For Matrimonial Purposes--Kavita Daswani

You all know that I read a lot more than I review here on the site, right? I read like some people drink--as a daily form of escapism. And while I may churn out some decent sentences, for me to sit down and write is kind of like treating guinea worm disease. Long slow torture of pulling something out of your body, involving frequent rests to get your head together and forget the pain, plus screaming. So a book really has to spark some feeling for me to bother. Otherwise, it just gets filed into a category called Things I Don't Care About. It's a vast category.

This is a book that sparks frustration for me, because it has a good idea but Daswani makes so many poor choices in the telling of her tale that the novel is just mediocre. I have to ask, did she not have an editor or friend read it before publishing and give her critical feedback? Because she cuts her own narrative off at the knees at so many points that she completely lessens the effect of the tale. And the writing and secondary characters clearly show she's got some ideas and skill, and with a little refining this could have been a very, very good novel.

Anju comes from a wealthy Bombay family in the jewelry business, and as befits her social station she's expected to marry a fellow Indian of a good family and have children. Nothing more, and nothing less. Anju has a different path in mind, and persuades her parents to allow her to work and continue her education, first in Bombay and later in the US. She's very picky about her potential husbands when she's younger, but at age 30 she finds that herself in an uncomfortable place. She'd like to get married, but she's considered too old and too independent, if not actually slutty, by most suitors. Anju is faced with questions and doubts--did she make the wrong choices? Has she let her family down? Will she ever meet a nice fellow and fall in love?

The problems I have with this story center on the character of Anju. Her story is told as a first person flashback, so it's essentially a data dump. Classically lazy tell, not show. Then there is the fact that we are supposed to believe that Anju is spirited and ambitious, but she's not shown to be such. She's drab. Her one bit of spark comes when she bribes a fortuneteller to lie to her mother and say that her horoscope does not show her marrying until at least her late 20's so that her parents will be persuaded to let her go to America. We're told she's successful at her job as a "fashion publicist" but there are no details about what she likes about it, or how she goes about her job, or what makes her good at it. She enjoys Western life, but there's no detail about how she struggles to maintain her Indian identity and values. I mean, she doesn't date and she's a virgin! She lives in a bubble in Bombay, and then secrets herself in a bubble in NY. The only difference is that she lives alone in a studio apartment. She's a static, dull character with no voice, and to have her narrate a novel that is supposed to deal with her life and personal struggles--it's just not worth reading.

Then there is a question of the website. At one point, when Anju ramps up her marriage hunt, she takes a last-minute flight to a dinner party where an eligable man who might be interested is supposed to be. She later finds out that there's a website devoted to her attempts to find a husband. But this is never followed up on. It is the equivalent of that old bit of advice credited to Chekhov, that if you put a gun in the first act, it had better go off by the third. How can you put such a detail, ripe with dramatic possibilities, in a story, and not follow up on it? Anju doesn't Google herself to find fellow members of the Indian diaspora making fun of her? Sheesh!

There were a lot of possibilities in this novel, but it's ultimately unsatisfying. I like exploring Indian culture through fiction, and this story conveys the culture well, but the central character drove me nuts.

The Plain Janes--Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg

I bought this last week over at Carol & John's Comic Shop. Carol was doing a handsell to another customer and I picked it up too. If you ever think that just talking about books loudly in public doesn't lead to impulse purchases, you are wrong. (By the way, Carol & John's is the best Cleveland area comic shop--how can you resist a family business run by a geek mom and her firefighter son, a store that is friendly, clean, bright and organized, had a shop kitty until his tragic death from a stroke, and tends to have cookies on the counter? You can't. I'm going to miss them when I go.)

Right--so Jane was a Metro City girl until a terrorist attack left her with a case of PTSD and a fixation on the John Doe beside her on the street. He's lying in a coma in a hospital, and she's writing him letters, since her parents packed up and moved to the safer suburbs. Despite the flee to an illusion of safety, they've become extremely overprotective. Jane misses her old life and is walking around in a fog. She attempts to befriend a pack of fellow Janes--Drama Jane, the character actress wasted in the high school drama club, Brain Jayne, a science geek (and proud!), and Polly Jane, star athlete. Ha, ha, they want nothing to do with Jane until she intrigues them with an idea: P.L.A.I.N.--People Loving Art In Neighborhoods. A series of installations of ordinary objects to shake things up a little. No one gets hurt, and it's easily changed back. Just an attempt to get people to think and feel--it's all good, right? But the Janes learn that sometimes ordinary actions have big consequences as their installations affect people in myriad ways.

