Type A

So my type A personality has been rearing its ugly head lately. I have been having heart palpitations, not sleeping very well, and my mind has been racing over things that shouldn't merit a second of my time, let alone a day or a week. It makes me angry. I want to be the kind of person that gets pissed, takes a run, drinks a cocktail then sleeps like a baby. But instead I have a tendency to let things bother me, I mean really bother me. Like gasping for air in the middle of the night and jumping six feet when someone knocks on the door. It is outrageous. I know I am nuts, but that doesn't make anything less uncomfortable.

So I am not reading a lot. I am nearing the end of Sight Hound by Pam Houston, but her main character "Rae" is so much like me that it is creepy. My boyfriend even looked to see where she was from (not NC or PA) just to make sure she hadn't stole my personality. The rest of the book is kind of weird and focuses on all her relationships with her quasi-gay boyfriends and gay colleagues, again very much like times in my life. She even had a boyfriend named Adam that tried to look like Yanni...me too! She is obsessed with her dogs, has so many mommy and daddy issues you lose count and she walked around with a dead bird in her pocket because the feathers were pretty. (yes, okay, shut it, it was a long time ago.)

44- The Murder Stone-Charles Todd

Oh my god i am not even half way frikkin done with this frikkin reading thing, JESUS! Those are my only feelings right now. Next year I will see how slowly I can read 1 book.

Crazy Old Lady

I was just on the phone with my mother, she was in the middle of making a mashed potato sandwich and watching Becker...ahhh to be 70.

43. Flu

Flu:The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused it by Gina Kolata (get a load of this chick's name....if you like Gina Kolata...)

This book started off very interesting, or maybe it was just fascinating to me because I have an obsession with pandemics and pestilance in general. I always have been interested in these mysterious mass murderers, even as a child I carried around books about the plague. So I loved the telling about the droves of sick folk lining the streets of Boston. However, somewhere in the middle this book got muy muy BORING! It redeemed itself a little at the end, but it was all down hill, and guess what? No cause, no place of origin, it is coming for you one day, beware.

I am very far behind unless I can read 8 books in the next 2 weeks.

42-Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

This book was wonderful. The story was sweet and tragic in places, but all the characters were endearing. The prose was so beautiful that I ended up reading it really slow and savoring it, but I got sucked in last night and stayed up way too late reading.

It stinks that I am behind in the project because when I read books like this, I like to let it settle in my head a little without distraction. But time is ticking on so I must keep reading.

I am a little over half way in a book about the Flue of 1918, and I am starting Dreams from my Father by Barak Obama and Spring Snow by Mishima. I think I am supposed to read 8 or nine more books this month, HA! That is a funny joke.

Sunday Sunday

Caveman Porn

I went into Valley of the Horses by Auel with excitement after enjoying Clan of the Cave Bear so much, but, alas, I am not wading through 500+ pages when I am rolling my eyes on page 75. In Clan there were few sex scenes and they were nondescript and quick, these are just too much for me. They are silly. If I wanted porn, I would read porn. I know a few of my friends swear by these books, sorry, they just aren't my cup of tea.

The lines that did it: (keep in mind that this is page 3 of the same sex scene)

When he heard her gasping in quick pants, he raised up, still kneeling so he could control his penetration, and guided the head of his engorged organ into her untried opening. He gritted his teeth for control as he pushed into the warm, damp, tight well.

There is absolutely a place in the world for a dirty story, but this project is not that place.

BK 41 The Italian Secretary

This was supposed to be book 11 way back when, but it sucked so I put it aside and read a chapter here and there when I could muster up the will. It sucked bad. It was so dull and I read it in such a gappy fashion that I have no idea what happened. What a disaster.

School is back.

Well, it is that time again and I did not make as much progress as I make have liked during my break, but who out there really cares? I mean really, am I going to be disowned if I read 88 books, or 75 or 50? I am not even sure if I will conjure up anger for myself. I mean after all, I am on the Dean's list at FSU after my hard core complaining about how tough last semester was. So I think that making the Dean's list, and reading 40 books in 5 months is fucking awesome. If I can do as well for the rest of the year who gives a crap if I don't read 100 exactly.

And that is why I do not feel the slightest bit of guilt for my newest Netflix indulgence. I am watching during the times I used to reserve for reading, I wonder how this will pan out. Tonight it is Pilsner and The Boondock Saints, yay me.

Politics

91% John Edwards
91% Barack Obama
88% Hillary Clinton
84% Chris Dodd
82% Mike Gravel
81% Joe Biden
78% Dennis Kucinich
77% Bill Richardson
48% Rudy Giuliani
35% John McCain
28% Mike Huckabee
28% Mitt Romney
27% Tom Tancredo
17% Fred Thompson
13% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Multiple Partners

I was chatting with my very observant and astute friend about how I WAS worried about finishing this project, but how NOW things seem fine because I have all the way until July and I am already at 40 books. Lucky for me (sarcasm), my friend pointed out that that meant I HAVE to read 10 books a month now. I don't know why I was thinking my timing was going so well, originally I had planned to read 10 a month, but that put me way over 100 at 120, so as I got behind, in my head, I was still ahead. But now, of course it makes sense that at 20 behind my original schedule, that actually makes me on schedule to read 10 a month from here on out. Crap.

