(no subject)

Attended the memorial. ( emotional flailing )

After the service, went back to my favorite aunt and uncle's house with them and my parents and hung out for a couple hours, going down to the little marsh/beach behind their house, talking about various things. I think this year, I might have finally convinced my father and my uncle that it is time, I've become an adult and my husband and I can participate in the annual opening of my grandfather's beachhouse. This might mean I get to crawl under a house and learn to solder, which is is more exciting than it probably should be.

Went to a show up in Shelburne Falls. Didn't enjoy the venue, or Eliza Gilkyson, and the audience was strangely rude. I know I've got my sheep-like moments, but I've never seen any show where they had to flash the lights for five minutes and then get up on stage to tell people to shut up and sit down.

As per usual, I have the hugest crush on Kris Delmhorst. It's I want to make her cookies and tea and water her plants when she's on tour kind of crush. Much like Girlyman, (and I get to see them again tonight) she makes me feel good about the existence of other people, which I think is much of what being a fan means to me.

All in all, it was a very, very long friday with too much driving (and proof positive that Light is something of a saint). Blessedly, the big plans for the rest of the weekend are the aforementioned girlyman show, going to the post off, grocery shopping and doing the laundry. This domesticated life rocks pretty hard.

(no subject)

Attended the memorial. ( emotional flailing )

After the service, went back to my favorite aunt and uncle's house with them and my parents and hung out for a couple hours, going down to the little marsh/beach behind their house, talking about various things. I think this year, I might have finally convinced my father and my uncle that it is time, I've become an adult and my husband and I can participate in the annual opening of my grandfather's beachhouse. This might mean I get to crawl under a house and learn to solder, which is is more exciting than it probably should be.

Went to a show up in Shelburne Falls. Didn't enjoy the venue, or Eliza Gilkyson, and the audience was strangely rude. I know I've got my sheep-like moments, but I've never seen any show where they had to flash the lights for five minutes and then get up on stage to tell people to shut up and sit down.

As per usual, I have the hugest crush on Kris Delmhorst. It's I want to make her cookies and tea and water her plants when she's on tour kind of crush. Much like Girlyman, (and I get to see them again tonight) she makes me feel good about the existence of other people, which I think is much of what being a fan means to me.

All in all, it was a very, very long friday with too much driving (and proof positive that Light is something of a saint). Blessedly, the big plans for the rest of the weekend are the aforementioned girlyman show, going to the post off, grocery shopping and doing the laundry. This domesticated life rocks pretty hard.

Books

I was sicker than I've been in a while, so this month had a lot of fluffy reading and I forced myself through a couple unpleasant books as some sort of penance.

Fluff:

Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight Death Masks, Blood Rites and Dead Beat by Jim Butcher. I admit, the sci-fi channel made me do it. Well, more precisely, the sci-fi channel made Light do it, and then I snatched them all from his grasp and devoured them like the yummy, indulgent magic-noir they are.

Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff. I keep reading her and I can't tell why.

Moon Called and Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs. A girl mechanic named Mercedes who turns into a coyote when she wants to and hangs around with werewolves, fae and vampires. A little bit like Laurel Hamilton before she became, well, Laurel Hamilton. Hoochie covers, but not much hooch in the text.

Slogging:

The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt. When I say it is obvious exactly why AS Byatt recommends a book, I do not consider that a compliment. Painfully clever, lacking in quotation marks for all the conversations, a overly precious child learns a lot of languages, watches Seven Samurai too many times with his mildly psychotic single mother and seizes upon the idea of being able to choose his father (since his mother wouldn't tell him who his father was until he was eleven.) The book takes a startling upturn for the last fifty pages and becomes actively interesting, but the other 400 are exhausting.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes was the complete opposite in terms of pacing. I quite liked the first half of the book, but when Arthur meets George, or when Arthur's first wife dies, I just sort of lost interest. I'm never entirely certain if I like Barnes, but a lingering fondness for A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters keeps me coming back.

