Notes taken

In the past I've written about both of my grandfathers here. Recently I made a delightful discovery in the front hall of my parents' house: an old school copy of Silas Marner that belonged to my dad's father. This had apparently come to us when my grandpa passed away, but I'd never seen it before. When I expressed excitement over the discovery, my mom told me she also had an old junior high school math book that had belonged to her father. Where was she hiding it all these years? I don't know, but she dug it out and I found myself in possession of both volumes. Given my love of history, especially where it concerns people and places I know, I was as pleased as Kanye West in a room full of mirrors.

The books are special to me because they contain little glimpses of what my grandfathers were like as teenagers. Notes in the margins, jokes scrawled across the pages, doodles. Silas contains much more in the way of notes than the math book, but the math book is cool in its own right. I may feature it in a future entry just to highlight all the interesting things one can learn from old math books. Things that have nothing to do with math. Like this:

I had no idea how many bushels of potatoes were harvested in Wisconsin in 1919! Until now.

Here are some detail photos from the books. Some more are on flickr.

Grandpa Bob's copy of Junior High School Mathematics.


If he used it in 1929, he would have been twelve. Impossibly young, to me. This is the same grandpa who didn't finish high school, yet wound up building telescopes and tutoring kids in calculus - so it seems fitting that of all his old schoolbooks, a math book is the one he kept. (I hope he actually spelled his name RoBert all the time back then, too. Extra points if he ever pronounced it ro-bair.)


I wonder who Diane was...


Inside the back cover. Huh? Whistler's Mother. Old times. "Huh" indeed.


Silas Marner - my grandpa Jack used it in 1935, his senior year of high school


Jack in his 1935 senior picture - in the middle, wearing a vest


Inside the front covers


The "yea man" just kills me. And what's on page 150, you ask?


There you go. He wasn't the best speller, was he? He had the same handwriting his whole life, though. I'd recognize it anywhere.


Not I!

Tallies for 2007

And now for a tradition that is entering its second year. Here is the list of books I read in 2007, followed by some statistics:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists - various
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
For One More Day - Mitch Albom
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Cage of Stars - Jacquelyn Mitchard
Leaving Mother Lake - Yang Erche Namu & Christine Mathieu
Wisconsin 24/7 - Rick Smolan & David Elliot Cohen
Alternadad - Neal Pollack
Love is a Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield
1001 Ideas for Color and Paint - Emma Callery
Historic Homes of America - Ernest Wood
Bill Bryson's African Diary - Bill Bryson
Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom - David Wilkes
On The Wealth of Nations - PJ O'Rourke
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood - Ann Brashares
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Not a Genuine Black Man - Brian Copeland
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
The Children in Room E4 - Susan Eaton
IV - Chuck Klosterman
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime - Miles Harvey
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The Body Artist - Don DeLillo
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
One Sunday Morning - Amy Ephron
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
The Cabin Faced West - Jean Fritz
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War - Tony Horwitz
Disney's Winnie the Pooh: A Celebration of the Silly Old Bear - Christopher Finch
Poster Child: A Memoir - Emily Rapp
Da Vinci's Kitchen: A Secret History of Italian Cuisine - Dave DeWitt
Gravity's Arc: The Story of Gravity, from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond - David Darling
The Tiger in the Attic - Edith Milton
Becky's Christmas - Tasha Tudor
Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
The Curse of Ravenscourt: a Samantha Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
Shadows on Society Hill: an Addy Mystery - Evelyn Coleman
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation - David Kamp
Midnight in Lonesome Hollow: a Kit Mystery - Kathleen Ernst
Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story - Ann Kirschner
A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery - Alison Hart
Jesus Land - Julia Scheeres
Away - Amy Bloom
Peril at King's Creek: a Felicity Mystery - Elizabeth McDavid Jones
Tests of Time - William H. Gass
Silent to the Bone - E.L. Konigsburg
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
The True and Amazing Adventures of the Hunt Sisters - Elisabeth Robinson
Songs Without Words - Ann Packer
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food - Judith Jones
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
A Little House Christmas Treasury - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
Snowbound with Betsy - Carolyn Haywood
The Christmases We Used to Know - Reminisce Books
Betsy's Winterhouse - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy and Billy - Carolyn Haywood
Back to School with Betsy - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy's Little Star - Carolyn Haywood
My Year of Meats - Ruth L. Ozeki
The 1927 Sears & Roebuck Catalog
The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
Betsy and the Boys - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy and the Circus - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy's Busy Summer - Carolyn Haywood