I thought the plot and characters were a bit underdeveloped and light, but I thought the artwork looked good. It was worth a read, but not a keeper for me. No emotional impact, and not really character driven. They're all stereotypes! But that's okay within the scope of the book. I saw a book by Castellucci on the YA shelf at work, so I'm going to check out more of her stuff.

This is the first release from the new imprint Minx Books out of DC Comics. Upcoming titles look good--Andi Watson has a lighthearted tale London punk girl solving a mystery in the country on a visit to the grandparents, I like the looks of Good As Lily in which a girl gets a crack on the head from a birthday pinata and is joined by herself at ages 6, 29 and 70, all existing on one plane/timestream/whatever, and a romance n' family tale about a Korean American girl.

I might be getting to buy some graphic novels & manga for the part-time job. Keep those fingers crossed!

A Childhood Issue? Ask A Librarian

Cool article in the NY Times Region section today about how librarians are information providers to parents and children on everyday issues. Makes me proud to be in the profession, sniff.

My new job (which I'm sure I'll talk about in broad details here as I settle in) has me working in the children's room at least part of the time. It's a little weird for me because I didn't experience children's services as a child, and I never thought working with kids would be where my career would ever remotely land me. Matter of fact, I never set foot in a library until I was 6 years old. My mom thought we had to pay--I had a crumpled fiver that had gone through the wash to pay for my card and was shocked to find the library was free, and all I had to do was write my name and address on the card application. And happy, because $5 is a lot of money.

I mention this not to make my family look like uneducated boobs (because we're not), but because I find there's not a lot of talk among the profession about diversity of background in terms of information access and use. It's assumed that we all got the message early on that Library=Good Public Institution To Use In These Ways and we're all so in love with the public service mission that we'll work for less money and feel the love. Oh and the idea that The Library Is A Must Have For The Community. We really don't understand the whys and hows of nonuser populations and are shocked when levies don't pass or libraries close. And in a lot of ways we are a middle class profession. It's not a question of how do we market the library to the population, but understanding the hows and whys of nonusers to see what they think about the library.

Triple X Librarian

On the young librarian listserv, there's someone who posted up in a tizzy that when she Googles her (rather distinctive) name, there's a link to some sort of triple X site on the last page of results. Oh no! Personally I don't see the reason for fuss.

I have to say, were I in a hiring position and I had any hint that my potential hire had a career in p0rn, I'd bring them in for an interview right quick if they had the qualifications. The chance to see that mythical creature, the hottie librarian, cannot be passed up. Plus, the p0rn industry is considered to be on the forefront of both technological innovation and meeting client interests and needs. A career as a p0rn star shows gumption in my book, and skills that are transferable. Plus, they might have a stash of cash and be willing to accept the low librarian salaries.

Hmmm. Maybe ALA should refocus its recruitment efforts and partner with the strip club.

Virtual World Librarianship?

I don't know quite what to think about this. On the one hand, I do think the skills this workshop looks to engender are transferable and will only be more in demand in the future. A big push in public librarianship is the link to children/teens and gaming skills and how we can serve and reach that demographic.

But geez louise, everything I hear about Second Life is just freakin' creepy. And emotionally dangerous--kind of like the end of the relationship with the ex and the eyebrow raise I got from Dr. Marti on the subject of all that LARPing. I mean, my First Life is somewhat unfulfilling, but I know that. I'm just not quite at the fix-it stage yet. I know that ignoring reality to concentrate on fantasy is dangerous--doesn't stop me from doing it, but I realize that finding a date, learning Spanish, finishing the degree, fixing the house, etc. would make me happier. Online's not real life.

Note to self: Check out Kit Reed's @expectations again.

Oh wait, there's another reason Second Life irks me --because to play games you have to know rules, and I'm just a no-rules, minor criminal activity sort of girl. God bless my white, intellectual, matronly self. I couldn't even play SimFarm because there was no organic option.

See the following press release:

Avatars! Linden Dollars! Librarianship!

Librarianship? What ARE they talking about?

To discover how avatars, Linden dollars, and librarianship relate to
one another, come join us in a continuing education course on
librarianship in the virtual world of Second Life. Second Life is a 3-D virtual
world entirely built and owned by its residents, including real life
librarians on Info Island.

The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Alliance Library System of
Illinois have partnered to offer a six week online (in Second Life) course
to introduce you to libraries and information services in a virtual
world. The course starts May 25 and is open to all library and information
professionals.

