I'm definitely not a habitual vintage shopper, but a friend of ours was having a party/open house for her eyeglass shop in the space she's currently sharing with a woman who owns a coffee and tea shop, and we were there, and there were vintage clothes there as well. And jewelry. And chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Possibly that didn't make sense. These people that live behind us? River (daughter, Chloe's age), her brothers, Cynthia (mom) and Bruce (dad)? They are our friends. Cynthia owns an eyeglass store. It caught on fire. The coffee/tea shop next to hers also caught fire. Now they are sharing space a few doors down. They had a party. It was pretty great, because now I have a new dress. I'm having a little trouble figuring out what to wear with it though, as winter tends to be a little chilly for mid-thigh-length sleeveless dresses, and I don't know how to match things.



Christmas list update: I really want buckyballs (from thinkgeek.com). I also really want grey tights, white tights, and jeggings (don't judge me). I also REALLY want Spill & Spell (they still sell it! At Barnes and Noble!) and Set (also sold at B&N!). Really though I mostly only want Set because the last and only time I played it, I got beat repeatedly by a six year old, and that isn't really okay with me. I need to practice. To be fair, she beat everyone else too, and every single time (except her older sister--this is a genius family), and she'd start picking up sets before all the cards were even down, but still. She was SIX.

Also, the BAm Nonrequired Reading this year (2010, in case that was unclear: Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010) is edited by Dave Eggers. Want. Also wouldn't mind having the BAm short stories, essays, science writing. Or Bill Bryson's new book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, because I love him. A lot. Or pretty much any Oliver Sacks book other than The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, as I believe I've mentioned before.

OR THE NEW WHEEL OF TIME BOOK. Please forgive me for yelling. It's difficult to contain myself. I mean, I know I should wait for the paperback, I know I don't want to own the hardback, but I want to read it NOW. It's called Towers of Midnight, if anyone was wondering. It's written by Brandon (?) (I always get his first name wrong) Sanderson.

Also: Anything by Neil Gaiman that isn't Coraline. Also, 1,000 Things To See Before You Die.

attn: Association of English Majors

I saw one of these books years and years ago in some random store, and I don't remember why I didn't pick it up. I wrote the website down but lost it, and later was unable to find it on Yahoo!. (This was pre-Google. It was that* long ago.) I remembered it, and found it just now:

www.bookcrossing.com.

Are you a librarian? A teacher? An English major? A literature lover? Semi-literate?

If so, go to the website.


I really want there to be an English class somewhere that uses this as a project. Maybe my dad could try something with it...

























*I do apologize for the italics-oriented fixation I seem to have picked up lately. Maybe there's a cream for it or something.

Also, more on my bff Terry Pratchett

From a reddit thread on whether he/she should read Pterry*, and specifically on whether Terry is similar to Neil Gaiman (who is also awesome):

"He sometimes is, except that Pratchett doesn't consistently write about the alienated and slightly pathetic main character. You know, that guy who was in that book, who has a job he hates, trouble with his love-life and generally feels out of touch with things until something strange starts happening and he discovers a world beyond ours, before it turns out that he is destined for greatness and the hottest stuff since the invention of fire."

Jenny suggested that I become a librarian.

I finished organizing the Camp library this afternoon around 3:15, checked the time, and realized that I'd been working on it for about six straight hours--beginning around 9:15 and working through lunch. I love books. I don't like to stop working on projects before I'm finished. Honestly, I don't really see how people can do that, once they've got momentum going. For me, the momentum and the focus are so vital to any "get this shit done" project, especially one having to do with organization. Once they're lost, there's no way that stuff is getting put back.

Anyway, the categories are now as follows, from left to right across the dining hall wall. Categorical titles are quotes, unless otherwise noted.

Section one: empty. (Possibly a space for books to be reshelved by me. Zomg, I would so love for "librarian" to be my morning job.)

Section two,
Top shelf:
Fantasy Series(es)*.
Second shelf: Misc. Fantasy:
Dragons,
Magical People**,
Innocent Bystanders Affected By Magic**,
Monsters.
Third shelf:
Misc. Sci-Fi.

Section three,
Top shelf: Animal Stories:
People With Animal Friends,
Stories Starring Animals.
Second shelf:
Nonfiction,
Story Books. (Both needed a really tall shelf.)
Third shelf:
Historical Fiction.



Section four,
Top shelf:
The World Around Us: Science!
Animals, Weather, Geology, etc.
Also, Space.
Second shelf:
Adventure!
Third shelf:
Short Stories,
Biblical Stories/Resources.


Section five,
Top shelf:
Sports Stories, Fiction & Nonfiction.
Second shelf:
Mystery Series(es)*
Third shelf:
Scary Stories,
Misc. Mystery.

Section six,
Top shelf:
Poetry,
Joke Books,
Activity books,
Magazines,
Books from/about Movies & TV. (Tragically small categories, you see.)
Second shelf:
Comics, Manga, Graphic Novels. (Tragically large category.)
Third shelf:
Books On Being A Kid. (Aka Captain Underpants. This section is also secretly known as "shit.")

Section seven, Top shelf:
Award-Winning Books & Authors,
Classic Stories. (I.e., Dahl's books, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc.)
Second and third shelves:
Books On Growing Up. (Also mostly secretly and affectionately known as "shit*.")

Section eight: Staff Book Exchange.

I am a beast.














*(es) is not actually written on masking tape and stuck to the bookshelves.

**These are placed next to each other and listed under "magic." To label them separately would have taken too much space, aka more space than the actual respective groups of books.

***Please note that this is not at all to say that all coming-of-age literature is worthless. However, most coming-of-age lit is worthless, or at least, most of what we have here can be thus described.