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puddlelilies.com / proofreading negates the immediacy of feeling

Category: Books

  • If you were wondering, I was brave on Friday because I drove mum’s van to Nanaimo from Duncan.  This was brave because I don’t like driving, and then brave on another level down because I haven’t driven around Nanaimo very much.  Or at all.  Well, once in 1999 maybe.  And that I “don’t like” driving doesn’t really sound like a good excuse, as once I start I rather don’t mind.  It’s more that I become overly anxious when the prospect of driving is before me.  But this was a volunteer mission.  I visited Naomi to see her in a play.  And it all went well, since things I am anxious about usually turn out that way.  I even got to drive Naomi around in a helpful manner, to look at shoes.  I suppose, and I didn’t think of this until I got home and the whole adventure was over, I could have been More Helpful by taking her grocery shopping since she was out of food!  I’m alarmed I didn’t think of this actually, since when mum visits me with same van she almost always drives me to the supermarket.  Oh well.  Driving.

    That was Friday and Saturday that I drove.

    Today I finished reading “Makers” by Cory Doctorow.  Crazy.  I don’t want to give any of it away.  Or, you know, review it.

    I had a super-long weekend, extending to today, Tuesday.  I don’t think the five-days-off, two-days-on really works for me, though.  I almost forgot to go to dance tonight.

  • I am Incredibly grumpy this morning. Too much junky-sugary food last night. I should stop doing that. Today I shall shop for fruits and veggies and have a day or week of hummus sandwiches with tomato. That means I have to make bread. Unnnnnng. Later. I’m still in bed right now and wish to finish my book: “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides. At first I was only intrigued by the last name of the author but the book itself is also good. Some fine transitions, both literary and portrayed, and a charming narrative voice.

  • -Weekend.  I have been having boring weekends.  At least this one I managed to clean the bathroom.  And fix the toilet!  I managed to be mildly productive in the making of my apt. livable (as in I won’t kill myself in the tripping over of stuff).

    For some reason I really want to write like Bridget Jones does in her diary.  Tired maybe.  Mundane-brain.

    Too much Olympics on TV.  Too much TV.

    I have a book on the go but it’s taking so long to get through it I’m probably just going to take it back.  It’s about war, though, so really, what was I thinking.  I keep skipping the battle scenes.  I don’t mean to, my mind just doesn’t absorb them.  I’m reading along and I suddenly realize that I missed something and I go back a page or two and realize I just blanked over the whole of the action.  I don’t like battle scenes.  There are some cool historical details in there, though, and entered pretty seemlessly into the narrative, which makes it a relaxing read, they just aren’t enough to make me want to continue.  Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

  • I can’t believe that my bathroom was appropriately cleaned the day that my toilet wouldn’t flush and I had to have the landlord fix it for me. Very fortuitous. P.S. My toilet flushes now.

    Review # 1
    I just finished “The Golden Mean” by Annabel Lyon. It’s about this guy who lives in the ancient Greek times, who is assigned to tutor Alexander (the Great as that character will be known later in history, but that hasn’t happened yet in this book), and who studied with Plato. Only the name of this guy isn’t actually given in the book until the afterward, and then only in the second paragraph (twice). (And I guess it’s mentioned on the jacket blurb, which is always a spoiler, anyway.) But then, the main narrative is in the first person, so having his name pointed out isn’t necessary. There is a writing conceit in this book where “hints” of needed details or plot points are given before the actual details or plot points are described. Annoying at first, where I think I’ve missed something and read back a few paragraphs only to not find anything until a few lines after the “hints” are given. Then I found it sly and subtle (and something I do not want to adopt myself– I don’t need to prove to my reader that I am smarter then them since I know more about what is going on than in my story they do.)

    Review # 2: Avatar (IN 3D!)
    “Just sit back and enjoy the ride,” I had to keep telling myself, as the plot became clear, and the scenes where we got to “know” the “new world” and the “budding romantic relationship” stretched longer than I found comfortable. For the most part, I listened to myself. My favorite parts were the little particles of stuff that seemed to come right out of the screen that I reached out to swat away! (I LOVE 3D)

    Review #3
    I cleaned my house up last week and for the most part it is still very tidy. I’m quite proud of myself. (Except for the pile of the weekend Globe and Mail that is spread out on the floor beside my chair.)

  • I, Lindsie, cleaned my house today.  This included using the vaccuume.  I feel like this is an annual event, but I’m sure it is not.  It has been a while, however, since I used the vaccuumme.  I discovered that I think I need, despite the misuse, a new vacuume, as this one was old when I got it and it starts to smell like burning after using it for a while.  I even checked the rolly thing on the bottom to see if there was something caught.  I will put vacume on my like of things to save for and buy (I use it three times a year so I have time for this).

    My dad gave me a cedar trunk for xmas and I have put bed linens and craft supplies in it.  It’s a big trunk.  And my sheets are going to smell like cedar.

    I have spent the three days before this moping around, which is something one has to do on occasion, but I’ve stopped doing that now (thus the cleaning of the house) and I hope the moping feelings stay away for awhile as I find them annoying and not the best use of my holiday days, but oh well.

    I stayed up late for two reasons last night: a) I had tea tea around 5 and b)Return of the Jedi was on TV and I had a strange urge to watch it.  It was the new one, though, so the Ewok song at the end was wrong.  I wasn’t vexed as I might be, but the new song isn’t as celebratory as the old one.  I have the old one somewhere in my cache of songs so I can find it and listen to it if I really want to.