So this means that I have to read more than one book at a time again. It wouldn't be such a time issue if I would stick to skinny books, but alas, that does not make me feel good about myself. So yes, I may be reading 5 500+ page books all at once, but I do tend to finish more books in a timely fashion that way. And odd as it may seem, it turns out that I read more while I am in school than on break. this is all thanks to the bus system, and long breaks between classes. When I am on break I feel that catching up on my dvd's, learning how to make borscht, and finally painting that ugly bookcase much more pressing.

Middlesex is still my main book; it is beautifully written. I am so stoked that I have been reading such good books all of a sudden.

School break

I have had too much time on my hands, I feel like this:

25 degrees in FL!

Are you kidding me? I complain to my long lost loved ones still roughing it in my native land of the Pennsylvania rust belt that I long for the cold. I passionately go on about the winter being in my blood and my desperate need to wear layers upon layers just to get the mail. I tell my friends in North Carolina that "people in Florida are so wimpy, it gets down to 60 and they pull out their faux fur and Uggs". Well my virtual friends, I think that it has happened. I am now a Floridian. I shiver in 50 degree weather, and this morning I was audibly moaning as the wind ripped through my soul when I took the dog out. My best friend lives in Boston where it is a ghastly -11 this morning, but I can't muster up the sympathy because I can no longer understand a cold THAT cold. It has to be a lie, surely humans can't survive that kind of weather.

So on to the books.

We face up to awful things because we can't go around them or forget them, or forget them. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say "yes, it happened and there's nothing I can do about it" The sooner you can get on with your life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things." The Shipping News- Annie Proulx

I think that The Shipping News is going into my favorite-read-over-and-over book pile. I love the harshness of it. It is cruel and cold and about as non-romantic as you can get, but it is joyful and comforting in the end. I think I am adopting Agnis Hamm as my conscience. I want her bossing me, telling me to buck up, and getting me a cup of tea with sugar and milk.

Middlesex by Jefferey Eugenides is next on the agenda. It's not much thicker than Shippinng News, but I don't think it is going to be a quick read. I snuggled in to bed with it last night and read about 25 pages and the prose was so beautiful that I was doing a great deal of lingering over each page. But as I have been saying lately, it is about the books, not the speed. that doesn't mean I won't slip in a few skinny books on the side, but it does mean I am not going to rush when I need to savor.

When I started this blog way back when, I intended to add a bunch of pictures, but my digital camera broke last summer. So sorry if this is the plainest online journal you have ever seen. I am hoping for a new camera in my future. I will try to be better, but that is not a resolution.

I am so excited. I joined Netflix yesterday!! So, of course, I am going to be watching Clan of the Cave Bear and Shipping News soon. I love the idea of people bringing me stuff. I would get all my stuff by delivery if I could. There would still be milkmen in the world and pretty boys with brown paper bags with my fresh bread. I did mention that I was diagnosed with agoraphobia, right? I am especially bad on holiday from school. Since we got back from Miami (which is always a agorophobe's nightmare) I think I have left my apartment 3 times. But, I walk my dog everyday and occasionally walk to the library, so all is not lost yet. I am getting better. We are even going to a basketball game in 2 weeks, and I am not dreading it yet.

Bk 40 The Shipping News

I am so sleepy because I was up late playing video games; I love my winter break! I just finished Shipping News, and later I will post so delicious quotations, but right now I am basking in my sleepy and stunned good book after glow.

New Years

Almost finished with the Shipping News. It is sad in the way that makes me happy. Next I am reading a book about the great flu epidemic, then Middlesex.

New Years was quiet. My boyfriend and I ran ourselves to death in December with 2 trips to Miami back-to-back, nightmare shopping trips Christmas Eve (in malls that were larger than my high school) and we were already physically and emotionally from his big deal at work and my evil final projects. So we are really looking foward to taking it easy for awhile. Though we had planned a night on the town in cosmopolitan Tallahassee, it turned out to be an evening of Yuengling and Xbox instead. Hallelujah.

I love New Year's. It is at the same time both sad and hopeful, and I always think that some kind of slate has been wiped clean. Like some kind of cosmic confession, not that the old year didn't happen, but like it is all okay. That whatever happened is done with and now it is time to keep on truckin'. Like I said, no resolutions, just pats on the back for knowing what I want in this life. I have been very blessed in the last several years and though I do acknowledge that everyday, I rarely share it with others.

A few months ago I thought that I would need Gall Bladder surgery, but I didn't and I am doing well. I almost forgot what it was like to NOT have pain, but thanks to some dietary changes and some shifts in my dealing with stress, I am feeling fantastic and haven't felt crappy in weeks. My dog has recovered from her near death experience and her new medicine is working great. I know it is ridiculous, but I honestly watch her sleeping sometimes and think I could never even love a child that much. I guess we have built in instincts to take care of that, but I really do adore that pup.

I have the most supportive boyfriend, best friend, partner in the world. He is equal parts Ward Cleaver , Andy Garcia and Adam Sandler. A sexy latin lovah with an uncompromising moral compass and the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. Perfect. He would die if he knew I just wrote that. (that would be the Ward Cleaver part of him) I know exactly how lucky I am.

So heres to giving my life all the praise it deserves.