Lots and lots of books to read in the new year.
To start me out, I'm going to be tackling:
I also have the collected works of James Merrill sitting here waiting for me to crack open:
This week I read:
I also have been reading through You on a Diet which is pretty good, actually. Figured I could use some motivation in 2008. :)
I'll probably also snag a book on CD at the library, actually. I find that I really like listening on my drive to work. Right before Christmas I finished Pompeii, which I highly recommend.
Oh, and I zoomed through The Glass Castle right before Christmas. VERY VERY good--a book that will sit with me for years to come.
I think that's enough bookish things for now, don't you think?
way...tooo...much....suuuugaaaar...
Between the Williams & Sonoma candies my PR agency got me, party foods, christmas cocktails, the treats at my mother-in-laws and eating out all the time, I have been often teetering on the edge of a sugar coma. I didn't help myself much when I made this delectable treat for Christmas Eve--a modified version of the Everyday Food Buche de Noel (the online version didn't have the frosting recipes included so I came up with my own).
The little brown thing in the front in the above picture is a cocoa covered marzipan mouse. The mushrooms are all made from marzipan.
The pictures really don't do it justice. It looks sort of strange in the latter picture, I am thinking. but OMG this was such an awesome cake. I have a feeling I'll be making it every year moving forward. Super light and very tasty.
Been thinking hard about my 2008 goals...not resolutions, goals. Three categories..writing, health and family/friends. Have my trusty new moleskine 2008 daily planner to record progress on my key goals in those areas. I'm geared up and determined to make 2008 be an extremely productive year. Really. Yes, Really.
Joe snagged this huge freaky fish pillow as part of his Yankee Swap at work. Romeo promptly took it over. Go kitty!
Most disturbing though is how close the house is to ours. This picture does not show the closest part of the house. In one place the house is maybe 10-12 feet away. If there is a fire in either house it would most definitely jump quickly to the one next door. I do NOT understand how she isn't in violation of fire codes. I think that law is that you have to be ten feet from the property line...and the problem is that our house was built 60 years ago, nearly on the property line...not a few feet back. So while she may be ten feet from the property line she's massively close to our house.
We don't own the place or we would have raised a stink. And our landlords are in their 80s and 90s and are just happy not to have the falling apart garage next door. Well I guess it fuels our desire to save more money so we can buy our own place.
I could understand a contractor building the condos and not caring if we view into each other's windows, but she is going to live in one! WHY ON EARTH would she want to live so close to someone and position windows that give neither party any measure of privacy? Don't get it.
Check out this addictive word game (well addictive if you love words) that donates rice for every word you get right! Be charitable and have a good time at the same time!
How random is this? Siouxsie Sioux has a solo album out...some gazillion years after the Banshees and the Creatures. I need to pick it up still but a cursory listen at her site is promising (click on the butterflies to navigate).
I saw the Banshees perform at the first Lollapalooza. I've always loved her music and am very excited to see this new effort.
And damn, I want to look like that when I turn 50!
Yes yes, well, sort of you heard me right.
My good friend Sean is the god of the new Pixies tribute album due out tomorrow, Dig for Fire. But the thing is I'd be excited for this album even if I wasn't helping him schill a few extra pennies on the sale of this new little friend. Because it's pretty darn cool with bands like OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mogwai, The Rosebuds and British Sea Power. Listen at the link above.
And pick it up tomorrow by download on iTunes or at: www.alr-music.com/shop.php
It's worth it for the TMBG Havalina cover alone. And damn, does OK Go give good cover or what? While you are futzing around iTunes, make sure you check out their cover of The Cure's Lovecats.
I really was a record promoter in my past life. Well, maybe in this life, many years ago. ;-)
EDIT: This will be available internationally on the 27th and if I'm not mistaken, on CD in stores around the same time.
Until I was twenty years old, I think I had only met one or two other Crystals in my life (btw, 90% of us spell it just the way it should be...the Ch, Kry varieties are few and far between). Now they seem to be everywhere. There are three in my company...two of them in my department. They're all over the Internet, as I'm sure you know. And they are on TV a LOT...but here's my beef:
Why are all the Crystals you see on the Net or on TV trashy girls?
A friend of mine from England always used to tease me when he first knew me...about how Crystal is a trailer trash name there. I never believed him but now I am beginning to wonder all around. Springer always has a Crystal on the show (a recent one I caught had a fat Crystal in a kiddie pool full of mud with a pig), as does Dr. Phil. If you ever see a Crystal being quoted in a news story they're usually toothless hillbillies or they have such terrible grammar skills that you can barely understand what they are saying.
Granted, I'm older than most of them, so one would think that my name came about on the early side of the naming trend. There is a theory about how names come about, starting with affluent parents and then trickling down to the masses until the affluent parents move on to other names. But my parents were never overly affluent. Just your typical middle-class family. I think it was a result of my father liking unusual names more than anything. They weren't even hippies.
I have always loved my name because it was different and fairly unique. Now though, I find that whenever I see another Crystal on tv or see a picture on the Net, I just want to cringe. My god you Crystals, can't you brush your hair, cover up just a little (there is a HUGE difference between sexy and trashy, sigh), lose some weight, stop smoking dope, walk out on the abusive boyfriends and quit making me want to cover my ears (lots of overly freaky religious Crystals) and eyes?
Sigh.
If you ever saw the show Dead Like Me, there was a fat ugly Crystal who worked in reception. Stranger still, one of her coworkers was a sweet pretty thing named Misty. My sister's name is Misty...very strange to see two characters with those names on TV!
Yesterday I pushed through another 4077 words for a total of 9408. We'll see what we manage today...
Today I managed 4083 words which puts me at a total of 5402 so far, 401 words beyond the 1,667 word a day goal. That's about 14 pages, 12 pt ft, 1.5 spaced. Total wordcount for my novel (as an FYI, I decided to "cheat" and use the novel I started working on in August) is 31,707. Wooohoo!
Writing a historical novel is much slower for me than other types of fiction, I think. I find that I have to really stop myself from looking up things while I write. I can do that in some cases (e.g. I need to check if they had radishes in ancient Rome) by just putting an XX in and going back when I edit, but other things like chronology or names or timeline issues make that a bit harder. Some things I really HAVE to stop and look up because it will completely affect what I'm writing. I realize that's part of the reason you aren't supposed to use a book in progress--that it slows up the spontaneity, but I am using NANO to just get my ass in the chair, so if I make my 1667 words a day, I'll be happy.
I really wish that the NANO site wasn't having such issues. I love the forums--they're such a great source of inspiration. And there is nothing like seeing the wordcount of all the posters and all your friends to help keep motivated.