Week One: Introduction to Libraries in Virtual Worlds
Week Two: Second Life 101
Week Three: Collections, Resources, and Exhibits in Virtual Environment
Week Four: Reference and Information Services in Virtual Worlds
Week Five: Managing and Working in a Virtual Library or Department
Week Six: Skills Needed by 21st Century Librarians in Virtual Worlds

For Those of Us Who Still Put Pen To Paper

So the Post Office is raising rates again, and in order to soften the blow they're introducing the Liberty Stamp. For 41 cents now, you get a stamp that will always be honored as first class postage.

Now I get the marketing and how this might be a good idea, and as someone who still mails letters and bills frequently I'd be the target demographic to buy up a bunch of them. Say over the next 50 years I'll go through 10,000 stamps. I could buy them up now for $4100.00. Except that's a hunk of change to invest, plus at what point will it be most advantageous for me to use my stockpiled postage? There has to be a cutoff point for most everyone to stop using the USPS because it will be too expensive, and then everything will move to electronic correspondence.

Prediction? Liberty Stamp is a big flop, like the neverending attempts to get Americans to use dollar coins.

From Front Porch To Back Seat--Beth Bailey

Like many of you, I have heard a lot over the past month about Laura Sessions Stepp's new book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose At Both. I'm 9th in line on CPL's waiting list for it, so in the meantime I turned to this book. I remembered reading it in high school or college and being favorably impressed. On rereading it, I have to say that I'm awfully disappointed that NPR did not think to get Beth Bailey and LSS on air together for a critical thinking skills smackdown on dating through the ages.

Here is the thesis of Unhooked as I have gleaned it from the media coverage: Younguns these days don't have relationships, they just have indiscriminate sex. And they talk about it openly, which is bad. If you want sex, you should be discreet and sneaky about it. And the hookups are bad because they don't allow for the learning curve of how to decide what you want in a partner which is why dating around is such a marvelous thing. Or, girls get themselves into these exclusive proto-marriages in which they stagnate. Oh, and by just having sex you don't learn how to handle negotiation and the relationship skills you need in a long term relationship with a single person. And why women losing out on these valuable skills is something we should be concerned about (as opposed to any relationship skills gap men might have) is because women are the sexual gatekeepers.

No, I am not making this up. Go look up some of the coverage on this book. To complicate matters, LSS's book is supposedly based on some sort of private survey research combined with in-depth interviewing, so it sounds awfully anecdotal, but I haven't read the book.

Bailey's book is historical in nature--she's taking her evidence from articles, college archives, and the like. Like LSS, she concentrates her research on how young people (high school and college aged) dated and courted from about 1900-1960, and what the changes in custom and practices reflect about America and personal relationships. The main thrust is that by about 1920, courting had moved from a practice that took place in a girl's home under her parent's eyes and was a fairly serious step on the course to marriage (think the fundamentalist Christian dating practices of the modern age) to an activity that took place outside the home and involved the purchase of entertainment, food, and the privilege of being in a public space. Therefore, dating becomes less about any personal sparkage than a popularity contest in which girls compete to prove to boys that the pleasure of her company is a valuable commodity worth paying for. Keep in mind, this popularity contest can only function in a stratified and regimented society, hence youth culture. Because really, once you're out of college, you are competing in a different level about different things, no? Mostly.

Also worth noting is that dating is a serious activity that determines a girl's worth, but the goal is to have a lot of beaux for the early part of the century. Then in the 1950's there's a shift, and exclusive relationships are the ideal. Why? WWII. The US didn't lose a whole generation of the men the way Europe did with WWI with 5 years of war and a flu epidemic, leaving a lot of single women with no eligable marriage partners. WWII and the GI Bill brought a lot of men back into an artificial youth culture of the college campus, where men were a scarcity and needed to be snapped up. Plus with the general tone of the time pushed marriage and settling down and rebuilding the country to a generation who had grown up with first the Depression and then the war, and who were frankly tired and exhausted, and the young just adopted the values being pushed on their elders.

But sex! People weren't having all this premarital sex, right? Bullshit!. Sexual activity has always gone along with dating. What has changed is a) what people do (Bailey charts the changes in what is considered acceptable--the Victorians thought that handholding pushed boundaries, but by the 1930's necking and petting are commonplace practices) b) where they do it (namely the car--lookout points and parking spots emerge as a way of using public peer pressure to not let activities go too far) and c) what consequences you face for your activity.

