It is taking me entirely too long to finish books lately

I FINALLY finished The Player of Games, the second Culture novel.  I’m not sure how much the order matters, actually, since the first two have very little to do with each other, but I’m going to keep reading them in the order they were published.  This one was WAY better, way more interesting throughout, then the first one (so if you’re considering continuing, Erik, this one was worth it).

John and I have finally decided to put our Kindle to a real test.  (He has downloaded a couple of free books, but I don’t know if he finished any of them.  I haven’t played with it at all.)  We keep hearing good things (or good enough things) about Stephen King’s latest book, and since we don’t have any overwhelming desire to own a hard copy of it, we’re going to buy the e-book.  And then possibly fight over who gets to read it first.  I might lose that fight, though.  I just started reading Faithful Place (Tana French – SO good), and I really like it, so I might not be available to start a new book for a little bit.  Life is hard.

Also hard – fighting off this cold or allergies or whatever the hell it is.  It’s annoying.  And I’ve discovered that, aside from the miseries of actually being allergic to, like, everything that has pollen or dust or mold, it’s super annoying when I can’t tell if I have an actual cold (in which case I’d stay inside and be miserable by myself so I don’t contaminate others) or if I’m just reacting to the ridiculous weather.  I mean, really, 60 degrees in January?  That’s crazy.  So if it’s just allergies (and I suspect it is since, aside from congestion and stuffiness and other uncomfortable things in my head, I feel fine – if only I could live without my head for a few days), I can tough it out and continue doing normal social things.  So I’m off to the gym.  If it turns out this is an actual cold, the gym will kill me and I’ll collapse into bed.  Good plan.