Scaredy cat

Okay, I am usually not creeped out easily. Things that scare me are real things, or maybe I should say tangible things. Not monsters, demons or supernatural things, but serial killers, rapists and ex-boyfriends scare the shit out of me. However, years of living alone have made me pretty savvy. I always have a dog with an attitude, plenty of hidden weapons, and an escape route, just in case.

So, I have been lulled into a false sense of security, until I decided to get myself in the mood for Halloween this year. I am reading The Historian, a book about Dracula that is too too slow to be frightening, and anyway...Dracula, not scary. I am also reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, the premise guy talking to dead people isn't scary to me, however, there is a creepiness to deal with. And the murders that happen in the book are done by people, not spirits, and people ARE scary.

I also rented 1408, which made me jump a few time and was a bit creepy because of my house obsession. I watched Slither too, not scary, but funny and It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

3 nights in a row now I have had nightmares. The first I was a medic in the aftermath of the apocalypse, can you say bloody? Then night 2 I was chased by a vagrant with a knife during a black-out, and last night I dreamed I was itching my new tattoo and my fingers dug into my arm to the bone...gross.

So that is it, I am becoming soft in my old age, no more horror for me, after 8 only non-horror books. What a baby.

Possible Side Effects

She was surprisingly intelligent. Which sounds like a mean thing to say except it's not, really. What I mean is that Druggy Debby had an intelligence that surprised. You could had her your broken radio and she'd pull a screwdriver out of her hair and have it fixed for you in five minutes flat. And then she'd tune it to the only station in western Massachusetts that played punk rock and Etta James. A station you'd never heard before, even though you lived there your whole life.
She knew things. She knew how things worked. Druggy Debby truly understood Einstein's theory of relativity and described the world of quantum mechanics as "all about potential, doll face." Possible Side Effects-Augusten Burroughs

I have been having a weird week, not bad relatively, but weird. I broke my toe, my stupid middle toe, I burnt my hand, my left hand, and I just keep dropping things, having weird dreams and just having bad ju-ju in general.

But my ultrasound results were good, so I don't need surgery or anything right now! Yippie.
This is great news. I have been blissful, except for my clumsiness. The weather is fantastic, and though I am super busy with school, it is the good busy. The kind where I have a lot of things to do, but they are easy, just time-consuming.

Reading is going okay. I have been into The Historian. It is good, I think. It is just really drawn out, and there isn't much action. I keep expecting something to happen, and nothing does. I also isn't nearly as snobby as I was lead to believe. I like my historical fiction to leave me feeling like I need to do some research.

I just got of the phone with my boyfriend, and he told me he didn't trick or treat growing up, that broke my heart.

Happiness

I love the weather and I love this photograph.

Harvest

So, I mentioned that I have mid-terms this week, but for me that entails so much more than studying and preparing for the exams. I have may hours of avoidance tasks I simply must do when I am super busy NOT doing my school work. Such as, making a beautiful beefy harvest stew, and finally making some good progress on a lovely earth-toned afghan I started last winter. NOT studying for mid-terms finally gave me the inspiration to clean the nooks and crannies of my window sill, watch Blood Diamond and play Syberia.

On top of that, I actually did end up slipping a little studying in. As far as reading, I read a couple chapters of Augusten Burrough's Possible Side effects and a few in When Rabbit Howls. I am into crazies right now being that officially am one myself. I should make easy work of Burroughs and hit the big 30 soon. I am trying to decide what I will do if I reach the 100 goal early. I am thinking that I will then try to see how far I can take it. So it will be 100 books in a year, then how many books can I read in a year. I am getting ahead of myself though, best not to jinx it.

Xanax and productivity

I love Xanax. I have been a little stressed lately with all the hub-bub, and to top it off it is mid-term time, but with my happy pills I finished 2 books this week!

The Quiet American by Graham Greene is my 27th book. I adored this movie and that is why I read the book. I do wish I had read it first, but not too much was lost. I did get a little bored at times, but not enough to get annoyed, his writing is really good and there is just something about imperialism I love reading about. I really like the feel of this book, it is seedy without being at all dirty. It is dreary, but not miserable and everyone is likable.

From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year, Phuong would leave me. If not next year, than in three years. Death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again for ever. I envied those who could believe in a God and I distrusted them. I felt they were keeping their courage up with a fable of the changeless and the permanent. Death was far more certain than God, and with death there would be no longer the daily possibility of love dying. The nightmare of a future boredom and indifference would lift.-The Quiet American-Graham Greene

Book 28 is Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America. This was a wonderful read; it was certainly nothing new for me. It was a little like a trip down memory lane. Trying to make it as an unskilled worker in the US, is my heritage. Waiting tables, retail and house cleaning, the family business. For anyone, who has lived this drudgery, this is a good book. It isn't overly political, it is just a day to day account of trying to making the choice between a roof over your head, or nutritious food. It was excellent.