Bailey's book is concise, very enjoyable and illuminating. So far she kicks LSS's ass on the research and thesis, but I'm still waiting for Unhooked.

Emma Tupper's Diary--Peter Dickinson

This is one of my favorite childhood books. I was thrilled to find the same edition I read as a kid in a thrift several years ago, and it is one of the keepers from the huge book stash. Published in 1971, its themes and plot have come around again, and a smart production company should scoop it up for a film adaptation. Update the story slightly, transplant the setting to the Finger Lakes, Michigan's Upper Peninsula or Minnesota, and you will have a hit.

Emma Tupper has grown up in Botswana, and now at 14 she's a student at an English boarding school. Her father has arranged for her to spend her summer break with distant cousins she's never met, the McAndrews, in the Scottish Highlands at the ancestral family home. Emma's goal is have an interesting summer that she can chronicle it in her diary and win a school prize (I was a student at an American boarding school, and I can tell you that even in the 1990s we did weird shit like this). Emma's got a cool intellectual independence that makes her a great foil for the McAndrews--imperious and bossy Andy, removed Finn, and rebellious Roddy. The McAndrews start the summer on a low note with news that the family liniment company is failing, and it seems like it will be a quiet summer of sailing, sun and nature walks when inspiration hits.

Since the loch is said to hold a monster like Loch Ness, and since there's a Victorian era mini submarine in the shed that would be usable with a little rehab, and since Andy got dumped by a tv journalist who didn't think he was all that grand, and since they have nothing else pressing to do, why not concoct a con by decking the sub out as a sea creature, inviting the journalist up, and see what happens? And that's what they do. And it would have been great fun, had Roddy and Emma not taken the sub out at night and discovered that there is something special about the loch.

So we have an awesomely outrageous adventure tale with ecological themes, and very snarky British humor. I love this bit where Andy instructs Emma on the family history:

"You see, Cousin Emma," said Andy, "there was this Russian prince who fell in love with your grandmother when he spied her from afar at a Highland Gathering at Balmoral. Instantly, he insinuated himself into the bosom of the family, disguised as a --"

"Labrador retriever?" said Emma, seizing the moment when Andy was slopping a spoonful of fruit into his mouth. She had noticed all the McAndrews using the pauses of eating as a method of thinking up their next lie without seeming to hesitate.

"Shut up. You have no soul, you beastly Saxon. Romance means nothing to you. He disguised himself as a second under-footman, so great was the sacrifice he was prepared to make for love. He paid secret court to your grandmother, poor foolish girl. Her heart was won. The night was fixed. The carriage was ordered, with muffled wheels. A sloop waited at Mallaig, ready to whisk them back to the splendors of the imperial Court. With a beating heart she waited at her window. Came the rattle of hooves on the bridge. Head high, she walked into the dark and climbed up beside the driver. One kiss, then the whip cracked and they were away."

"How super," sighed Miss Newcombe.

"It wasn't as super as all that, actually. Her clock was fast and she'd climbed up beside a travelling trouser salesman called Tupper, who hadn't been having much luck in the Highlands because of our preference for the kilt. He only stopped to ask the way, but after that kiss--"

Andy made the mistake of stopping for another mouthful. Emma, who normally lived in a world of facts, suddenly felt that she could do it too.

"Let me guess the rest," she said. "Everybody in the house rushed wildly in pursuit and was never seen again. The Russian had gone away to prepare for the elopement, and now when he arrived at the right time he found the house empty. So he just waited. He waited for years, and in the end he married and had two boys and a girl. He's still alive, but he has to pretend to be interested in beetles so he can go away to Geneva when anybody comes who might notice his Russian accent. Why don't you all go back to Moscow and claim the throne of the Czars? I'm going to have a double helping of my cream. Will you please tell me the real story some time, Mary?" (54-55)

Crazy Librarian Hijinks

I'm having issues with getting Blogger to synch with YouTube, but go check out this video set in a library. Okay, first the song is insanely catchy. And a hottie male geek librarian, a species seldom seen in the librarian world. And a card catalog! And a woman singing in front of Baldwin reporters. And breakdancing!

How geeky am I for liking this? It's okay, right?

Drafted: I Want You To Deliver E-Government

Read the article here.

I predict enormous pushback in coming years in regards to this issue. Well, I'm hoping for enormous pushback. While it's great that libraries are filling this need, it seems to me that we're doing a free favor for government systems as they push more of their services into the realm of DIY. I think we, as librarians and citizens, should push for both government funding and specialized training for librarians from government. It's clear that facilitation is needed as people attempt to navigate these sites and meet their own needs.

Incidentally, when we talked about the development of the American library systems in school, one of the points is that the reason we developed a system of locally funded and locally controlled libraries was primarily due to Andrew Carnegie's stepping in with seed money that had to be matched by communities that wanted to start a library. My professor maintained that the government would have had to step in to start libraries, but it would have been much delayed and different. I've often played around a bit with what the library would look like if he hadn't stepped in: librarianship would have been a male-dominated profession, libraries would be pretty poorly funded to begin with but would have picked up lots of money during the Depression as opposed to the Sputnik era, they would have been devoted to the delivery of educational and governmental materials but not popular materials.

The Last September--Elizabeth Bowen

I'm trying to read more fiction of a challenging variety. Great(er) Books than usual mysteries, romance, and light fiction and non-fiction.

So when the paperback stacks at LPL included some Elizabeth Bowen, I picked it up.

Overall, this was just an okay read--it takes place in Ireland in 1920, right before the Irish militias drove the well-to-do British landowners out. The setting is a house party given by Sir Richard Naylor and his wife, who represent old school colonialism. They are the guardians of Lois, a young girl of 19 or 20 who is aware that change is forthcoming. In between, the same things that always happen at house parties happen--someone hogs the raspberries, people write indiscriminate letters, try to get engaged, wander around playing croquet, blah, blah. Bowen does a really cool job of showing the insulation of her characters, but breaking it up with details of the turmoil that's boiling around the party, like having the news that a cache of guns was dug up nearby being mentioned at lunch, and the dance that the younger girls attend with the British Army officers in the area. It piques my curiosity about Irish history, but it makes a dull book.

This book was made into a movie about 10 years ago that was well-received, and is available on Netflix.

Meanwhile, any suggestions for February's book? I was trying to read The Human Stain for a while, but gave up due to the overwrought, breathless pace of Roth's writing--it reminded me of Portnoy's Complaint, and not in a good way.

In Which Kerry Leaves The House

I'd like to report an instance in which I left the house and did something fun. Yes, such an occasion is so rare it must be reported in the blog. Saturday night I saw Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely, and Guy Clark in concert down at the Palace Theater. They're doing a tour in which each plays a song of his choice in a round robin. Great show, and it only cost $10. Well, $10 before the ridiculous extra fees for the privilege of puchasing a ticket online.

Random Complaints Department

How the hell can I purchase a box of 120 Dum Dum lollipops and not get 1 cherry lollipop? Instead I got tons of stawberry (ugh, I hate fake strawberry flavor!) and banana. Banana, people. Why? How? Oh, the puzzlement.

In Which Kerry Reads The Newspaper, And Becomes Irritated: Part 2

Today's NYTimes Vows Column: It's good to know that even if you're a jackass to a girl for 18 years, she'll eventually break down and marry you.

Between this article on a new embryo bank and today's story on "reproductive tourism," The Washington Post has managed to give ammo two weeks running for my belief that human beings are just interchangable commodities being degraded in ever more exciting ways.

And this story is great because yeah, what is cheerleading for anyway?

A Christmas Story House

Above are some photos from my trip to see the A Christmas Story House .

Overall, I'd grade the whole thing as a B/B-. Excellent idea. I'm really happy that someone recognized that there would be a market for this tourist attraction, and went out on a $500,000 limb to make it happen. And I'm pleased that Cleveland has embraced the whole idea and rallied behind it, with special weekend tourism packages, the stage show, last year's fundraising showings of the movie, and tons of local publicity. Of course, it's not from someone in Cleveland who came up with the idea and made it happen, because we are all apathetic and pessimistic. Surprise, surprise. The house itself is really pretty and comfortable, a nice restoration job. However, it has very little furniture. On the one hand this is good, because it allows them to pack plenty of people in at $5 a head and keep the line moving. On the other hand, what's the point of looking at a half empty house where most of the interior shots were not even filmed? Plus, all the memorabilia from the film is actually located at the gift shop across the street. So you're touring a house that's been well-restored to resemble a middle-class home from about 1940 in terms of color and fixtures, but has no furniture or sense of people living in it. I found that a little disturbing. The kitchen is the most complete in terms of having furniture and fixtures, and it's sweetly retro.

The whole project just seems unfinished, but really it's only been 18 months in preparation so we have to give them some credit. I hope they polish it up a little more. The line shows that there's a lot of interest in the project.