Total books read: 77

Nonfiction books: 32 (42%)
Fiction books: 45 (58%)

By female authors: 47 (61%)
By male authors: 27 (35%)
By both: 3 (4%)

Marketed for children/teens: 26 (34%)

Read previously: 16 (21%)

You should definitely read:
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. It was a book that made me miss my days of studying literature in a classroom setting, because upon finishing I itched to go back and take notes on themes and motifs and things. I started out unsure of how the threads in the story would tie together, but ended up impressed by the way they did.

You also should definitely read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, but I figure I might have been the last person who hadn't already read it.

You absolutely should not read:
On the off chance you checked out my list of books and thought, "Hey, I should read some of those American Girls mysteries!" ... really, not so much. I mean, they're fine if you're nine years old. If you're not, I'd only recommend them if you need some palate-cleansing fluffy reading material featuring characters you first met when you were nine years old. And even then, the Carolyn Haywood books are a much better use of your time.

Overall, my 2007 reading stats are quite similar to those from 2006. I need to bust out with some crazy trends in 2008! Or, you know, just keep reading what I clearly enjoy reading.

Because I like lists and stats, here are some more for 2007.

Total concerts attended: 46, counting each day of multi-day events (like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass) separately

Seen the most often: Wilco, Andrew Bird, Jon Brion

Performers seen for the first time (headlining): 5 (Scott Amendola Band, Badly Drawn Boy, Joseph Arthur, Arcade Fire, Crowded House)

Performers seen for the first time (support or festival): 15+ (Carrie Rodriguez, Ferraby Lionheart, Jon Rauhouse, My Brightest Diamond, Low, Chris Mills, Blue Mountain, Liam Finn, Richard Swift, Art Brut, Dr. Dog, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Kim and Kelley Deal, and many more)

Performers for whom I am a repeat customer: at least 20 (it gets hard to count with festivals)


Foreign countries visited: 1 (Mexico)
Foreign countries visited for the first time: 1 (Mexico)

States visited (for work, fun, or both): 17 (Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nevada)

States visited for the first time: 4 (New Mexico, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont)


Homes purchased: 1

I expect to surpass at least two of those totals in 2008. Though probably not "homes purchased."

Books of '06

Happy new year! Here's that list I promised - every book I read in 2006, in order. Only books that I read all the way through were counted. Some number crunching follows:

Toothpaste for Dinner - Drew
Name All the Animals - Alison Smith
Mommy Knows Worst - James Lileks
Come Back to Afghanistan - Said Hyder Akbar
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Cell - Stephen King
Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans - McSweeney's
All Souls - Michael Patrick MacDonald
Summer Sisters - Judy Blume
Wisconsin Capitol: Fascinating Facts - Diana Cook
Lost in Time - Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Nick of Time - Anne Lindbergh
Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place - E.L. Konigsburg
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
The Second Summer of the Pants - Ann Brashares
Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares
The Second Mrs. Gioconda - E.L. Konigsburg
A Child Called It - David Pelzer
Lost Boy - David Pelzer
Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov
We're All in This Together - Owen King
The Lake House - James Patterson
The Dante Club - Matthew Pearl
The Blood of Strangers - Frank Huyler
Somehow Form a Family - Tony Earley
Blue Highways - William Least Heat Moon
The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson
Anne of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
Anne of the Island - L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Windy Poplars - L.M. Montgomery
You Shall Know Our Velocity - Dave Eggers
Anne's House of Dreams - L.M. Montgomery
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
The Shining - Stephen King
Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell
I'm a Stranger Here Myself - Bill Bryson
Eye Contact - Cammie McGovern
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
Daniel Isn't Talking - Marti Leimbach
Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs
The Poe Shadow - Matthew Pearl
In A Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - Richard Matheson
Jane of Lantern Hill - L.M. Montgomery
Stone Field, True Arrow - Kyoko Mori
Two-Part Invention - Madeleine L'Engle
Emily of New Moon - L.M. Montgomery
Emily Climbs - L.M. Montgomery
Emily's Quest - L.M. Montgomery
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s - Wendy McClure
The Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
The Nasty Bits - Anthony Bourdain
Burning Fence - Craig Lesley
The Summer We Got Saved - Pat Cunningham Devoto
Twins - Marcy Dermansky
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
A House Like a Lotus - Madeleine L'Engle
You & You & You - Per Nilsson
Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs - Various
Somebody's Daughter - Marie Myung-Ok Lee
The Language of Baklava - Diana Abu-Jaber
26a - Diana Evans
Samantha's Surprise - Maxine Rose Schur
Molly's Surprise - Valerie Tripp
The Best American Travel Writing 2004 - Various
Lisey's Story - Stephen King

