My latest read and my next brilliant idea

I’m reading (among other things) The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Easton Ellis and though I wanted to start with his first book (public library’s copy was checked out), I’m enjoying this one so far.

His style is not really what I expected, and neither is the book. So far it’s very much it’s-the-80s-in-LA-and-we’re-all-fucked-up, and that can sometimes be really tedious, but it works here.

The story is told by a whole cast of characters, but the reader doesn’t get any real introduction to any of them. Easton Ellis just sort of thrusts you right into the middle of it. He dives right in. This is life, so hold on tight. It can be confusing at times, but it certainly keeps you on your toes and that provides for a good enough reading experience. 

In other news, my mom and aunt went to Costco today. Without me. I may have gotten to sleep later, which is always nice, but I am still mildly distraught. I love Costco. Shopping there is so much more entertaining than it really should be. They have everything. In absurdly large quantities. They also have books, though I guess not in absurdly large quantities.

But can you imagine… Oh man. It’s the next big thing. Selling books in bulk. Books grouped by author or genre or some other category. I can see it now. Seriously. I’m writing a letter to Costco tomorrow.

Review time!

The other day I finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I’d heard a lot of great things about this book, but before I started reading I didn’t really know anything about it other than that it was about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. When I first began reading, I had a little bit of difficulty getting into it and identifying who, exactly, was telling the story. It was interesting enough to keep me reading though, and I’m really glad that I did because once I got into it, I really got into it. I pretty much stopped reading all the other books I was in the middle of and only read Wolf Hall until I was finished.

The book is really phenomenal. The story of Henry VIII and the withdrawal of England from the Pope and the Catholic Church isn’t exactly obscure, but Mantel tells it like a new story. The characters come alive in completely new and engaging ways. 

Most of my previous reading about Henry VIII and that general period in history comes from history books and TV specials and reading A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt. In Bolt’s play, Thomas More is the protagonist and Cromwell is the base, evil villain. Mantel’s Cromwell isn’t perfect, and though she portrays More as a flawed man, he by no means epitomizes evil in the way a novel with Cromwell as protagonist might be expected to. Getting over the ideas of Cromwell as ambitious and backstabbing (and just plain evil) and More as devout and honorable (if not a bit stubborn) that I had in my head from previous reading did not take nearly as long as I expected it to. I was quickly drawn into the story and the lives of the various characters as Mantel portrayed them.

As a side note, Wolf Hall is the first book I read from the public library since I went back. Still no sign of devious library ninjas…

Following some sort of road

This summer is supposed to be all about my health. Physical and mental. And with me, it turns out, the two are incredibly and irrevocably linked. So along with what feels like constant monitoring from my doctor (and entire family, but they nag because they love – or at least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself), attempts at healthier eating, and attempts at exercise, I am working hard to relax and learn to control my anxiety and stress.

So life makes me terribly, terribly anxious and stressed out. In this day and age that hardly makes me unique, and that’s kind of where I’m heading with this post. There are entire industries that take advantage of people like me.

I see a therapist every week now that I’m home and I think it’s helping me identify certain aspects of my thinking/behavior that need to change for me to be healthier mentally (and therefore physically). Even if I don’t see the connection between every question she asks me, or everything she asks me to think about during the week, I am willing to believe that as a therapist and, possibly, just as an outside observer, she can identify things that I cannot. One thing we’ve been talking about a lot is positive thinking. And this brings me to the actual point of this post (and the tie-in with the general theme of my blog although I maintain my it’s-my-blog-and-I’ll-write-what-I-want-thankyouverymuch mentality):

I’m reading a self-help book: The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer.

It’s odd. For some reason I’m much more embarrassed about reading a self-help book than admitting that I see a therapist, even though it seems like there’s more of a stigma connected with therapy [insert Scrubs quote here: “my father says therapy is for people with more money than problems.”] than self-help books. That stigma against therapy may quickly be falling to pieces in today’s society, but my feelings of shame at owning (and reading) a self-help book still seem a bit bizarre or misplaced given the situation.

