jedusor | Entries tagged with books

-I am home. Airport security has been uncharacteristically easy on this trip.

-Watchmen is an absolutely excellent graphic novel, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend borrowing it from me. As soon as Clayton, Bill and Cordell have finished it, in that order.

-Last night, I called Sharai from the beach and she told me that Ray had talked to her about the open executive editorial position, and we joked about fighting to the death over it. Today, Craig told her that he wants us both to have it. Eeeeexcellent.

-I lost the piece of paper with my tutoring hours on it, and I'm supposed to work tomorrow morning. I guess I'll just show up when the TLC opens tomorrow just in case, and copy down my hours from the chart then.

-Textbooks might have been a good thing to procure before the first day of classes. Ah, well. I'll pay for my procrastination by waiting in line for three hours tomorrow.

-I want a "Hello My Name Is" sticker, so I can write "Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." on it and wear it tomorrow. Sadly, I have no "Hello My Name Is" sticker. Perhaps I'll drop by Student Activities tomorrow and see if they have any.

-I cracked up out loud at today's QC strip. And then cracked up again at the idea of

prodigal7512 doing his geek-smacking in a nun outfit.

Anybody feel like taking me to see "Snakes on a Plane" sometime after 3:15 tomorrow? Look at my icon- you know you want to buy that girl a movie ticket.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Back in KC
Current Music: "In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death"- Marilyn Manson

Lemony Snicket, author of A Series Of Unfortunate Events, had a book signing at Reading Reptile this evening. I got tickets a while back and almost forgot about it until this afternoon. A friend of Mom's was going too, so I got a lift with her. We waited in line for an hour, inching oh-so-slowly through the store, admiring the decorations (Reading Reptile has some fabulous things to look at) and chatting a bit.

I was going to tell him what a unique and brilliant writing style he has, but when I got to the table up front, it just didn't seem adequate, so I asked if I could see his ankle. (People who have read the books will understand this reference.) His response: "No, I don't show strange women my body parts. Well, who am I kidding? Of course I do. But no." I got a picture with him, though I don't think it turned out all that well.

Behind me was Julian, one of the two sons of the lady who gave me a lift. Snicket (or Handler, as he signed the books, but I prefer his pen name) wrote "THE END" on the second page of Julian's book and told him, "There, now you don't have to read the whole thing."

Next was Gabrial's turn. To him, Snicket said, "Gabrial with an A, huh? You have to say that a lot, don't you? Gabrial with an A. Gabrial with an A. Gabrial with an A. And who do you have to blame for that, huh? Your parents? How many parents do you have?" Gabrial responded meekly, "Two." To which Snicket shook his head despairingly and said, "Sorry, kid, they've got you outnumbered all the way. Got any windows in your bedroom you can climb out of?"

I heard him screech, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR LEG???" to the kid behind us, whose legs, as far as I could see, were perfectly normal.

My overall impression of the guy was Jim Carrey. The mannerisms, voice, face, movements, everything looked just like the actor. No wonder Carrey got cast as Olaf. I liked Snicket's sense of humor better, though.

Augh, you know what I should have done? I should have tried to get an interview with him for the Spectrum the second I found out he was doing a book signing here. Gah! *headdesk* It's too late now.

Current Mood: excited

Dan's going to be a chaperone at the lockin. A responsible adult, making sure we foolish children don't break the rules. Dan. I am amused.

A student told me today that I am now his "all-time tutor" and said in the student comments that he wanted to work with me again.

I got a book of short stories by Dostoevsky from the Plaza library today, and I'm reading a collection of Harlan Ellison, and I got a book from the Penn Valley library called "La Tâche du Petit Pierre." That last is interesting so far- it looked like a fairy tale type story, but half a page in, a ten-year-old kid was watching his mother die after a life of working her fingers to the bone to keep the two of them from starving. Then he sat in the graveyard in the rain, crying and wishing he could have died with her. Not exactly Goldilocks, mmm? I'm having fun learning new French words, though.

