Joie de vivre

I would just like to point out, for any who haven't noticed yet, that today is Friday the 13th.

ALSO, I just heard on the radio that the world was supposed to end today, but apparently it hasn't.

It was also supposed to end yesterday, but I guess that didn't work out either.

Which means that I have to go to work.

And under the "So good, it should be posted twice, and also because it fits with the theme of this post" category, I once again give you:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

             (Robert Frost) 

Hagen has gotten so vocal lately. He used to not make a peep and now he can be positively persistent in meowing -- especially when hungry, which seems to be most of the time, but also for many other unapparent reasons. He will also meow on command into the phone for savetheolives, heehee. But it makes me wonder if he's doing this because we talk to him all the time? 

I have trouble remembering how old I am. Sometimes I think I'm already twenty-three, but more often I have to catch myself from answering "how old are you?" with twenty-one, or even twenty. Twenty-two seems like such an odd, in-between number, almost as if it doesn't exist.

I've been meaning to post all day, but Other Things happened and time slipped by. Meanwhile, I cleaned off my desk, which in Mari-speak means that I found a whole host of scraps of paper with notes on things I've been meaning to tell you all.

^{That is to say, this is a warning that this post may cover many and varied topics which will not relate to each other in any way. It's hard to write nice transitions when there is no logical way one paragraph connects to the next. Just saying.}

Yesterday morning when I woke up, I found a baby mouse swimming around in the toilet bowl. That was too much of a mental challange that early in the morning and I had to wake mom up to ask her what to do. Really, what is the proper action to be taken when one finds a mouse in the toilet?

(Mum was very brave and fished it out and put it in an old butter dish with the lid on tight, mostly to prove to dad that we hadn't been hallucinating.)

I've taken up a new project at the library (please don't say I don't need yet another massive project: I know that!) I'm going through the entire fiction section, book by book, and checking each volume for condition and age and usage, and repairing what needs fixing and discarding what we don't need. I started at Z. I'm not quite through with Woods yet. *facepalm* But I like the thought that when I am through, 1) the collection will be in excellent  better condition, and 2) I will have touched every single book.

(Also, it allows me to discover all the books I would like to read.)

Hagen has a new favorite play thing: a pair of purple socks. He loves them and drags them around in his mouth--only he's so small yet, he ends up tripping all over them and rolling around like a deranged rabbit. I gave them to him because I decided I was really too old to be wearing purple socks, especially when these are purple socks I have had since I was ten. (I see the odd looks. I dislike socks, wear them as infrequently as possible, and therefore it is entirely possible for me to keep a pair of socks twelve years.) (At least they don't have lace around the top!)

The Little Orphan Annie comic strip creeps me out. It's the blank eyes, I think.

I saw today that I have four copies of The Hobbit. Is that a bit much? I feel maybe that's one too many. So I'm getting rid of one copy.

Gym update: very successful, if successful = sore muscles. I, um, never realized just how puny I was before. It's pretty embarressing to see a 70 year old guy handling three times the weight I could manage. But that'll change now, uh huh. Every Friday. I'm excited about this. Yet another thing that's changed...(how does it work that I feel about the same as three years ago when most of the major things in life have changed?)

(As you can see, I have no rule about using a lot of parentheses.)

Now I'm ready for some quality time with my books. Goodnight, all.

I spent the last half hour out watching the fireworks display at the church next door and rediscovering all the wonder of childhood.

(Or at least the wonder of being a hobbit-child when Gandalf's in town.)

In one of the old dictionaries I rescued (copyright 1944, beautifully bound in red leather), I found scribbled on the back page in childish handwriting:

                stop stop
                stop THE Wedding
                  top stoP
                stop the wedd

stop stop
stop the weddi ng

STOP

I'm really dying to know what that's all about.

Have you ever thought about how funny the world looks upside down?

I bought a ball gown today. It's shades of grey and reminds me of clothofdreams's wedding dress. I wonder at the sanity of buying a dress I can only wear once a year, but I like it. Maybe I'll wear it to church someday just to cement my oddness in people's minds.

I'm always hungrier on days when I do eat breakfast.

Has anybody gotten a chickenpox vaccination as an adult? I'm looking into it. I've evidentally never been vaccinated (even as a child), and I've never had the chickenpox, either.

As I was walking in from the post office a random guy accosted me. Hi! How are you! Long time no see! ...I'm pretty sure I've never seen him before in my life.

Just did five takes for the commercial. *facepalm* Further proof I wasn't meant to go into the acting world. elveneyes38, I admire you for that. (And a bunch of other things!)

Edit: Happy! Mom had mentioned she'd like me to search online to find the book The Mighty Whirlwind (about the Palm Sunday tornados mom lived through in Indiana). It's out of print and didn't have a large print run, so any copies that are out there are hugely expensive--some even $150. I had just called her to tell her that, and she decided she didn't want it badly enough to pay that much, when I found one copy on alibris.com for less than $30! It'll be a Mother's Day surprise. =) Perfect!

