Happy All The Time--Laurie Colwin

Sometimes you just get sucked into rereading things, and you wonder what you saw in them the first time. I doubt Colwin's got a place in the canon, despite her popularity. Maybe the chick lit canon. her short stories are populated by the shallowest of creations. Her characters have actions assigned to them as opposed to springing from interior motivation, and the story inevitable serves as a showplace for Colwin's whimsical stylings.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation--Lauren Willig

Well, this book has been the most disappointing read of the year. I couldn't even finish it. It was been billed as a historical thriller written by a Harvard graduate student, so I expected something authentic and nail-biting a la David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper). Instead, it's chick lit surrounded by more chick lit--a historical spy romance with contemporary mores framed by the ramblings of an American grad student among the Brits involved in her own love plot. Terrible! And to think I'd been checking the library for months for this book.

Word Rant, Part 2

Today's most misused word: elope.

Definition: To run away with a lover, especially with the intention of getting married.

So if a couple decides to go to Vegas to get hitched and tells their families and friends such, that is not an elopement. It's just getting married in Vegas. No one has an obligation to get married and invite all and sundry to the spectacle.

Dork City

So I bought the Grey's Anatomy DVDs last night. I'm using them as a carrot to actually get some work for Health Information Resources done, but there's a notable side benefit--within the first five episodes, there are two scenes of people (gasp!) actually doing research! One scene is set among the journal stacks and the other features a computer database. No librarians in sight, but surely Shonda Rhimes just needs a little reminder from the Medical Libraries Association that such a breed exists, and we can have a role model!

I Laugh and Laugh and Laugh

Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description: Montgomery Homeland Security Officers Reassigned Over Library Incident.

Because Homeland Security includes violating people's library rights! Now, I think viewing porn in public is a filthy habit and a real grit-your-teeth-and-put-up aspect of public librarianship, but I find it hilarious that Homeland Security thinks it's on par of importance with arresting all those dang terrorists who are lurking around waiting to plant bombs and assassinate senators. It's a real life Library Journal--How Would You Manage? feature.

Sheer brilliance

The other class I am taking this semester is cataloging. My hopes for enjoying the class skyrocketed the first day when I noticed a guy who, I swear, looked like the bastard son of Andy Warhol and Carrie Donovan. How cool is that!!!??? He had a wedding ring though, so I did not attempt to flirt.

So this week I notice he's not there. I check the class sign-in sheet, and it looks like he's dropped the class. Damn. My compatriot, The Romance Heroine, tells me that it's my own fault--I must have scared him off when on the first day I nudged her and whispered excitedly "I shot Andy Warhol!" I deny ever saying that, but she maintains it's true. Now, I may have a copy of "Songs for Drella" but I have never owned The S.C.U.M. Manifesto, and the fellow had nothing to fear from me. We discuss whether you can rent the Valerie Soldanas movie or any Warhol films from Netflix. She suggests I should just take a trip to Pittsburgh and visit the museum, but I am busy this weekend.

And in the five minutes it takes up to walk to our cars, I have planned an Andy Warhol party--I will get a platinum wig (a secret desire of mine for forever), flatten my chest and wear black. We will serve spiked Campbell's soup shots. Decorate with tomato soup cans, Brillo boxes and other Warhol subjects. Maybe an art heist--the Cleveland Museum of Art is not using its Warhols at the moment. Invitees will be required to dress as their favorite Factory denzions, generic mods, or S.C.U.M. members. Her boyfriend has grown a beard, so he can be a beatnik. We shall play Warhol silents on a loop. The lights will be dim, as a Midwest American foursquare is not a NYC loft. Maybe we shall restage the assassination attempt at midnight. No drugs will be served though.

This is another fine idea that I have come up with that will never fruit. Which is a little sad.

Somewhere in this is the genesis of a personals ad. Not only do I want someone who would think I am marvelous for coming up with all this, but I really want a relationship who will get into the spirit and play along.

Another Book Read

White Sky, Black Ice--Stan Jones

Book Update--Romance Edition

Match Me If You Can--Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Happy All The Time--Laurie Colwin
Love Smart--Dr. Phil McGraw (stop the smirking!)
102 Great Dates For Any Budget--The Editors of Sharpman.com
Jane Austen's Guide To Dating--Lauren Henderson
To Say Nothing Of The Dog--Connie Willis

A Note On Books Read

I'm only counting books that I finish. There are just too many that I'll be ranting about that I started, got irritated by and threw across the room. And at least one that I read through, marveling at its badness (see below).

I am also counting books that I have reread, as long as I've finished them a second+ time. And textbooks.

Cliche Alert

Here's my least favorite cliche--whenever a female character has had a long and horrible illness, it is always breast cancer. Because as women, we are defined by the size and status of our tits. We should constantly monitor them and be afraid, lumps of flesh just waiting to erupt into deadly tumors.

Does no one get into a car accident? Get another type of cancer? Have a stroke from birth control pills? Automimmune disorder? Shingles?