I acknowledge that these books really do help people. Or help people help themselves. Or whatever. But I just can’t help but roll my eyes at the idea of following the advice of someone who makes their living telling people how to change their lives for the better. When these people put out book after book year after year, doesn’t it make people wonder if maybe they’re rationing their wisdom or something? At least part of that, I think, is based upon the fact that I don’t think someone can give advice on how to live an individual life without knowing the details of said individual life. Yes, some things are basic. Some of the advice he offers can be applied universally. Some. Not all. Life is complicated, and it feels like self-help books don’t realize it.

Once I get past all the stuff that makes my eyes roll so much they might just fall out of my head, I do see what Dyer is getting at in The Power of Intention. So much of how he writes and what he writes bothers me, but at the core of everything, I do see what he means. I’m barely 50 pages in, so I can’t offer too much of a review right now, but given the title of the book and what I’ve read so far, it seems like Dyer is trying to get his readers to see that the way we think about our actions and the way we approach situations both have a lot to do with how we actually act in these given situations and, therefore, their results.

In the book, ‘Intention’ is some sort of overarching semi-spiritual power. I find this approach mildly off-putting (spirituality is often a huge part of the self-help industry, and that might be part of my issue with it. I’m not anti-spirituality, just anti-your-life-will-only-be-better-if-you-follow-my-spiritual-path-…ity), but if I distance myself from the actual words and the literal, intellectual part of it and just focus on the bigger picture, I see that Dyer might have a point.

Given my compulsive need to finish every book I read, I do intend to finish The Power of Intention. That being said, it may take me a while and you probably won’t see a full review of it. I’m going to read it. I’m going to take what I will from it. And then I’m going to move on.

I don’t see my feelings on self-help books changing radically after finishing this book, but you never know. I think there’s a good chance that something about self-help books will always rub me the wrong way, but I won’t condemn them completely, especially if they do offer guidance to those who need it and are unable or unwilling to seek it elsewhere.

Buddha said that “peace comes from within,” but sometimes we might just need a little bit of help or guidance to find it. 

I just finished Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was really great and I absolutely devoured it (no pun intended…. OK, pun kind of intended, but it was just begging me to go there). Not only was it a quick read, but I kind of just didn’t want to put it down.

This book was phenomenal. It was endearing and inspiring without being preach-y. Gilbert doesn’t hold anything back. She shows the reader her best and her worst and everything in between. Even better, she does it with a sense of humor, knowing that, in retrospect, some things were bad ideas, some things that seemed horrible are hilarious now, and some things were great experiences – learning, spiritual, or otherwise. She shares her story and her talks about her developing beliefs, but I never felt particularly uncomfortable reading from a non-believing standpoint.

Actually, it made me curious about the various spiritual beliefs she mentions throughout the book. Who knows? Soon you may be reading reviews of all sorts of Zen Buddhist writings. I’m up for the pursuit of knowledge, and if I attain some sort of personal peace along the way, I certainly won’t complain.

In which I remain a free woman, but a slave to my addiction

Today I went to the library. The public library. Yep, that’s right. I sauntered right on up to the circulation desk and handed over my driver’s license and asked for a library card. And I got one. No masked library ninjas of doom appeared to cart me off to library jail where I would rot for all eternity, pining for books, or anything. It was quite anticlimactic, actually.

The library’s selection was also mildly disappointing, but maybe I just have bad timing or something. There are some books on my list that I don’t really want to buy, so I was excited by the prospect of grabbing them at the library and having the extra motivation of a due date to encourage me to read it in a timely manner. But alas, many of the books that fall into that category were missing from the shelves. I don’t know if the library didn’t have those books or if all the copies were checked out, or what. I should probably figure out how to use their catalog for future reference. Meanwhile, I managed to find some other books on my list to check out, so that brings the number of books I’m currently reading up to a new level of ridiculous and uncountable.

Of course, before I went to the library, I went to Borders. I only meant to buy 2 things. I came back with 3 books and a glittery gold Buddha. There is an explanation/story behind this, but I think I’ll leave it at that for now.

