It’s evidently been quite a while since I posted a reading list, so I’m posting a quick wrap-up of everything I’ve read since the first of the year.

I haven’t been reading much this year, so far, spending more time than usual with my own words, and with classes and things, but I’m in a reading mood now.

Books are listed in order of completion. Reviews can be found at Bibliotopia, my book blog.

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Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
STTNG: A Time to Be Born, John Vornholt
STTNG: A Time to Die, John Vornholt
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Kushiel’s Dart, Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel’s Chosen, Jacqueline Carey
STTNG: A Time to Sow, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
STTNG: A Time to Harvest, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner
On Writing, Stephen King
Almost, Elizabeth Benedict
Outside Lies Magic, John R. Stilgoe
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris
Bitten, Kelley Armstrong
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren Willig
Dancing at the Edge of the World, Ursula K. LeGuin
V, A.C. Crispin
V: The Pursuit of Diana, Allen Wold
V: East Coast Crisis, Howard Weinstein & A.C. Crispin
V: The Florida Project, Tim Sullivan
V: Prisoners and Pawns, Howard Weinstein
V: The Crivit Experiment, Allen Wold
V: The New England Resistance, Tim Sullivan
V: Death Tide, A.C. Crispin
V: The Texas Run, George Proctor
Just a Geek, Wil Wheaton
Stolen, Kelley Armstrong

After two weeks of feeling drugged and tired, I’m now hyper and wired. This would be great if only my muse was ALSO hyper and wired. Alas, it is not so.

With all the cool Friday night Sci-Fi shows on hiatus, Fuzzy and I resorted to watching horror movies tonight. Well, resorted isn’t really the word. I’d been planning all week to sit on the couch and indulge in watching Wes Craven’s New Nightmare on AMC. (I’d have preferred it without commercials, and with commentary, but it seems ridiculous to PAY to rent a movie I’ve already seen, when I can watch it for free on television.)

When I was eighteen I wanted to make horror films. I still have the *best* recipe for stage blood ever, and I learned to scream from the Linnea Quigley Film School (it was a series of tongue-in-cheek spots on MTV one October).

Tonight, though, rather than grabbing the video camera and plotting a home-made horror film, all I can do is sit here thinking that it might be helpful if I could get Freddy Krueger to slash my inner censor to bits.

One can wish.

Tomorow, the writing will go better, I’m certain.

I say… And you think…?

1. Renewal:: urban
2. Someone to talk to:: confidante
3. Count:: Dracula
4. Expiration:: date
5. Upload:: file
6. Publish:: or perish
7. Holy:: week
8. Change in the air:: spring
9. Titillating:: flirting
10. Glorious:: sunrise

Like this meme? Play along at LunaNina.com

O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
—Shakespeare: King Henry IV, Part II, Act III, Scene I

I haven’t been to the gym in almost two weeks, and I miss it, but I feel totally and utterly fatigued, and, as is usual for me, while my body is screaming, “Sleep, sleep, sleep,” my brain is racing, filled with words and images and I scramble to capture them, only to lose focus as soon as I touch pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. It’s frustrating.

And when I do manage to sleep, either the dogs usurp my space, or the temperature in the bedroom is completely wrong, or I don’t even have good dreams.

I mean, if I’m going to go to bed at midnight, I should at least get good dreams out of it, don’t you think?

I’ve been in a serious reading mood, lately. That should be interpreted not as Serious Reading mood, but serious Reading Mood – as what I’ve been reading is mostly fluff – brain candy – but entertaining: Kelley Armstrong, Trek novels, and a lovely book in the vein of The Scarlet Pimpernel which is one of my perennial favorites, anyway. If you’re really keen to see what I’ve been reading, my reading blog can be found at Bibliotopia.

I’ve spent the last two weeks working on the loan from hell. The borrowers are sweet and are friends of our family, but a miscommunication (not from me) caused me to have to restructure the deal at the last moment. I hate that, because it means I have to call in all sorts of favors from the lenders. We are, however, having Dan’s Chocolates delivered to their office as a thank-you gift. Bribery works wonders.

