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.