Enjoyment (for the most part):

Jinx by Brian Michael Bendis. Graphic novel about a female bounty hunter, relationships and stuff. The art periodically distracted or muddled the story line, but the dialogue had moments of pure brilliance.

Mr Emerson's Wife by Amy Belding Brown. What I took away from this book was Ralph Waldo Emerson is kind of a dick, but Henry David Thoreau is dreamy. It was fun and dull in turns. The writing's a little awkward and the occasion sex scene is bizarre (not in a kinky way, but in an extra special awkward 'marital attentions' writing kind of way).

Life is Meals: a Food-Lover's Book of Days by James and Kay Salter. A christmas present from Light, courtesy of an NPR recommendation. Little tidbits about food, from traveling and eating to food science to recipes, broken up in a day-by-day journal style. Some were sweet, some were just sort of flat and affected.

All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland. I still love reading things this man writes. The style of the ending was a little bit like a car crash, impossible to retain or understand, but very much an ending of something.

The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. B had me read this. It begins by being about a society in which people make an entire life of making a single carpet of the hair of their wives, and then selling to the emperor for the money that will then support their sons as they do the same for the entirety of their lives, and onward. It becomes about three thousand other things as well, full of twisting subplots, but in the end everything gets tied into an awesome if eerie conclusion.

Books

I was sicker than I've been in a while, so this month had a lot of fluffy reading and I forced myself through a couple unpleasant books as some sort of penance.

Fluff:

Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight Death Masks, Blood Rites and Dead Beat by Jim Butcher. I admit, the sci-fi channel made me do it. Well, more precisely, the sci-fi channel made Light do it, and then I snatched them all from his grasp and devoured them like the yummy, indulgent magic-noir they are.

Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff. I keep reading her and I can't tell why.

Moon Called and Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs. A girl mechanic named Mercedes who turns into a coyote when she wants to and hangs around with werewolves, fae and vampires. A little bit like Laurel Hamilton before she became, well, Laurel Hamilton. Hoochie covers, but not much hooch in the text.

Slogging:

The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt. When I say it is obvious exactly why AS Byatt recommends a book, I do not consider that a compliment. Painfully clever, lacking in quotation marks for all the conversations, a overly precious child learns a lot of languages, watches Seven Samurai too many times with his mildly psychotic single mother and seizes upon the idea of being able to choose his father (since his mother wouldn't tell him who his father was until he was eleven.) The book takes a startling upturn for the last fifty pages and becomes actively interesting, but the other 400 are exhausting.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes was the complete opposite in terms of pacing. I quite liked the first half of the book, but when Arthur meets George, or when Arthur's first wife dies, I just sort of lost interest. I'm never entirely certain if I like Barnes, but a lingering fondness for A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters keeps me coming back.

Enjoyment (for the most part):

Jinx by Brian Michael Bendis. Graphic novel about a female bounty hunter, relationships and stuff. The art periodically distracted or muddled the story line, but the dialogue had moments of pure brilliance.

Mr Emerson's Wife by Amy Belding Brown. What I took away from this book was Ralph Waldo Emerson is kind of a dick, but Henry David Thoreau is dreamy. It was fun and dull in turns. The writing's a little awkward and the occasion sex scene is bizarre (not in a kinky way, but in an extra special awkward 'marital attentions' writing kind of way).

Life is Meals: a Food-Lover's Book of Days by James and Kay Salter. A christmas present from Light, courtesy of an NPR recommendation. Little tidbits about food, from traveling and eating to food science to recipes, broken up in a day-by-day journal style. Some were sweet, some were just sort of flat and affected.

All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland. I still love reading things this man writes. The style of the ending was a little bit like a car crash, impossible to retain or understand, but very much an ending of something.

The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. B had me read this. It begins by being about a society in which people make an entire life of making a single carpet of the hair of their wives, and then selling to the emperor for the money that will then support their sons as they do the same for the entirety of their lives, and onward. It becomes about three thousand other things as well, full of twisting subplots, but in the end everything gets tied into an awesome if eerie conclusion.