I’m off to update the book blog, and the zen blog, and then, maybe, to sleep.

Or maybe not.

Every morning when they’re let outside, my dogs race to the farthest reaches of the back yard, and do their business. Then, they saunter back, pausing in the center of the deck to sniff the air. Their little noses quiver as they taste all the different scents and flavors – traces of gecko, evidence of birds, the lingering essence of last night’s rain, or morning fog.

This morning, I took a lesson from them, and after I brewed a strong mug of chai, I went out onto the patio to taste the air. I sat in my favorite lawn chair, even though there was almost no sun, and watched the wind chase clouds across the sky, and then, watched the sky begin to darken into the beginning of a storm.

The storm never came, but that half an hour of fresh air and cool morning breeze blew a smile onto my face.

I’ve taken a lot of small breaks from blogging, and from writing at all, over the last month.

As of today, the break is over. And the goal is to update this daily, the other blog at least weekly, and the book blog as I finish each book, rather than when I remember, so that I don’t end up posting seventeen books in one day.

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In other news, confirmation was beautiful and powerful, but I don’t have words for it yet, specific words I mean, and even when I do, they’ll be posted elsewhere.

I ended up wearing my alternative outfit though, because the slits in the skirt flashed a bit too much thigh when kneeling.

And then, last night (Sunday night)was our last meeting (a wrapup meeting of the class), which was anti-climactic, and I find myself missing the discussion already, even though I am sort of glad to have Sunday evenings back.

* * * * *

I’m sitting here on my freshly-laundered nautical bedspread, contemplating a shower at three AM, even though I’m tired, because I’ve spent the entire evening doing laundry, and I feel like my hands are coated with chemicals from the dryer sheets and stuff. Also, it was sheet changing day, and it seems a crime to slip into clean crisp cotton sheets without being equally clean. (Yes, I’m weird that way).

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I am hereby requesting everyone who reads this to nag me about finishing the piece I want to submit to All Things Girl, and about submitting a short story to Kelley Armstrong’s contest. Please? Apparently I really need some level of accountability.

I’ve been up since 6:40 this morning, though being up that early was NOT part of the plan. It just happened. I think it’s related to going to bed around midnight, which is three hours earlier than usual for us. Really.

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But we had to be up for confirmation rehearsal (it took all of half an hour), and then there was shopping to be done. Don’t faint, but I bought a skirt. It’s all in watery blues and greens – turquoise, lime, white. I have a pale greenish-blue cami and a lime green cardigan to wear with it, and even though it screams for heels, I spent two hours trying on springy sandals, and they all hurt my feet, so I bought a pair of lime green leather thongs. I may just decide to wear normal black heels tomorrow – it depends on how coordinated I feel when I get up in the morning – but the thongs were comfy and cute, and hey, I also bought shiny pink tennis shoes (like, classic keds-style, except pink, and shiny, not like the Sports Equipment type shoes that are popular) for $11. Yay sales.

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We hit B&N last night. I have sevensix new books to read, and they’re all fluff: Trek novels, Dime Store Magic, by Kelley Armstrong, and Wil Wheaton‘s Just a Geek, which I’ve been vacillating about for several months. It just jumped into my hands, I swear!

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Received a box from my aunt that included a copy of draft of her book – yay! Something else to read. Seeing her draft has reminded me that I’ve written NOTHING of commercial value this year, and really really need to get moving. Really. I have no more loans to do, except for the one I’m babysitting (at least for a while), and so I shall go into extreme writing mode for a bit.

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Speaking of writing, I haven’t been blogging regularly, and I’ve noticed that when I don’t write at least once a day, I become edgy and unfocussed, and then when I sit down to write, after skipping a day or two, my muse has scampered off, so I’ll have to be more disciplined about that as well, and not just crap about shopping (speaking of which, I need to pop out and get nail-polish that isn’t slut red, and change the polish on my toes tonight.)