Nothing like contradictions

I went to yoga again today. It was good and I was able to do a lot more this time around than last time. I don't know if it's because we did easier poses or if my body was more used to it, or what, but I'm calling it progress and leaving it at that.

And now I'm eating ice cream. So I started the day off with healthy exercise and am ending it with chocolate-y goodness. And I'm OK with that.

Tomorrow I'm off to tea with the women of the family. It should be fun.

I really meant to go to the library today, but that didn't happen and I'm not particularly sanguine that it'll happen tomorrow. Maybe Monday? We shall see...

In any case, I'm continuing with my reading everything ever, so I should theoretically have some book-related posts in the near future. But again, we shall see.

And there shall be much rejoicing

for I have found my book list!

Huzzah!

...as you were.

Not so anonymous after all

So I’m coming out and admitting it: I have a problem. That’s the first step, right? Admitting you have a problem? Of course, I think that’s the first step to recovery and I’m not sure I really want to recover from this particular addiction. I, dear friends, am addicted to books. [Insert not-so-shocked exclamations here]. It’s seriously getting out of control though. I’ve fallen back into my habit of breaks in that I’m currently reading upwards of four books at any given time. In my defense, they’re (usually) different kinds of books. But yea, it is a little ridiculous and my family makes fun of me.

I’m also rereading books right now, which is kind of different for me. There are a few books that I frequently reread, but those are usually comfort reads/ books from my childhood that don’t take much time to read. So far this break I’ve reread Wicked, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Persuasion and Invisible Man and I’m now rereading Winter’s Tale, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Tao of Pooh. I’m also thinking of rereading The Emigrants, Fahrenheit 451 and One Hundred Years of Solitude. And I feel like I’m in the mood to reread Pride and Prejudice and maybe Ella Minnow Pea. I realize I’m mentioning all these books now without really talking about them, but I actually do intend to write more about the books I’m reading. Eventually. I promise.

Have I mentioned that I also have an ever-growing stack of books that I have yet to read next to my bed? Actually, there are now multiple stacks. They’re almost level with my mattress. Yet another indication that I may be going a bit overboard.

I’m also supposed to be doing some theoretical reading to prepare for comp lit thesising. I should probably do that…

So yea, there’s a lot of reading going on this summer. I’m OK with that though. I still can’t find my book list and it’s driving me crazy. Between my general insanity and goodreads, I have a lot of updates to make, but I can’t make them until I find the blasted list. It’s probably somewhere really stupid, but I haven’t managed to convince myself to go through the giant college bins of doom yet. I’ll probably break down and do it in the next week or so. Or I’ll give up and just re-do the list. I do have an electronic copy, but I like having a hard copy too so that I can carry it around to bookstores and the like with me (yes, I know I’m crazy. You should too by now).

I really want to pick up some books at the library. There are a lot of books that I want to read but don’t necessarily want to commit to buying because, well, I’m poor and remained unemployed. This won’t necessarily help with the reading-multiple-books-at-the-same-time conundrum, but I figure go big or go home, right? Well… something like that. Maybe this weekend I’ll get over my fear that the public library will take one look at me and throw me in library jail and then all will be right and book-filled in the world.

Poetry Break

Along with what feels like every other book in my house, I'm reading Nine Horses, a collection of poems by Billy Collins. I really like his style and so far I've come across a few poems that I really like, so I thought I'd share.

So here's my little disclaimer: I own nothing. All of the following poems were written by Billy Collins. Not me. I'm not so talented. There you go...

Velocity

In the club car that morning I had my notebook
open on my lap and my pen uncapped,
looking every inch the writer
right down to the little writer's frown on my face,

but there was nothing to write about
except life and death
and the low warning sound of the train whistle.

I did not want to write about the scenery
that was flashing past, cows spread over a pasture,
hay rolled up meticulously --
things you see once and will never see again.

But I kept my pen moving by drawing
over and over again
the face of a motorcyclist in profile --

for no reason I can think of --
a biker with sunglasses and a weak chin,
leaning forward, helmetless,
his long thin hair trailing behind him in the wind.

