How come there's always plenty of time to go to work and so little time to do all the other stuff in the world (even when you don't really spend all that much time at work)? In this "explanation for prolonged absence post" I've decided to take a detour from my usual approach of whining a lot and well... not whine a lot. Alas, I have been a busy girl trying to keep pace with all the stuff I normally do and going to New Jersey for all but about 3 hours of last weekend and my birthday was this week so, people came and brought me presents and we ate cake - so there's another night with no reading, no blog-hopping, no blogging, and well...no regrets!
One of my best friends lives in New Jersey (the scenic central part as opposed to the not so scenic rest of it) and it's been some time since I've gone to visit her and probably some time before I'll be able to pin her down for a visit again. So, I left right from work on Friday and didn't get back until Sunday at six in the evening leaving me just enough time to get ready to start this week and none of the usual "catch up" time that the weekend usually affords me. Despite the lack of reading, I had a fabulous time. We went to her high school's musical (The Sound of Music - pretty good!), took the train into Philadelphia for the flower show which I'd never been to before and was pretty awesome (I mean, who knew that people could totally recreate Louisiana bayou inside a building), and inexplicably devoured vast quantities of ice cream (which I don't even like as much as other desserts, so it was rather strange). All that, and more! It was a great weekend full of quality catching up with her, and it was so, so nice to get away for a while, too.
In other news, yes, I'm another year older this week. No, I don't feel any different. Yes, I did eat lots of cake...some of it purchased by one of my co-workers which was really nice since I'm still kind of newish there (but, in additional good news, I may soon really actually be going "real" part time in the department instead of staying all temp-ish)! Yes, book gift cards were involved in the birthday festivities as was a new wallet filled with money (er, only small bills, though) and the promise of a free lobster dinner in the nearish future. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to hold off on my book shopping spree as the shelves are all full and the stacks of books on my bedroom floor have truly started to overwhelm me (who knew it would come to this?)! That and with all the activity I've hardly been reading. I know, distressing isn't it?
That brings me to the reading update. I'm about 70 pages into two different books. One, The Wild Trees, is narrative non-fiction which is, so far, about some vaguely irritating people with a dangerous obsession with climbing really tall trees. So far it's mostly introductions to people who seem to love trees a bit too much (you were so caught up in looking at trees, you forgot to register for classes for your next semester of college? Are you serious?), so I'm hoping it starts to have some sort of point soon. The other book is Sobibor by Michael Lev which is a Library Thing Early Reviewer read despite its already being available to the public. Not that I'm complaining, they sent me a sparkly new hardcover which, unlike ARCs, can be quoted in book reviews which is a big plus in my view. The downside? Yeah, I definitely inadvertantly signed myself up for a really Holocaust-heavy early 2008. So far this one is more about interesting nuance requiring some background Holocaust knowledge as opposed to clobbering one over the head with the sheer awfulness of it (a la Schindler's List). At times, I think it's a pretty good book which is pretty absorbing, at other times, I have little to no idea what's going on and the weirdly pitched dialogue bothers me (is that the translation, do you think?). Also kind of awkward is the the overkill of anthropomorphizing (that's a good 10 million dollar word for 9 in the morning, yeah?) things like the moon. The moon was doing lots of not-so-moonlike things for quite some time until it got to the point of, "are you being serious?"
So there you have it. The story of my week. And how I am not really reading. And, is it just me or am I less interesting when I'm happy? Because this entry is kind of putting me to sleep despite my having done much more exciting things than usual.
But I promise I'll be back on my (reading/blogging/blog reading) game soon!
Megan, you just crack me up. All of your posts are well written. I think I would read the phone book if you wrote it. Seriously, your post was not boring at all. I'm just glad you updated.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday, by the way!
Thanks, Susan! Maybe if my current career endeavors don't work out, I'll compile my own edition of the phone book. I'd probably make fun of everybody's names - so people would either be really insulted or they would find it funny and run out and get a copy of my own special phone book edition! ;-)
ReplyDeleteOh, you are so wrong...this was not in the slightest a boring post...I quite enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteMy husband grew up on the Philly area, and we lived there for a few years before we were married. I always really, really, really wanted to go to the Philadelphia Flower Show, but never got around to it. Stupid me. Glad you enjoyed it! And glad you had such a fun birthday week all around!
Although those people in The Wild Trees (a book I have on my wishlist) sound awfully flaky, I have to say I'm glad to have people like them in the world. Have you read/seen Dr Seuss' The Lorax? Someone has to "speak for the trees," and it takes a particular kind of person, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday!