1. Last week's entry is mysteriously absent and will remain so. Much like my long-term relationship.
2. The book reviews are going to be abrupt and lacking detail. Much like the end of the aforementioned long-term relationship.
3. You're going to get a peek into my personal life as I detail my near-frenzy level of activity over the past three weeks and justify my merely mortal page count. I'd really hoped to break 10,000 pages by now, but shit happens.
So, in no particular order, a list of things that have taken priority over reading since February 16th: packing half my house into a storage unit and my Jeep, moved my entire life from Western North Carolina to Eastern Tennessee, bought a Kindle, run many miles, applied to strange and interesting jobs in exotic locales, re-certified my first responder qualifications, run many miles, listened to Adele, decided that was a bad idea, listened to Lana Del Rey which was a Good Idea, let my dog Harper sleep in the bed for once, driven All Over the Entire Southeast, drove to Charleston in particular, laughed until I hurt, got sick, got over it, lifted several heavy things in repetition, spent time with my family, gotten a migraine, signed up for a race, replaced my luggage, talked to long-lost friends, watched a shocking amount of Mad Men and Portlandia, listened to Wild Flag until I memorized the album, had an existential crisis in Athens, Georgia. Oh, and tweeted some.
Since I'm working this whole 'post-breakup humor' thing to the bone, here are my favorite one-liners from the past three weeks:
1. "Clearly this means you should be a priest, since you don't want kids and you're crap at relationships."
2. "Does it count as vacation if I can't go home afterward?"
Ahem. The books:
A Long Shadow, Charles Todd, 368p. Consistent, interesting, excellent. Strangely cathartic.
Good People, Marcus Sakey, 336p. I don't understand 'crime' novels. It's like a mystery except you already know what's gone down.
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, 384p. Holy crap, I'm hooked. Got my Ender's Game fix all lined up, thank you.
Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins, 400p. Is it too soon to get a movie ticket? Also: unfair to cast Jennifer Lawrence in the lead - she is all kinds of appealing.
WEEK TEN TOTAL: 8158 PAGES!
I have three brief things to say:
ReplyDelete1) Am I a long-lost friend?
2) You are seriously funny, despite major personal crises.
3) I CAN'T BELIEVE IT TOOK YOU AN ENTIRE YEAR TO READ "The Hunger Games"!!! I told you to read the series last March!!! Goodness. Needing to have a movie come out in order to read a book. Terrible . Just terrible.
1) You are a long-lost friend, but not the one to whom I was referring; I haven't called you on the phone yet. Expect ringing soon.
ReplyDelete2) I actually get funnier in inverse proportion to how well life is going, so as things take a sharp nose-dive into Morose-ville via the Gauntlet of Endless Nonsense, I become a barrel of chuckles.
3) You know how defiant I can be. I didn't read On The Road for a decade because so many people harped on it in high school. Ditto for that guy... Robbins. Tom. With the funny books.
1) Ringing? So THAT'S what phones are for! Really? Although just fyi, my cell phone no longer likes to work unless it is attached to a cord. Hence, it can no longer be considered a cordless phone.
Delete2) A barrel of chuckles? I'd like to see one of those!
3) You? Defiant? NEVER!
Book suggestion (although it has become popular, so it might take you ten years to get to it): "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption" by Laura Hillenbrand. Same author who brought us "Seabiscuit" and changed the way the common person views horses and trainers in the racing world. This book is absolutely and incredibly heartbreaking and cruel and uplifting and true. Historical nonfiction brought to life.
ReplyDelete