I also drew many lines to indicate speed,
to show the air becoming visible
as it broke over the biker's face

the way it was breaking over the face
of the locomotive that was pulling me
toward Omaha and whatever lay beyond Omaha
for me and all the other stops to make

before the time would arrive to stop for good.
We must always look at things
from the point of view of eternity,

the college theologians used to insist,
from which, I imagine, we would all
appear to have speed lines trailing behind us
as we rush along the road of the world,

as we rush down the long tunnel of time --
the biker, of course, drunk on the wind,
but also the man reading by a fire,

speed lines coming off his shoulders and his book,
and the woman standing on  a beach
studying the curve of horizon,
even the child asleep on a summer night,

speed lines flying from the posters of her bed,
from the white tips of the pillowcases,
and from the edges of her perfectly motionless body.

"More Than a Woman"

Ever since I woke up today,
a song has been playing uncontrollably
in my head -- a tape looping

over the spools of the brain,
a rosary in the hands of a frenetic nun,
mad fan belt of a tune.

It must have escaped from the radio
last night on the drive home
and tunneled while I slept

from my ears to the center of my cortex.
It is a song so cloying and vapid
I won't even bother mentioning the title,

but on it plays as if I were a turntable
covered with dancing children and their spooky pantomimes,

as if everything I had ever learned
was being slowly replaced
by its slinky chords and the puffballs of its lyrics.

It played while I watered the plant
and continued when I brought the mail
and fanned out the letters on a table.

It repeated itself when I took a walk
and watched from a bridge
brown leaves floating in the channels of a current.

In the late afternoon it seemed to fade,
but I heard it again at the restaurant
when I peered in at the lobsters

lying on the bottom of an illuminated
tank which was filled to the brim
with their copious tears.

And now at this dark window
in the middle of the night
I am beginning to think

I coudl be listening to music of the spheres,
the sound no one ever hears
because it has been playing forever,

only the spheres are colored pool balls,
and the music is oozing from a jukebox
whose lights I can just make out through the clouds.

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.


So that was my poetry sharing break. I hope you enjoyed it. I've been thinking about posting some of my own stuff if/when I ever start writing again. We shall see. But I do like sharing the stuff I'm reading and poetry is something that I can easily put up here for you guys to read.

Done is...

FINALLY!

I have just sent in my last final from last semester. Sending it was a pain because it had scans and therefore the file was too big to actually email. I figured it all out though...I hope.

In any case, done is GOOD and now I can focus on other things, like my continued lack of a job.
Well, now I'll have more time to avoid doing my Chinese homework. That'll be exciting.

Speaking of Chinese, I have class tonight. I don't actually mind the class or anything, but traveling to the class and just motivating myself to actually move is becoming a struggle. I shall endure, however. I shall endure.

I should probably finish my homework...

A short review as study break

I'm working on finishing up my last paper (for AWLW - go figure), but I need a bit of a study break or I may go crazy. And so my procrastination is your reading recommendation (sort of. I just wanted it to rhyme). 

I just finished Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Considering it’s a 500-page book, it’s a pretty quick read.

The story is interesting, but the writing didn’t thrill me. At times it was kind of aggravating and I found myself losing interest.  The book definitely shed some light on some parts of geisha-dom (is that a word?) that we don’t necessarily understand as westerners, but sometimes I just didn’t buy it.

The most interesting part of this book for me was probably the characters and their interactions. I didn’t always like them. In fact, I often found them insufferable, but the dynamics between them kept me interested. I wanted to see how things would play out. My one complaint with the characters is that sometimes I felt like there was something missing – like there was a disconnect between the last thing we saw with the character and whatever was being introduced next.

So yea, basically Memoirs of a Geisha = a good read, but nothing extremely special. I don’t think it’s genius or anything, but I enjoyed reading it and would probably recommend it if I thought it was the kind of book that someone was looking for.

Mind. Blown.