I'm taking Health Information Resources--I'll give anyone who wants to enliven their fiction other awful afflictions for their characters to suffer from, just to save us readers from another character with breast cancer.

Behind, Again

So the weekend is at its close and I have done nothing that I sort of set out on doing. But, comfort-wise I am ahead as I have:

• Indulged in much late sleeping, including zonking myself Friday night with a sleeping pill. Oh, Tylenol PM. You are such a harsh mistress. First you get stuck in my throat and don't dissolve, then 2 hours later I am flailing on the couch and scaring the cats.
  
• Bought a $7 pair of black velvet jeans. And on a less exciting note, new underpants and socks.
• And a bathtowel of an attractive cream color that totally covers me, is warm and only cost $10. I could cry with the small moment of happiness this grants me. I look forward to bathing even more than usual. All my towels are frayed and mismatched, and Gimlet gave birth on several of them (Hey, I washed 'em in hot afterwards!)
  

On Recent Literary Scandals

Goodness, why is James Frey and his mischievous mouth still being talked about? He lied. I'm not particularly bothered by that fact. First off, I assume everyone lies. Hell, the amount of liars in the government right now....But anyway, guess what? Drug abusers lie more. So the publisher reclassified fiction as memoir to make a buck? Guess what, making money is what they do. And memoir is by nature held to standards of objectivity and neutrality because it's personal. Who doesn't try to spin themselves and edit history to make themselves look better? People are unreliable narrators of their own tales. They lie to themselves, which is the bigger failing.

I mean, I lie. Not much. Mostly I just edit.

As for JT LeRoy--so you're a cross-dressing teenage truckstop prostitute, just plying the family trade under mama's guidance down there in WV, when you light out to California to live on the streets where you are discovered and sheltered by nice folks who put a pen in your hand and boom! A writer is born. My ass. Did the people who believed this story check their brains at the door? Unlike Frey, this persona doesn't even have a genesis in credibility.

4 Things Meme Tag

Nabbed by Genevieve. I take up the challenge, and prove myself dull as dirt.

4 Jobs I've Had:
1. Info Specialist @ Ye Olde Fortune 500 Bank
2. Publications Assistant @ Medical Ghostwriting Firm
3. Reference Specialist@ Intenational Law Firm
4. Photo Center Clerk

4 Movies I'll Sit and Watch Transfixed:
1. The Thin Man
2. Anatomy of a Murder
3. Rear Window
4. Ocean's 11

4 Places I've Lived:
1.Lakewood
2. Lincroft, NJ
3.Mathews, NC
4.Middletown, NJ

4 TV Shows I Don't Miss:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Prison Break
3.House
4. Veronica Mars

4 Places I've Gone on Holiday:
1.Lincroft, NJ
2.Toronto
3.Duck, NC
4. Traverse City, MI

4 Dishes I'll Never Turn Down, Unless It Looks Really Suspicious:
1. Brownies
2.Tzakiki
3.Chicken Paprikash
4. Cabbage and Noodles

4 Albums I Cannot Live Without
1. Marshall Crenshaw compilation
2. Uncle Tupelo anthology
3. Louis Prima and Keely Smith compilation
4. (blank)

4 Vehicles I've Owned:
1. Ghost Girl (Elantra)
2. Martha ('88 Ford Tempo)

4 Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:
1. Pittsfield, MA
2. Duck, NC
3. Phoenix, AZ
4. Brooklyn, NY

4 Websites/Blogs I Visit Daily
1. NY Times
2. Washington Post
3. MSNBC.com
4. EW.com

4 People I'm Tagging:
Only 2. Step right up, Audax and dingusgirl!

Chicken Every Sunday--Rosemary Taylor

Another thrifted book. I picked this one up because it looked interesting--it is a collection of sketches detailing Rosemary Taylor's childhood in 1900's Tucson, when the city was just being founded. Her mother ran a boarding house, partly for the money and part for the fun. Her dad was a entrepreneurial businessman. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of variation or reflection in these stories--they all work along the lines of "We had boarders, cool stuff happened, it was fun, Mother and Daddy were so smart." No speculation on what got Mother, a post Civil War daughter of a fine family and raised on a plantation, out to Arizona, and what prompted her to rent out every spare inch of her house. There's also few details of the time period included, which serves to rather homogenize the story.

This book was made into a movie too. Looks like they elaborated on characters and plot.

Urn Burial--Kerry Greenwood

Once again, Phrynne Fisher swans around solving a mystery. This one takes place on a grand estate in rural Australia. Not very compelling, and strangely lacking in fun. I like the stories that deal with the cultural makeup of 1920's Australia more.

Typical

Now that I've publicly committed myself to buying a new computer, I am stalling on doing my taxes.

Explaining Relativity To The Cat

I saw this linked on Apartment Therapy, and wanted to share because it amuses me so: Explaining Relativity To The Cat by Jennifer Gresham.