Rain and Ben beat my pants off at chess.

I'm in a weird mood. I'm eating more than I need to, and I feel like I should get a lot of sleep, but this has happened before, and when I let myself sleep as long as I want after feeling like this, I wake up lethargic and depressed. Hormones, I guess. I don't like it. I wish it would stop.

No, I don't really have anything to say.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: "Eyes Wide Open" earworm

Rainy Day Books, here in Kansas City, brings in authors to speak and sign books. Just after I'd discovered Fight Club, I was told that Chuck Palahniuk had been here. I have gone to one of these events: Brian Greene, author of "The Fabric of the Cosmos."

I just checked out the website and found out that, since August 2004, I have missed:
Sandra Boynton (author of Opposites and a bunch of Link's other favorite books)
Anne Rice
Jimmy Carter
Christopher Paolini (author of Eragon)
Dennis Moore
John Irving (author of A Prayer For Owen Meany, one of my favorite books ever)
Karen Joy Fowler (author of The Jane Austen Book Club)
Mary Pipher (author of Reviving Ophelia)
Bob Dole
Susie Bright (if you don't know, you probably don't want to)
Jane Fonda
Sarah Vowell (who voiced Violet in the movie The Incredibles)
Jared Diamond (author of The Third Chimpanzee, which I haven't yet read but which I've heard is excellent)
Mary Engelbreit
Tamora Pierce (author of the Immortals and Song of the Lioness series- my favorite author when I was eleven or so)

I'm thinking I should check the Rainy Day website more often, no?

Current Mood: disappointed

You know that fold in the top front part of your ear? It's kind of hard to clean under there, don't you think? It would be easier to just cut off that part. Then you'd never have to worry about lifting up that flap to clean under it. Wouldn't life be so much easier that way? Besides, you don't really need that part to hear. And if you had it done when you were a newborn infant, you'd never miss it, and you wouldn't remember the pain either.

Religious reasons for circumcision are tricky to argue with, not that I don't try, but I am fucking fed up with people who are in favor of it because it's "easier to clean without the foreskin."

Aaaanyway, I finished "Pride and Prejudice." Two things about it bugged me:

1. Mr. Darcy's change of character. Too sudden, too abrupt, too unbelievable. I was starting to like his character, actually, and understand a bit how his upbringing and circumstances had affected him and contributed to his overblown vanity. Then, all of a sudden, he's nice and sweet and polite and well-mannered and everyone likes him. I was seriously expecting this to be explained right up until the very end. Nope, all it says is that it happened because Elizabeth's rejection of him made him realize what a twerp he was being. Nice as it would be for life to work like that, it doesn't.

2. Jane Austen is the queen, nay, the empress of run-on sentences. Complex structure is one thing, but when I have to reread a sentence four times to understand what's being said, it really takes away from the flow of the book.

Other than that, it was good. I kind of wish I had Mr. Bennet as a dad.

Current Mood: accomplished

Is it a little sad that I'm going into QC withdrawal on the weekends?

Okay, so Thursday, a cow attacked me. Well, it licked the crap out of my hand. And licking doesn't really sound lethal, but have you ever been licked by a cow? It's like being licked by a cat, only the tongue is about a foot long and a LOT stronger. My hand was very red for quite a while. That was on a walk that was supposed to help Bill feel better, and failed. His stomach was giving him problems. Mom and I did manage to dump the baby with him (along with water, drugs, and a Sudoku book) and go out to dinner, but there wasn't any all-ages music playing and we couldn't find anything else interesting to do, so we called it a night early.

Friday involved rain, Thai food, and a new skirt. Yay Grandma for that last. I don't wear many skirts, but I like this one. I'll post pics when I can. I also watched "Philadelphia," which I enjoyed quite a bit. Tom Hanks did a really, really good job. Grandma loaned me a book called "My Sister's Keeper," which is amazingly good so far, along with a couple of others.