    I have knit one fingerless glove.  I have noticed a problem with knitting gloves ( and this will apply to any kind of glove) which is that once you finish one, you have to make another,  and that other one has to match and stuff?  WTF, I say.  Only I don’t say what it stands for, I pronounce the letters, and cross my arms in front of me, and hope I have enough yarn left for the other glove as I wasn’t really paying attention, and I accidently read the pattern wrong so I’ve used more yarn than is called for just in making the one.

    Also annoying is the 800 page book I have out from the library as a “fast read” that has to be returned after only a week.  There’s no way I’m going to finish it.  It’s dense and takes me 1/2 to read just a couple of pages.  I exaggerate, but it’s not going to happen.

  • I’m reading “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel (that’s MaNtel, Susan – I was telling Susan about it and couldn’t remember the author’s name, despite having spent much time gazing at the front cover). I don’t know if I will be able to finish it before the due date as it’s due Monday and I may not be in town then due to Xmas holidays. And of course (duh) I can’t just renew it as it’s got a waiting list.

    Now that I have all that off my chest I can make a couple comments. The first is that this is a gorgeous book. Mmm. Lovely prose I just want to sink into – like a thick feather duvet or chocolate cake. Perfect, thick and warm midwinter reading.

    The second thing I’ll note is that the author has crazy fun with her pronouns. The thing’s in third person, and she totally uses her “he”s like one might use “I” when writing in first person. It’s a little confusing at first, because unlike first person, where there is only one “I”, in third person there is usually more than one “he” and the author only occasionally gives you a “he, Cromwell” to denote who is saying or doing what. For the most part you have to remind yourself that the “he”s coming out of the random blue denote the main character (Thomas Cromwell). For a while you’ll do this, but then you’ll forget about it, and you’ll reread the sentence before, because you’ll think you’ve missed the denoting proper noun. But you didn’t, and you’ll giggle to yourself because you’ve never read anything like this and you feel clever for figuring it out (eventually, and then again because you forgot).

    Oh, and Thomas Cromwell hung out with Henry the Eighth, and details of the time period are slipped in meticulously, as are those entertaining historical anecdotes regarding the people involved. Good fun good fun.

    I also like Cromwell’s (or the author’s, or society’s) opinion of Anne B (or at least how is is written):
    “At New Year he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.”

  • It’s rainy today and I don’t want to go out. My feet are cold. I have books to finish from the library that have to be returned next Monday (the due date slipping a few days due to the Xmas days). The longest darkness is today or tomorrow? I can’t find what day it is but I can feel it: I am turning on myself. I don’t appreciate the betrayal! I will leave all the lights on.

  • I finally finished the book I didn’t really want to read. I ended up just wanting to know how it ended, the plot points keeping me going. The very book smelled like old lady, like someone had it resting with their clean laundry and they had used a fragrant fabric softener. The book was “Good to a Fault” by Marina Endicott. The picture of the author showed a soft-looking, vigilant, middle-aged teacher dressed up for a photo shoot. Arrrg. Or perhaps I hate her because she looks like a character from “Desperate Housewives” I found annoying, and doubly annoying because I haven’t watched DH for many years and can’t remember why I would hate her. This is the worst book review ever.

    The next book I’m reading is about a male immigrant so far. Just as uninteresting, except for the “Metamorphosis” allusions, which are intriguing and vexing as I have read only 6 pages of that work. In the first person too, so I don’t get a break from the protagonist. Antagonist? He is antagonizing me, so we’ll see.

    This was a vacation day for me and it has disappeared quickly. I found that doing errands all yesterday morning I still had errands today to complete. Plus laundry, plus the dishes. The dishes made me angry, as usual.

    Good things today: I have bread baking and it smells good; I figured out how to manipulate string into a ribbed pattern.

    Annoying thing: both my new pairs of spectacles are fit improperly so I have to find my way back to the glasses place to get them adjusted properly. Until then they slide off my face and dangle when I lean over to untie my shoes. Until then, of course, I wear contacts.

  • I still don’t like the book I’m reading very much but I’ve gotten into the rhythm of of it, and the non-excitement.

    I was in a bad mood this morning because the dishes I was washing wouldn’t stack properly or well in the dish rack to dry. I hate the sound of falling, clattering dishes. I even only have only one or two dishes in the sink at a time so they don’t clank against one another. Vexsome noises!

    There is new toner waiting for me at the post office (ordering it online was cheaper than anywheres in town, even with postage.) I will try to be more responsible with this one, maybe, to make it last longer? Perhaps I will initiate a cleaner, more simple design in my publications. ??

    I attended two meetings this week at work. I usually attend zero, or at most one every other week. They were not painful, were not meant to be meetings where everyone reports on what they are working on, which I don’t like, because then I also have to report on what I am doing, which means talking out loud, and having people look at me.

  • Books of the weekend, by Lindsie.
    I read two books this weekend. They were easy and entertaining. The first was “Life of Pi” which many people have read before me and have declaired “good”. I can’t argue with this, however, there were too many animals, or details of animals. Whatever. I also read “The Flying Troutmans” by Miriam Toews. Quite lovely, and made me, with my empathy-superpower, act flaky for a little while. Here is a quote as part of this review that will hopefully demonstrate my appreciation of the work: “Thebes said that if she was eighteen and old enough to drink she’d start a book club.”

    I read these books while in the sun and now my skin smells sweet.

    PS! Susan and I were walking downtown yesterday and overheard the following:

    Old Lady: That’s a lovely jacket.

    Hard Core Punk: Thank you, I made it myself.

    Old Lady: Well it’s beautiful.

    Hard Core Punk: Thank you.

    Me and Susan (just passing by): Hehehehe! Awesome!