Total books read: 71

Nonfiction books: 24 (34%)
Fiction books: 47 (66%)

By female authors: 35 (49%)
By male authors: 33 (46%)
By both: 3 (4%)

Marketed for children/teens: 21 (30%)

Read previously: 14 (20%)

You should definitely read: 26a by Diana Evans. I didn't not expect it to be good, but it took me completely by surprise. One of the best books I read in 2006, and one of the most unique.

You absolutely should not read: The Lake House by James Patterson. It was the first book I ever read by James Patterson, and based on this book, it will also be the last. I know he's a hugely popular writer, and I have no idea why. I'm not entirely convinced that he's not just a highly trained monkey.

Conundrums

I'd been intently searching for the perfect bookshelf for a couple of weeks now, and I have found it. It's an Ikea model. The problems, however, are threefold. First, it's 75 inches tall, and there's no way it would fit in my little car. Second, the cost to have it delivered is more than the cost of bookshelf itself. Finally, I live 128 miles from the nearest Ikea. Advice?

Speaking of conundrums, can someone tell me the correct way to pronounce Myanmar? I've seen "mean mar" suggested, as well as "mmm yan mar". I liked the name Myanmar (vs. Burma) much more back when I thought "myan" was pronounced as one syllable, exactly how it looks. Try it! It's fun. Now put it together with "-mar." MYANmar. It sounds like what a cat would name a country. If that truly were the correct pronunciation, it would make me very happy.

Why is it that some people can read the same book over and over again, but others can't stand to read the same thing twice? I've always been an "over and over" person. Not so much for books that I've really truly adored as an adult. Nearly all of the books I've read and loved deeply over the past ten years or so, I'm almost afraid to read again because I don't want to spoil them. But L.M. Montgomery, Stephen King, Madeleine L' Engle, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beverly Cleary, Carolyn Haywood - the authors I loved in my youth - I could read their books a million times. (And yes, Stephen King belongs in that group. I read my first Stephen King book, The Eyes of the Dragon, in second grade. My dad used to read me excerpts from It and The Tommyknockers and Misery and Pet Sematary before my naps and before bed when I was even younger. Yeah, I know.) I suppose those of us who can read the same book many times are really the weird ones. I understand how you wouldn't be able to - I would feel the same if I finished a book and then immediately started over - but yet, given the proper waiting period, I totally can.

Hmm.

SPAM - it tastes like people!

As you may or may not know, SPAM (the canned meat product, not the virulent email) is bizarrely popular in Hawaii and island nations like Micronesia. In fact, Hawaii is the leading per-capita consumer of SPAM in the U.S. Why is this? I'm reading a book by Oliver Sacks called The Island of the Colorblind, and he mentions a certain theory. This is taken from Paul Theroux's book The Happy Isles of Oceania:

It was a theory of mine that former cannibals of Oceania now feasted on SPAM because SPAM came the nearest to approximating the porky taste of human flesh. "Long pig" as they called a cooked human being in much of Melanesia. It was a fact that the peaple-eaters of the Pacific had all evolved, or perhaps degenerated, into SPAM-eaters. And in the absence of SPAM they settled for corned beef, which also had a corpsy flavor.

Um. EWWWWWW. Personally I doubt many of the current residents of Hawaii grew up on "long pig." But did they have to ruin corned beef for me? Sweet Jesus!**

**This statement is in no way meant to imply any taste sensation associated with Jesus. Anyway, I do happen to know what Jesus tastes like, and it's not SPAM. More of a bland wafery flavor.