"

my mind is blown

AT FIRST I DIDN’T GET THIS because my brain was all “well duh he’s an egg, of course he is an egg,” and then i recited the poem to myself AND THEN I WAS LIKE “HOLY SHIT HE MIGHT NOT BE AN EGG”
then i ran down the hall to share with my friend and she didn’t think it was quite as amazing or earth-shattering as i did. BUT HE MIGHT NOT BE AN EGG, GUYS. HE MIGHT NOT BE AN EGG

"

So I saw this on my friend's tumblr (thelostlolli.tumblr.com), but I don't have one,  so I can't reblog it. In any case, this blew my mind as well and I thought I needed to share it. I'm not at school anymore, so there was no running down the hall to share this earth-shattering news with a friend, but I did share it with my mom. She was not as amazed as I was. Oh well. 

In other news, I'm currently watching Extreme Poodles on TLC. These people pick themes and then dye/groom their poodles according to the theme. Then there's some sort of performance type thing like at a pageant or something I think. I'm not 100% sure, we're not all the way through yet. It's crazy, but part of me is starting to stare at the dog and decide what color we should dye her...

Not really about books, but too bad

So today I went to a free yoga class. I’ve been meaning start yoga again since it’s some sort of exercise and it’s relaxing, and this particular class was my favorite price – free. Generally speaking, the class probably wasn’t that hard, but my meds make my body hate me, so I had to stop for a while and just sit and breathe. They have these free classes every week though, so I figure if I stick at it, things will get easier. Even though I just sat there for quite a bit of the class, I still came out of it feeling good (if not incredibly sweaty) and relaxed and whatnot. I’ll probably be sore beyond all reason tomorrow, but I’ll deal with that later.

The rest of the day I’ve mostly spent working on my last paper. Oh medical extensions – truly a double-edged sword if ever there was one. I’m thankful that I got the extension because I was not in any position to finish it in time for the original due date. That being said, now it’s summer and I’m starting to feel better and I just don’t feel like doing schoolwork. But, alas, I must. And so here I sit. Procrastinating. By writing my blog. Which was once homework and therefore not really procrastinating. Too bad that isn’t the case now…

I have a lot of ideas for things to write about or tackle for this blog, but I haven’t gotten around to actually working on them yet. Hopefully once this paper is out of the way. Hopefully. We’ll see.

I finished reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon last night. Usually I have much more concrete ideas about a book once I’ve finished it, but I find that I have been steadfastly ambivalent about this book throughout my reading experience.

In the beginning I did have some trouble getting through it. It’s not so much that it moved slowly, but there was something that I just had to push through. After the first 200 pages or so, reading it got easier and I got more into the story.

A lot of people have expressed an intense dislike toward the main character, Claire. While I found her annoying at times, her personality did not grate on me as it appears to have done on many other readers.

One of my issues with this book may be that it is written in first person. I don’t generally have any issues with that, but I feel like a novel written in first person (especially one this long) needs to be exceptionally written and this just wasn’t. It’s not that Gabaldon’s writing is horrendous, it’s just that I’m not convinced that it is really strong enough to carry the story the way in which she wrote it.

The story is a good one. Not totally my thing, but interesting. I went into it not realizing that it was really a romance, so that sort of threw me for a loop and could have contributed to my difficulties reading it earlier on. Once you recognize that it’s a romance and resign yourself to that, it’s a lot easier to get into the story and try to get to know the characters.

There are 8 books in this series. I think I might check out the next from the library (if I can ever get over that irrational fear) and see how I feel about it. I like some of the characters and the general overarching story enough to try the next book, but I’m not committing myself to reading the whole series. I’m not sure I have the time or the patience to do so. There are way too many other books on my list begging to be read.

As you may imagine, I have a bit of a problem when it comes to books and, well, buying too many of them. In all honesty, if I had to choose between buying food and buying books, I’d probably buy books (and that’s saying something, because I do love my food).

So this whole unemployment thing is not working out so well for me. The economy sucks, I get that, but I am an intelligent, enthusiastic, college student with a decent resume and references. As my friend recently put it, “how do all these ex-cons on Law & Order have jobs, but we’re apparently unemployable?”

Said friend now has a job. I’m still looking. I feel like I’ve applied for every job under the sun. To date I’ve completed nine applications and submitted countless inquiries. I haven’t heard anything. From anyone. It’s so frustrating and as much as I don’t really want to receive a bunch of “sorry, we don’t want you” emails or phone calls, it would be nice to know whether or not I should ever expect to hear from them, or if I should just continue applying for every job ever.