Shaman Pass--Stan Jones

This book is the 2nd in the Nathan Active series put out by Soho Press. I've previously gone into my love for them, no? Anyway, the first book was White Sky, Black Ice and introduced Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active. Active's posted in the Arctic Circle village of Chukchi, where he's an outsider eager to leave. He's got a history there--he was born in Chukchi, but his Inupiat mom gave him to his white adoptive parents who were teachers at the high school. Active was raised down in Anchorage, caught between both the white and Inupiat worlds.

This book opens with Active a little more comfortable with his life--his job's okay, he's a little more assimilated culturally although still prone to false moves (one ongoing joke has to do with his recent purchase of a particular snowgo), and feeling a bit guilty over a personal lack of commitment to his girlfriend. The crime is the murder of Victor Solomon, who is found at his ice fishing hole stabbed with an ivory harpoon that belonged to "Uncle Frosty," a mummy that had been returned to the community earlier that day in accordance with the Indian Graves Act. Solomon had spearheaded (pun!) the plan to put Uncle Frosty in a museum as a tourist attraction, which was vocally protested by local crank Calvin Maiyumerak. At the same time as the murder, Uncle Frosty went missing.

Active's work on the case takes him all over the village, into discussions of local history with his grandfather, and turns out to be tied to Uncle Frosty's identity and into the outer reaches of Alaska.

This book rocks--I love the secret of the murder, which turns out to be based in history and cultural mores. Jones does an excellent job conveying the details of life in the frozen climate, and the climax is particularly gripping. He doesn't over explain or badger the reader with "it's cold and hard"--the small details of life drive it home with subtle grace. Honey buckets, pilot bread, "dogs" that look like wolves who require their own caribou hunting trips to keep them fed--Jones' eye for detail really makes the book.

So, great story that's wonderfully told, but here's the kicker that warms my little librarian heart: there's a part where Nathan does research. First he tries the internet and the phone, and then calls the University of Alaska where a librarian helps him and directs him immediately to what he needs. Do you know how many books I have read where people find the most obscure things on the internet with no problem at all? Many, many, many. Do you know how much that irritates me? Immensely. Because it is unrealistic--not everything is available on the internet. Not everything is free. Librarians have special skills. We want to help people and get them what they need, but in popular culture (heck, even in real life sometimes!) it's like we don't exist.

But, even better--the librarian explains that the material he needs has been digitized and it's on the internet, but it's just not indexed and publicized, which is why he couldn't locate it with a search engine. So Nathan Active gets the address of the material, and opens the page, and finds what he needs.

So at this point my head is about to explode, but for great reasons--we have a helpful librarian character, an illustration of classic information seeking behavior, a solution that is completely realistic, and the situation ends happily with the message "Librarians=Good." Bless you, Stan Jones!

Bow Down, Babycakes!

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Entirely Miss Reverend Lady Kerry the Cannibalistic of Helions Bumpstead Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Need Something To Read?

As I've mentioned, I've been listing books on half.com for sale under the id atomiclibrarian. However, I haven't been selling much lately, and I'm working on reducing clutter. So dear readers, if there's anything I've got listed that you'd like, drop me a line at yahoo--atomiclibrarian@.

Never fear, any remaining books will be going to charitable resale--it's tax deduction time!

IM ON UR COUCH STEALN SOME INTERNETS

I'm a bad, bad neighbor. But I knew that.

What's up here: Cain went to Vetter Makes You Better on Saturday. He needed shots, and also has been sneezing up a storm. He even purrs congested. So what with the snot, and the weepy eyes, and the slight wheezy sounds, he needed anti-bes. So now I'm capturing him twice a day, holding him down, and shooting the banana- flavored Clavamox into his mouth. This is not fun.

The vet also gave me a lysine gel to give to all three in order to boost their immune systems. I haven't had the fortitude to try it on them yet.

However, the current weight of Cain is not 18 pounds like I thought. It may be his illness, but he weighs "only" 15 pounds, 12 ounces. Not bad. They did say he was a big boy, but very handsome.

I've got a Christmas tree up, and the cats are behaving nicely around it. The stuffed snowman ornament and the purple spangled elephant have been stolen off the tree. I put a piece of fleece underneath the tree and they like to sit and look at the lights. And wrestle.

Nothing But Good Times Ahead

You know what makes me happy? The fact that there's going to be a collection of scholarly critiques of the novels of Jennifer Crusie.