B is for Bookie

Leah gave me a letter in the letter meme game a little while ago, and that letter was B. So here are ten things that start with the letter B, and what they mean to me:

Brianne - that's my name, don't wear it out

Buryatia - the region of Siberia where I spent some time as part of a medical missions trip in 2000. An unforgettable experience. If you haven't been whipped with birch sticks in a banya by a Russian man wearing only a towel, you're missing out.

Bespaq - maker of the best miniature furniture ever. Back in my dollhouse heyday, Bespaq furniture was the most coveted of items.

Bumbleberry Pie - specialty of the Bumbleberry Inn in Springdale, Utah. According to the Bumbleberry Inn, "bumbleberries are burple and binkel berries that grow on giggle bushes, so named because they giggle when the berries ripen and the bush begins to quake, and at the precise moment that they ripen, they giggle." I tried not to hold that against them.

B., The Maggie - I'm definitely cheating here, but The Maggie B. is probably my favorite children's book. I loved it immeasurably as a child. It's partly the illustrations, and partly the story itself. And partly the fact that it mentions the "poop deck."

Bradley Cooper - he played Will on Alias, and was also in Wet Hot American Summer. He's done other things, of course, but those are the main two reasons that I love him.

Blarney Castle - we rushed a whole day's drive from the Ring of Kerry to Cork so that we could visit Blarney Castle (a friend was hell-bent on kissing the Blarney Stone) ... only to arrive minutes too late for the last tour.

braces - the bane of my existence between the ages of nine and ... twelve? I've blocked out the specifics. But I had them twice. Twice!

beans and spaetzle - one of my top three favorite foods as far back as I can remember. Specifically the kind that comes frozen, in a package, from Birds Eye.

Big Love - the only HBO series that I'm watching as it airs. It's a good one.

Comment if you'd like a random letter from me. No charge!

Buds on the bushes

Now is the time of year when I proceed to geek out about the weather and outdoorsy stuff. Although I have to admit that what my brain wants to do after the phrase "buds on the bushes" is continue singing, in a sultry R. Kelly voice, "...over by the stove, put you on the counter, by the buttered rolls..." Which reminds me, I'm finally finishing Haroun and the Sea of Stories, in which there is a character named Butt the Hoopoe. Naturally, I think of Mott the Hoople.

Okay, brief foray into my brain: over. Back to the weather. It's been warm and alternately rainy and sunny for the past few days, and I love it to death. T-shirt and pants weather. All around my house the bushes have buds or tiny leaves, the trees are starting to bud, the grass isn't that ugly brown anymore ... man. I love early spring. It'll be 90 degrees before I know it, so I want to savor this.

Finally, I forgot to mention one final thing that was awesome about my weekend. On Sunday I got back to Madison to find mail waiting for me. In the stack was a large packet from The Onion. I was puzzled for a few seconds, and then I realized what it must be, and tore open the envelope. Free tickets for the New Pornographers' private show at the High Noon in two weeks! Eeee! When Spoon did a similar show here I know they ended up releasing tickets to the general public a few days before the show, but I didn't want to have to hope that would be the case in this instance. And now I don't have to! Yay! I'm excited. I have to buy Electric Version before then. That's the day after Rhett Miller plays at the Barrymore, too.

Musical epiphany involving Marky Mark

On Saturday night I finished the book All Souls, by Michael Patrick MacDonald. It was really good. It was also one of those books that renews my desire to go up to people who wax poetic about the American Dream, and how everyone, no matter what their circumstances, has an equal chance at pulling themselves out of whatever situation they're in and growing up to be rich and successful, and smack them in the head. The irony there, of course, is that Michael MacDonald did it. (Well, I'm not so sure about the "rich" part of that.)

What I really wanted to talk about, though, was an epiphany I had while reading the last portion of the book. In explaining why the Boston police were so eager to charge his little brother with murder, Michael referenced a case that had made big news a few years before. A middle class white man, Charles Stuart, called the police to report that a black man had carjacked him, killed his pregnant wife, and shot him as well. Eventually the police charged a black man who had been in and out of jail for various crimes in the past. And then it came out that Charles had faked the whole thing, killed his own wife, and shot himself to make it more plausible. The police had been merrily rearranging evidence and falsifying reports in order to charge the suspect. Charles ended up jumping off a bridge.