One of the most annoying things is that these companies have you jump through all these hoops to apply for jobs and then only at the end decide to mention that they aren’t hiring people for just the summer. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty clear that I’m a college student and looking for work while I’m home over the summer. In fact, I often mention this as I’m asking for the job application, and yet you don’t tell me that you aren’t hiring summer-only workers until I’ve wasted what feels like half my life answering redundant questions in boxes far too small to accommodate the amount of information you’re asking for? Seriously? What’s up with that?

I’m also particularly bitter about my inability to get a job at a bookstore. I work at a library, I have customer service experience, and I spend a lot of time in the bookstores to which I’ve applied, and yet a certain bookstore franchise’s computers don’t think I’m qualified enough. Alas. It’s their loss anyway, because if I worked at a bookstore, I’d probably end up spending even more money because of my employee discount.  

Meanwhile I guess I’ll just keep scouring Craigslist and asking every store I go into if they’re hiring. Statistically speaking, I have to catch a break at some point, right?

Well, I have to. My savings are dwindling and I can’t keep relying on my parents for money. I’ve been trying to figure out how to do more with my mark store, but so far that’s been a bust. Seriously, if you’re in the market for some new makeup or skincare or accessories, check out randrews.mymarkstore.com. They have some really cool stuff and you’ll be funding my book buying.

Be an enabler. You know you want to…

My library conundrum

So I’m currently using my public library card as a bookmark. I have a few bookmarks that move from book to book, but during breaks when I start reading every book I can get my hands on all at the same time, any flat-ish object is fair game. In any case, considering my current situation with the public library, I find this library card’s ubiquity somewhat amusing.

Allow me to explain: I’m afraid to go back there. Seriously. It’s not a joke.

You see, way back in the day, I was a library fiend. I almost always had some book from the library. Unfortunately, as a young child without the ability to get myself to and from the library, I accrued many a late fee. At some point it got out of control and I stopped going because I owed them so much money. In my mind, I owe the library like $70. In reality, my childhood idea of ‘so much money’ is probably not the same as ‘so much money’ to present day me. I should really just suck it up and go back.

And you know, I took the first step. I found my library card and went online to try to access my account and see how much I really did owe them, but my PIN didn’t work, so I had to call them. And guess what I learned...
The library discards records after 3 years of inactivity. I haven’t used my library card in probably around 7 years.

As far as the library records are concerned, I don’t exist. Those millions of dollars I owe them? They’re forgotten.

…Maybe.

I still have this irrational fear that I’m going to walk in, try to get a new library card and masked library ninjas of doom will pop out of the woodwork and do something horrible to me. You know, like make me pay fines. I’m an unemployed (and seemingly unemployable, but that, dear readers, is another [bitchier, whinier] post) college student, damn it! I don’t have money to pay for my middle school transgressions!

And so my library card is my bookmark. A nagging reminder that I should just suck it up and go, and if I have to pay a fine, so be it because it’s cheaper than actually buying all my books, right?

Ugh. My insanity is exhausting. I need a nap.

I'm back (sort of)...

So I've accidentally been hiding from my blog. I don't really know how one accidentally hides from something, but I'm special enough to manage it, I think. In any case, there is much to tell (not much that's interesting, but I never promised interesting), and at some point I will tell.  In the meantime, I leave you with a short little review...

Today I finished reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. It was a really good read.

It’s YA, which isn’t usually my thing, but I really enjoyed it. The protagonist is 11 year old, chemistry obsessed, Flavia de Luce, who is thrust (or thrusts herself, depending on how you look at it) into the middle of a twisted web of a murder investigation.

The book is definitely YA, but it doesn’t read the way a lot of books in the genre do. Flavia is precocious and the book has an older, more sophisticated feel.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie was also a really quick read. A page-turner, if you will. I’m not saying it’s the Next Great American Novel or anything, but it was a nice little escape from some of the more serious/heavy stuff I’m reading and it was a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend it.