There are no secret economies that nourish the poor; on the contrary, there are a host of special costs. If you can't put up the two months' rent you need to secure an apartment, you end up paying through the nose for a room by the week. If you have only a room, with a hot plate at best, you can't save by cooking up huge lentil stews that can be frozen for the week ahead. You eat fast food or the hot dogs and Styrofoam cups of soup that can be microwaved in a convenience store.- Nickel and Dimed- Barbara Ehrenriech

The rest of my life is fine. Things are smashing and peachy. Tonight my handsome Latin lover and I will order in Asian dumplings and watch The Office. What could be better?

Embraced by the Light

I know I have some hard core ethiest readers and some devout Christian readers; I have, at times been both. I try to keep an open mind, but I believe what I believe, and it is very personal. I read Embraced by the Light by Betty Eadie today. It is about a woman who dies and sees heaven, Jesus, and the whole kit and caboodle.

Now normally, I would write this off as hokie baloney, but something about it was very sweet. I don't care if it is true, it is a pretty way to see things. I feel that way about religion in general, who cares about the facts, the facts don't aways give me what I need. Sometimes the stories do.

I understood that life is lived most fully in the imagination-that, ironically, imagination is the key to reality. This is something I never would have supposed. We are sent here to live life fully, to live it abundantly, to find joy in our own creations, whether they are new thoughts or things or emotions or experiences. We are to create our own lives, to exersize our gifts gifts and experience both failure and success. We are to use our free will to expand and magnify our lives.-Embraced by the Light- Betty Eadie

Tattoo and Follett

First of all,

For the first time, ender felt like laughing. He smiled. the other boys near him were laughing t the moment, too, for another reason. They think I'm smiling at their joke, thought Ender,. But I'm smiling at something funnier.- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

I am reading a slew of great books right now, so the project is moving along at a nice steady and smooth pace. I am very pleased with this batch of contestants. It makes my job much easier.

Also, I am thrilled at Ken Follett's World Without End coming out! Woo Hoo. His Pillars of the Earth was my favorite of last winter. I read it in good time because I am ready for the sequel, but I am going to wait until I finish a few to give it a lot of my attention. It is a monster though, so I wont be lugging it around.

No Health News, yet. Hopefully, I will have answers soon, I am starting to feel like I am on one of those medical mystery shows. I am not digging my Belladonna pills, they give you a killer hang over.

I got a new tattoo today, it was kinda ouchy. Maybe my pain threshold is getting wimpier as I get older. I am in love with it, it is perfect. My inner right arm never looked so good, I got a traditional swallow.

Okay, I am going to make some progress in The Historian. I like it, but it seems to be so slow.

Alive

I kinda dropped out for a little bit, but I finished Ender's Game and I really really liked it, so I will catch up on that later.

My dog got her ultrasound, and she has Pulmonary Stentosis. She will be on medicine forever, but she could still live for many years. Woo hoo. Doesn't she look sick of hospitals?



I get my ultrasound tomorrow, so it is my turn to find out news. I am much less nervous about mine than hers. I do not, however, like the prospect of fasting. I can't have breakfast tomorrow, and that is my very very favorite meal of the day. In fact, I think coffee and toast, sweets, cereal, eggy wegs and cured meats ARE the reason I am a morning person, but it has been all flax seed smoothies lately, so hopefully once I know what plagues me I will be on the highway back to bacon and black coffee. Actually, I may just go have a cup-a-joe now as a final meal sort of thing before they tell me I can never have it again.

School is starting to feel a little overwhelming in light of all the medical issues lately, but I am tying to look at it as something to devote my time to instead of letting it drown me, I am prone to that.

Joseph Campbell and Yellow Fever

Book 23: I adore Joseph Campbell. He is another one of those people, like Diane Ackerman, I could read over and over and never get sick of. There is something about the way he puts things that makes everything he says just cut you up, in a good way.

( I am a little behind, but still in a good place.)

You can't ask somebody to give The Reason, but you can find one for yourself; you decided what the meaning of your life is to be. People talk about the meaning of life; there is o meaning of life- there are lots of meanings of different lives, and you must decide what you want your own to be.-An Open Life: Joseph Campbell in conversation with Michael Toms.

Book 24: I also finished Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged america and Walter Reed Discovered its Deadly Secrets

This book was good, it was a little dull in the middle and end where there was endless lists of mosquito types and squabbling in the medical community. (FYI: Carlos Finlay, a Cuban really discovered the source of yellow fever.) The beginning was great with all the crazies in Philly that thought yellow fever was coming from rotting coffee grinds and miasmas. It was also vile when some doctors were injecting poo and various biles into people to see how contagious it was, oh and in Cuba they had volunteers live in a cabin for 18 days with soiled, rotting poo filled sheets hanging from the rafters.....medicine is awesome.