So I was reading this when suddenly - MARKY MARK AND THE FUNKY BUNCH! In 1991, Marky Mark (who grew up in Dorchester) and the Funky Bunch put out a song called "Wild Side" which borrowed liberally from the Lou Reed original. It featured four verses about corruption and violence, and the odds are good (ahem) that I owned the cassingle. I still remember most of the words. And the third verse was about this case! I'd never dreamed anything in the song was based in fact, but now I don't know what to believe! Were Annie and Ron and Tiffany real people too? Maybe the other verses are true!

Here's the verse in question:

Charles had everything going for him
A top paying job, a good life, a good wife
A baby boy on the way any day
A gentleman attitude is all he displayed
Carol was the wife he loved and adored
Her family and friends treated him like an ambassador
One night on the other side of town
A police dispatcher picked up a weird sound
Charles on the car phone asking for help
Claiming a burglar shot his wife and himself
His pregnant wife lay slumped over
Dreams corrupted and a young life over
Extensive searches throughout the projects
Put a lot of people through misery and wreck
Everyone a suspect til someone was found
Interrogated cause their skin was brown
Then there was Bennett, guilty until proven so
But soon as the case started moving slow
What do you know, sure as as sea gull is webbed toed
Charles was the culprit
The whole plot was an insurance scam
Charles and his brother came up with a plan
Kill Carol, collect a big check
Blame it on a black man, what the heck?
And just before the story was known
Charles had a feeling that his cover was blown
So he jumped offa bridge
Committed suicide
This is how it is - on the Wildside

Yeeeeeeah! Preach it, Marky Mark!



Truth!

Book nook

I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay a little over a week ago, and it was as great a story as I'd been promised. Very engrossing, and very ... well, how to put this? I was surprised by the direction the story took at various points. The story that ended up playing out wasn't the story I expected after reading the first thirty pages or so, nor the first hundred, etc. In addition, I was impressed by the fact that Chabon resisted the temptation to make Joe into a bigger-than-life, melancholy, tragic hero. It's a fun archetype, but I was pleased that he just stayed human. Highly recommended.

Not that Kavalier and Clay was tough reading, but once I was through with it I felt ready for a book that wouldn't utterly suck me in. I planned on reading the McSweeney's humor collection, but ended up reading Stephen King's newest book, The Cell, instead. It was okay. Very fluffy reading, not too long, an interesting premise (vaguely plausible, at least most of the way through), but ultimately I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. I've never been one of those people who think King isn't a "real" writer - he has written some wonderful books that I love deeply - but I honestly believe his best work is behind him. He just doesn't seem to care that much anymore. For my money, Hearts in Atlantis may be the best book he ever wrote, and it's all been downhill from there. I'd love for him to prove me wrong, mind you. (Side note - for anyone who has seen the movie Hearts in Atlantis but not read the book - I beg you to erase the movie from your mind immediately.)

Props

I've been meaning to mention this for awhile now, but I just have to say that my prize for the most surprisingly awesome lyrical reference of 2005 goes to Carl Newman of the New Pornos for "heads down / thumbs up" in the song "Use It." Love it. Oh, the memories of indoor recess.

While I'm at it, I also have to say that Jim O'Rourke's entire album "Bad Timing" is great, and probably my favorite Jim work. Of course, heaven knows there's plenty I have not heard.

I finished Come Back to Afghanistan last night. I liked it very much. I certainly feel like I know a ton more about Afghanistan, and American foreign policy in general, than I did before. The story is told by Said Hyder Akbar, whose father was Hamid Karzai's press spokesman in the new government that formed after 9/11 and then later became the governor of Kunar province ... but Hyder was raised in California. His is such a unique perspective, and very illuminating. This reminds me a bit of how I felt about Nicaragua after finishing Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile a few years ago - the characters in the book are real people, the settings are real places, the stories really happened, and you can go Google and see what's going on with them all right now. Last night I read a news article I might previously only have skimmed for the headline, about U.S. soldiers killing a bunch of people with a missile attack in Pakistan. I saw the dateline of Peshawar, and I was all, "hey, I know where that is!" and found myself cynically reading the comments by officials and thinking stuff like, "hmmm, unlikely; it's really easy to cross the border there" and "well, maybe it would be better for the situation in Afghanistan if we didn't have such friendly relations with Pakistan anyway..." I'm sure that will wear off soon, but in the meantime, it's kind of fun. Especially because clearly I don't really have any sort of expertise about the situation. Wee!

Now reading: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Weird fact: within the first hundred pages or so, both Kenosha and Racine were mentioned.

Mmm, books

In my 2006 effort to read more good books (not to be confused with my resolutions to download more music than I did in 2005 and teach my dog to fly), I've been raiding the "Now Reading" thread on VC. Specifically, stalking Maudie's recommendations. I now have in my possession:

Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans - McSweeney's humor editors
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie - Michael Patrick MacDonald
Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story - Said Hyder Akbar
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
The Best American Travel Writing 2000
The Best American Travel Writing 2001
Boogers are my Beat - Dave Barry (okay, that one I just saw on the shelf and grabbed)

I've started in on Come Back to Afghanistan already. I was predisposed to like it when I noticed that the two songs whose publication info is cited in the front are by U2 and R.E.M. - the U2 song being "Love Rescue Me." In any case, I definitely enjoyed the eight pages I've read so far...

I would write something

But I picked up James Frey's A Million Little Pieces today, and in order to write something, I'd have to stop reading it. I vow to go to bed before 3:00, though. Really!

It's mine!

I'm on page 57. Mwahahahahaaa. I'm such a dork.

Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise

That's the title of the Baby-Sitters Club book I just finished rereading. It came from my parents' Basement o' Wonders in Kenosha - I rescued a bunch of old Baby-Sitters Club books a couple of months ago, and have been reading them whenever I need a break from reading things that require more brain power. I used to love those books, and I remember waiting impatiently for the new volumes to come out around the middle of every month. I'd forgotten just how long ago that was, though, until I looked at the back of one book and saw the upcoming books listed, along with their release dates. June '89, July '89, August '89. I was freaking nine years old. It's kind of amazing that something that held my interest at the age of nine (and probably 8, judging from how far along that was in the series) can also amuse me at the age of 25. Well, amazing or sad. You make the call.

This also means that if the series had followed any sort of linear time (instead of existing in the land where everyone is perpetually in 8th grade) they would be ... let's see. They were in 8th grade by 1987, and therefore already living a lie by 1989. They should be 30. Here's what I think is going on in their lives:

Claudia: flunked out of college, living in a crappy little apartment in New York City selling her artwork on the street
Stacey: has some sort of math degree. Works at a university in a big city, lives with rich boyfriend.
Jessi: married, lives in suburbia, successful and happy
Mallory: became a single mom at a young age. Experimented with drugs in an attempt to fit in.
Dawn: living in California. Teaches yoga.
Mary Anne: married, has 7 cats, no kids
Kristy: totally a lesbian

Sunday ramblings

It's time once again to wax rhapsodic about springtime. Today I noticed that the wild raspberry bushes behind our apartment are coming back to life. In the past week or so, all of the other bushes in the courtyard have become violently leafy - in that classic, slightly crazed neon green of early spring. The crabapple trees around my office are also showing promise of blooming, and most of the really big trees are at least at the tiny bud stage.


Swooon. Though it also means petals stuck to my windshield ... swoooon anyway.

Yesterday I went to the Sanrio store at Gurnee Mills and bought kleenex and band-aids. (What, you don't go to Sanrio when you need kleenex and band-aids?) I also visited a used CD store, where I picked up REM's "Great Beyond" single for 99 cents. I illegally enjoyed the song back when the Andy Kauffman movie first came out (moment of silence for the old Napster) so it was a fun find. The b-side is a live version of "Man on the Moon," which sealed the deal. Because for 99 cents, you have to be choosy. I also scored a Baby-Sitters Club 'super edition' of books 1-3 of the series for $2.30 at the Borders closeout store. I can't wait to read "Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls" again!

Finally, I found an abandonded little Playmobil guy on Friday. I have no idea what the holy hell he's supposed to be; he looks like a combination pilgrim/martial artist/pirate. He appears to be missing a hat and perhaps a sword of some kind - although one of his hands is a hook, so I'm thinking he can probably defend himself with that.