Saturday Mom and Bill's hotel was flooded (I was staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house). They managed to extract themselves eventually, though, and off to Halflab we went, stopping at a Safeway for satsumas. Man, I miss California. The party was awesome, as all Halflab parties are. Lisa gave me the "Movies In 15 Minutes" book, which kicks major ass. (Thank you, Lisa!) There was much delicious food, including chili made by Louise and stuffed mushooms brought by

rebbyribs and

bsittler, although I'm not entirely sure which made them.

bsittler, by the way, has gorgeous hair. I could just see Mom's fingers twitching when she laid eyes on it. She ended up putting it in a seven-strand braid, after using it to show Becca and I how to do the four-strand chain type one. I met

ratontheroad in person for the first time, after a brief "do I know you?" moment. There was DDR, giving me my annual dose of Adam-and-Fred worship, and Guitar Hero, which was fun too. I was actually playing Guitar Hero when the new year rolled in, but I did sacrifice a couple of points to grab a swig of Martinelli's. My hat migrated, as it has a tendency to do at parties. I finally got to sleep around 4:30 or so, after a soak in Halflab's huge hot tub.

This morning, Mom and I got up to a dead house at 9:30, and she drove me to Jeffrey's house in Dublin, where I am now. (That's Dublin, California, not Dublin, Ireland. If you were confused.) ~~Collin~~ Gerard, Angela, and Tessie were here, but they left a while ago. Jeanette produced a coconut curry that convinced me once and for all that Jeffrey scored big-time, and I've been sitting around reading and fending off Jeanette's kids, Veronica and Avery. Jeffrey and I have gotten through the first *glances at clock* five hours with only one real argument, which bodes well, I guess.

Good luck for 2006 to everyone!

Current Mood: calm

Seven large pics under the cut.

( Six shots of the cutest baby alive and one of his big sister )

*scowls at skin condition* I hate being fifteen.

Today in a few sentences, because ahhhhh, must get up in seven and a half hours: things seem to be back to normal with Stephanie, which removes a lot of my current stress. The pics of the ~~medieval meat market~~ Mr. Renaissance Romance contest are on a floppy disc, which not a single one of our six-odd computers will accept (well, one will, but that's the one that can't connect to the internet or any of the others, so it's really not much good). I bought new eyebrow jewelry in Westport: the purple one in the picture above and a black one with spikes at both ends. Writing group went well- Jonhenry's current girlfriend Laura showed up and hit it off with everyone. TAB meeting tomorrow, at which the Halloween party and January lockin will hopefully be discussed. Aunt Amanda and Uncle Ken are leaving tomorrow before I get home from school. I have honors seminar in the morning and have done nothing- NOTHING- on my report. I did, however, get all of my algebra, English and French homework done for tomorrow (I think it's utterly insane that I have all four classes on Tuesdays, meaning a possible four classes' worth of homework due on a single day). Oh, and I requested "The Kid," another of Dan Savage's books, from the central KC library. It'll be here in a day and a half. Yay.

I'm still reading the flist, but I'm running at least a week behind. I will catch up eventually, though.

Ooh, and one more thing- Aunt Amanda and Uncle Ken have a car they can't sell because of emissions laws in New York, so they offered to let us have it for free. I took the sample test in the driver handbook and got 41 out of 45 right (and two of those were 'how much does it cost to get an instruction permit' and 'where do you go to get a permit,' neither of which will be on the permit test), and you only have to get 20 out of 25 for the permit. So I'm going to go in and get that sometime in the next week or two, and the current plan is to fly up to NY with Mom over Thanksgiving break and drive the car back here, gaining both a car for the family and driving experience for me. Everybody cross your fingers that I do well on the test!

Current Mood: hopeful

It probably wasn't a good idea to stay up past one last night finishing Dan Savage's new book, "The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family," when I have to get up early for faire, but it was totally, one hundred percent worth it. The book was hilarious, educational, thought-provoking, adorable, and made me cry. Everyone should read it.

(Although not you,

ganondork. You should wait a couple of years.)

Merry Christmas! I'm here to pimp a couple of Christmas books. One of our family traditions is reading books aloud on Christmas Eve night, and I wanted to tell you about two of my favorites. They're both technically children's books, but I still enjoy them, and so do Mom and Bill. They also both have absoluitely wonderful illustrations.

Red Ranger Came Calling, by Berkeley Breathed. As we turned to leave, an astonishingly squat little man no bigger than me rushed past us toward the old lighthouse. He carried an overnight carpetbag, which bumped along behind him. The tiny man smiled weakly and tipped his hat, revealing pointy ears. Something flowery needed to be said by the Red Ranger of Mars, but in my shock, all that came out was, "Mister, you look like a turnip." By the cartoonist of Bloom County and Opus, this book is by far one of the funniest children's books I've ever read. It's told from the point of view of a sour little boy, sent to his aunt's house for the holidays. All he wants for Christmas is an Official Buck Tweed Two-Speed Crime-Stopper Star-Hopper bicycle, elusive and beyond his aunt's budget. When he hears that old Saunder Clos in the rickety old mansion up the hill might actually be Santa Claus himself, he naturally investigates, dragging along an unwilling Amelia (his aunt's Dalmation-weiner dog mix) and gets himself into all kinds of trouble. It somehow manages to be both hilarious and touching, with a sweet twist at the end.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, by Susan Wojciechowski. I've tried writing several one-paragraph descriptions of this book, but it just doesn't work. Just trust me when I say it's a beautiful book. It makes my mom cry every single year, and sometimes I can't help tearing up a little too, but it's the good kind of crying. Definitely worth a read.

Link helped open some of his own Christmas presents, but he was far more interested in the paper and ribbons than the presents themselves. I got a SQ33K L33T t-shirt, "bondage pants", some cool jewelry, Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk (there's this one AWESOME story in it about when he went out dressed up as a Dalmation, with his friend dressed as a bear, and they just walked around shopping and being tourists with these costumes on- absolutely priceless), the Pushing Tin soundtrack, and a set of paint-your-own bobblehead dogs, among other things.

Here's a couple of versions of "The Night Before Christmas" that I found amusing:

The legal version: Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter “the House”) a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to a mouse.

The lexiconically diverse version: 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our domicile, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.

We're leaving for the airport to pick up Liz in about an hour, so I won't be online much this week. She's leaving on the 29th, which is when I'm going to CA, and I may be able to get online then. *hugs you all* I wish you a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a joyful Kwanzaa, etc.

Current Mood: content

Bold - i've read this,
Italic - i've read part of this.

( Banned books )

Anyone around Oak and 59th ten minutes ago would have seen a barefoot girl, five-foot-six or so, with luminescent just-dyed purple hair, wearing black boxers with red and grey dragons on them (that keep riding up, dammit) and a Crayola T-shirt with paint and hair dye splatters on it, in 50-degree weather, trotting along behind a fat husky/Aussie dog.

I'm not having that "I'm so boring" feeling right now.

EDIT: My mom got a paid LJ account. *blinks* WTF?

Current Mood: quietly satisfied
Current Music: "The Holly And The Ivy" on the living room stereo

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Points that may or may not be of interest
Meeting Lemony Snicket
Nothing really
Saving up for a Rainy Day
People can be so dense.
Happy Sunday!
Because picspamming is a good thing
Book rec
Book pimping!
(no subject)

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let's stumble towards success and pack some snacks for little breaks

Entries tagged with books

Points that may or may not be of interest

Meeting Lemony Snicket

Nothing really

Saving up for a Rainy Day

People can be so dense.

Happy Sunday!

Because picspamming is a good thing

Book rec

Book pimping!

(no subject)