Is "if you say so" ever a good response to "Good morning"?

I think not.

Yesterday I got lost, found a coffee house, ate Chinese (best.salmon.ever...but who knew that was Chinese...?), drove an hour through pale light and mist in the morning (past those lush fields, bovines grazing bordered by forests and the unexpected lake), drove an hour back eight hours later though the exact same light and fog.

And woke up to the same this morning.

Dry world, take in water by osmosis.

Last night I was in the grocery store shopping for my grandmother. My mother was also there. We met up in the produce department and I began entertaining her by rubbing my hands gleefully in front of the basket of brussel sprouts, cackling and intoning, "We'll feed them BRUSSEL SPROUTS, my pretties!"

It was all fine and good until I looked up to see two Mexican men staring at me from across the onions. Obviously, they thought I was loco. I wondered for a moment if I should be embarrassed, then decided not. Life is too funny not to be funny with it.

All of the sudden we're thinking about moving the location of the library altogether and building an entirely new building instead of adding on. In a way, that would be very nice. No mess in the old building while construction is going on--a completely new building, without having to work around the existing structure--a new location. In the end it might be just as cost effective, due to all the renovation the old section we're in needs. It will be interesting to see what happens.

And finally:

March reading list

1. Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett
I'm actually getting down to where there are only a few new Pratchetts to read, and barely more than that to acquire for my own. It's kind of sad. Thank goodness he's not dead yet, so he can still put out a new one per year. This one was the Discworld take on vampires, and quite the hilarious one, too. Although I think reading Interview with a Vampire should have happened before I read it, not after.

2. The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-65, Cleone Knox
I rather hate to talk much about this one, because the chances of any of you being able to find a copy is slim. I have it in the rare book collection at work. Since even I couldn't take it out of the building, I read it on lunch hours. It was so facinating--the diary of this girl Cleone in the months leading up to her elopement. It was so....so 18th century. Absolutely facinating.

3. Julie and Julia, Julie Powell
Julie cooks all the way through Julia Child's cookbook in a year's time. A little too frank with sex and a little too liberal with language to recommend to the whole family, but then again, it'll probably only appeal to those besotted with food. I liked it. And I'll never cook a lobster due to its influence.

4. On Writing, Steven King
Who knew? Steven King is actually a very good writer. I like the way he strings words together. I like his style. I like what he has to say about the writing process. I still don't ever intend to read one of his novels, but I do now appreciate his talent.

5. Blowing my Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, Linsay Moran
Obviously she had to leave out all the really good parts (the title page tells us that the while the CIA does not indorse the book, they have read it and removed anything of interest that might be detrimental to the agency). It was an okay read, but I got annoyed at her liberalism. On the other hand, international spying is a dirty business, so perhaps she was right to be cynical.

6. Fighting Words, James Charlton, editor
Quotes from authors slamming either 1) themselves, or better yet, 2) other authors. Amusing.

7. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
It still doesn't top Thief of Time, but it's awfully good. A working knowledge of classic rock'n'roll helps tremendously, as Discworld's Music with Rocks In seem quite, eh, similar. I thought the parody was in fine form in this book. I'm so glad, melyndie, that we had time to go to that bookshop so I could find it for my own!

8. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
aftondays read this last month and had an interesting, if cryptic, comment to make about it. It's not a book I would have normally picked up, but I did because of her influence and once I started it, found it hard to lay aside. It's hard to characterize, but I really enjoyed it.

9. The Paradise War, Steven Lawhead
It's been too long since I read Lawhead. It's still wonderfully Celtic.

10. To Catch a Spy, Stuart M. Kaminsky
A book in the hard-boiled detective novel genre, featuring Cary Grant. (Albeit a very wooden Cary Grant.) Not too bad, but not that exciting, either.

11. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait, Brodie
I've been slooowly reading this for a very long time--over a year and a half, in fact. Either the book was poorly written or I just don't like Jefferson all that much. I'm not sure which.

12. The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
Footnotes! A random novel with little to no plot but a whole host of those thoughts, nicely footnoted, that I can snap my fingers at and go, "Ah, so someone else has wondered that, too?"

Last night I walked past a bank of pay phones. It was dark and quiet and very middle-of-the-night-ish.

One of them began to ring.

I took five steps towards it before losing my nerve and deciding not to answer. I regret it now. Wouldn't it have been fun to answer the phone?

Hi I needta talk ta James.

No, sorry, this is a pay phone outside of a grocery store. Where did you think you were calling?

I walked away. It was still ringing. I would have been fun, but it was just a little too eerie.

Shades of The Matrix, anyone?

It looks like we'll be recarpeting the other half of the library within the month. Also, adding on in a major way within the year (?).

Last night I finally felt like I had my life in order. All because I cleaned off my desk. *facepalm*

I think I'm skipping church tonight. I feel bad because it's happened more frequently lately, but I have a reason.

And this is the End.