An incredibly lazy day, full of me wondering why I felt so stressed-out and lethargic (answer: cause my brain won't shut up). Watched a lot of movies. Realized blogging has given me a shitty attention span. I'll need to start taking out my internet card when I sit down to write. This shit's gotta stop.
I also realized something tonight, feeling incredibly tired, worried about missing this week's MA classes, wishing that this week I've so looked forward to was just *over* already, thought about all the things I wanted to do, I needed to do, how silly I was for being concerned about stuff of very little importance that I really shouldn't even be thinking about... and I realized that it's never going to be perfect.
I'm never going to get everything done that I want to do in a week, cause that means trips to New York or Glasgow or Egypt won't happen. Getting locked into the "perfect" routine only means that I'll be less flexible when the good stuff comes up.
I'm never going to have a perfect week. It's never going to be perfect. I'm never going to get everything done.
Relax. Sit back. Enjoy. Have fun getting on a plane. Hope for clear weather in New York/New Jersey.
Enjoy yourself for once. Shit, woman.
I'll be up early and on a plane tomorrow morning, heading out. Mixed feelings. Books are packed.
And I'm incredibly, incredibly tired.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Night Thoughts
Web Hosting Going Down
Jenn is switching out our internet service provider this weekend, so I've gone back to stealing bandwidth for my title image, for the short term. I'll also be losing my webpage hosting space for my personal webpage, photopage, and profile photo.
These will be out of commission. I'll take out the links to them in my profile when I get back from New York, and go back to using Hello or something until I can figure out the deal our new provider gives us. Kinda sucks. Comcast has got a great user-friendly upload service now. Bah.
Go Vote for Mouse Words
Amanda's up for the Koufax Award for Best New Blog. Go vote for her, please. This is for a good cause. She deserves wider recognition, and this is one way to go about that. She doesn't have any ads, her content's all her own (it's not a group blog, or sponsored by any party), and it consistently kicks all ass. Voting is easy - just fill out a comment at the site above and put "Mouse Words" in it.
As an aside, she's also the only woman on the list of eight (best I can tell), which sure the hell is interesting, considering that there are actually more women bloggers than men.
Very interestting. And that's all I'll say about that.
Vote.
50 Books I Need to Finish This Year
During good weeks, I can get through 2-3 books a week on the train. Unfortunately, I've been spending most of my train time lately listening to music and staring off into space. Like my writing, my reading has been suffering.
It's time to get back on track.
In preparation for my trip, I've compiled a quick list of the 50 books I either need to start reading or need to finish reading this year, roughly in this order (an asterik denotes those books I'm currently in the middle of reading):
1. Romance of the Three Kingdoms(volume 1 of 2)*
2. Shriek by Jeff VanderMeer
3. The Male Body by Susan Bordo*
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clarke
5. The Persian Boy by Mary Renault*
6. Love by Toni Morrison*
7. Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Nasland*
8. War in the Shadows: the Guerilla in History by Robert B. Asprey (in fact, I need to buy this book - I'm accuring a lot of library fees for it)*
9. Orlando by Virginia Woolf*
10. Dreaming by the Book by Elaine Scarry*
11. Secret Life by Jeff VanderMeer
12. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien
13. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
14. Golden States by Michael Cunningham
15. The Histories by Herodotus
16. The Insult by Rupert Thomson
17. Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy*
18. The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Women's Rights in America by Debran Rowland
19. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler*
20. The Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny
21. Blood of Amber by Roger Zelazny
22. Sign of Chaos by Roger Zelazny
23. Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle
24. On War by Carl Von Clausewitz
25. Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
26. Half the Day is Night by Maureen McHugh
27. The Art of Memory by Frances A. Yates
28. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
29. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber*
30. Iron Council by China Mieville
31. Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews by James Carroll
32. Oriental Mythology by Joseph Campbell
33. Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
34. Natural History by Justina Robson
35. A Harlot High and Low by Honore de Balzac
36. Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac
37. Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton*
38. Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb
39. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson (must... fight... through... it)
40. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
41. A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis by David M. Friedman
42. Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation by Thomas W. Laqueur*
43. Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess
44. The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman*
45. Same-sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe by John Boswell
46. The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Naroibi by Luise White
47. Latro in the Mist by Gene Wolfe*
48. Brightness Falls from the Air by James Tiptree Jr.
49. Feminist Social Thought: a reader by various*
50. Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
And yes, for those wondering: all of these books - except two of the Zelazny - are, in fact, actually sitting here in my house.
Our latest book count?
1541
Thus concludes this morning's procrastination post.