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Also, I desperately need a macchiato.

Grumble:
It never fails. I do my best to set up my week so I can take Friday completely off, and something goes wrong. Jeremy learned the hard way that all crises in my industry happen on Fridays. Well, today they happened on Thursday afternoon, actually, but the result is still that I have to spend Friday dealing with it. Argh!

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Grumble:
I’m still sick. I thought it was sinus, but it’s all in my lungs, which HURT. As does my throat. The good part of this is that, even though I’ve been living on orange juice and milkshakes all week, I’ve lost two more pounds.

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Blush:
I’ve spent much of the last week lying in bed with my laptop and the dogs, watching all 19 hours of V: The Series. You may all commence mockery, but not til AFTER this bit: I’ve been reliving my teenaged crush on Robert “Willie” Englund (The first miniseries was made BEFORE he played Freddy Krueger the first time, btw.). Those of you who’ve met my husband will smile knowingly when I mention that I have a thing for geeky, blue-eyed, blond men. (And yes, I’ve totally added the complete Nightmare on Elm Street movie collection to my wishlist.)

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Hmmm:
If you have Napster and like intersting blues fusion bands, check out a group called Leftover Salmon

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Hmmm:

Tomorrow is Bubbie’s funeral. Flaunting their utter disregard for the three-day law, they moved it to Friday, so that my parents could get there, without having to stress over the reliability of “Aero Maybe.” I FedEx’d their anniversary card and some papers to my stepbrother, for them. Yeah, that’s how good a daughter I am. Thanks, by the way, to all the people who offered condolences. It’s appreciated. Sorry I’ve been so silent since then.

I’ve been in major cd-acquisition mode this last week, purchasing three new cd’s in addition to a bunch of new downloaded tunes. The first was the soundtrack to the movie Mona Lisa Smile because the covers of the old songs were fun.

The second, purchased at the same time, is the lastest from Tori Amos, the Beekeeper. I was never a huge fan of Amos’s work, but lately her music has fit my moods more often than not.

Finally, I picked up the cd Careless Love, by Madeleine Peyroux, which is a delightfully retro bluesy collection of covers and original work. Typical of much of my music collection, this one is from Starbucks, where – I swear – I only go for the coffee.

No, really.

I woke this morning with a stuffy head, ear ache, and a sense of something being ‘off’ though I couldn’t pinpoint what. We skipped Easter services at church, and I slept til late in the afternoon, then woke, tidied the kitchen, and watched a few episodes of Stargate SG-1 (season one) because I wanted to watch something familiar and comfortable.

And then the phone rang.

There are times when a ringing phone is completely innocent, and then there are times when you know, even before you pick it up, that it will not be a happy fun call.

Today’s call from my mother was to let me know that Bubbie – my grandmother – technically my step-grandmother – had died. She was ninety-five, and on a pacemaker, so it wasn’t a surprise, and yet…it’s ALWAYS a surprise.

She was Jewish, and often lectured my stepfather for not practicing his religion. I remember once, shortly after my mother and stepfather got married, she and my grandmother had a conversation about the differences between Catholocism and Judaeism.

She loved music, and at the age of seventy-five bought herself a piano, and took five semesters of piano at the local city college. We joked that if there was a doctorate in group piano, she’d have one.

She was the quintessential Jewish grandmother – if you offered her tea or a cookie, she’d sort of sigh and shrug and say, “If you make, I eat.”

When she was 90, she took my mother and me aside and said, “Now…now I’m old.” As if, before then, she was ageless.

In her honor, and out of curiosity, I looked up an English translation of the Kaddish, and noticed that this prayer of mourning never mentions death, but celebrates love of God, instead.

In her memory, we’ll be having trees planted in Israel, because she always wanted to travel there, and never had the opportunity.

Her name was Miriam.
May she rest in peace.