Limited choices

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My bookshelf is getting shorter.  That’s both good and bad.  Good: I’m getting through the books I kept because I wanted to read them sooner rather than later (or never).  Bad: I have fewer books to choose from when it’s time to pick a new book.  Fewer books to choose from means more pressure to like the one I pick – wait, wait, no.

That’s ridiculous.  I don’t have to like every book I read (and I don’t – I’ve been through that before).  Just because I think I’ll like something doesn’t mean I have to.  And yes, I worry that if I pick up a book (because I feel like I have to) when I’m in the wrong mood, the circumstances will cause me to not like something I might love later on.  Is that a rational worry?  Maybe.  How can you tell if you would have liked something if only you’d read it at a different time in your life?  If I didn’t like it the first time, I’m very unlikely to pick up and try it again some other time.

This particular worry is affecting at least one book still on the shelf.  I’ve tried Kate Atkinson three times now.  The first time (a few years ago), I read Case Histories.  It was slow to start, but I really liked it once I got into it.  Then I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum.  It was okay.  Not really my thing, but I liked it fine.  Then I picked up Emotionally Weird and didn’t like it at all.  The very beginning was promising, but then it bogged down and never picked up a plot, and I ended up putting it down without finishing it.  The last Kate Atkinson book I have on my shelf is Started Early, Took My Dog.  I don’t know anything about it.  Should I try it?  The one people keep saying I’ll like is Life After Life (I’ll have to get it on Kindle, which I’m not allowing myself to do until I finish the physical books on this shelf).  If I’ll like Life After Life, shouldn’t I like her other books?  That’s usually how it works for me.  So I’m hesitant to pick up Started Early, Took My Dog.

Now that I’ve thought through all of that, though, I think the whole Kate Atkinson situation is different.  It’s not the same as the pressure to choose one of THESE books.  I have proven to myself (after three books) that I’m not sure I like her, so my reluctance to try again is well-founded and I don’t think it has ANYthing to do with the bookshelf pressure.  Except…the second and third ones of hers I tried were on my shelf.  I might not have read them at this point in my life except for the pressure to do it, and if I read them at some other point, might I have liked them?

I’m back where I started, and it’s still ridiculous because you know what?  I could say the same about any book I’ve read and liked or not hated.  This is dumb.  I’m not going to worry about this ANY MORE.  I have washed my hands of the whole affair.  (Really, I just did the hand-wiping/washing motion.  I’m committed.)

Because I’m supposed to

Hi, Dad!  I’m sitting across from you, and I’ve been talking to you and/or watching TV with you most of today, but I’ll know you’ve give me a hard time if I don’t post for you, so here.  This is for you.  Hi.  Now stop reading this and go watch more Supernatural.  You’ll like it if you can just get through the first few episodes.  I promise.

It was JUST like the book (mostly)

I usually like the book more than the movie version of the book.  Shocking and controversial, I know.  And that’s not even really what I want to talk about, but I mention it today because in the case of Gone Girl, I didn’t like either the book OR the movie.

I read Gone Girl in 2012, and THAT time, I liked it.  It was entertaining, full of twists, engrossing.  Then I heard they were making a movie out of it, and I wanted to see the movie, so I made John read it.  He didn’t like it as much.  It had been a couple of years, so I re-read it.

I did NOT like it the second time.  Nick and Amy are entirely unsympathetic, totally horrible people.  I forced myself to finish it the second time.  (I’m not sure why, actually.  Maybe I was hoping it would turn around.)  But I still wanted to see the movie.  After John read it, he was much less enthusiastic about seeing the movie, so we didn’t get around to it until this past weekend.

The casting was perfect.  It was very well acted, and it’s a very good adaptation of the book.  And I didn’t like it (neither did John).  So…points for consistency?  Except for the first time I read it.  So there went two and a half hours spent with characters we didn’t like.  I mean, we really didn’t like this movie.  It left us feeling…bad.  Unclean.  Not entertained.  Just bad.

So John chose the next movie, also an adaptation of a book, but at least this time it was an adaptation of a book we both liked.  We both read A Long Way Down recently (since the move to Annapolis), and the movie (also a very good adaptation) was mostly faithful to the book, with good acting and likeable characters.  Likeable?  Likable?  Likable looks like lickable.  Anyway, we enjoyed it SO much more than Gone Girl.  TONS more.  It was a palate cleanser, despite being about four people who don’t like each other (at first) and met accidentally when they all tried to kill themselves.

I have banned myself from choosing movies for a while.  John isn’t complaining.

It’s humid in Oregon, right?

It got cold this weekend for maybe the first time this fall, and we realized just how dry our apartment is.  We can crank up the heat, but it’s not going help the dry skin we’re both suffering from.  This morning (after brunch at Miss Shirley’s Cafe (Wow – I tried to type Miss Shirley’s Face over and over.  It took three tries to get Cafe right (and I just did it AGAIN).), which was disappointing, I’m sorry to say), we went to Home Depot and bought a humidifier.  We have high hopes for it, although it didn’t seem to help in the front room today.  I just moved it to the bedroom and shut the door.  Maybe it’ll be better by the time we go to bed.

In more positive news, I gave up on the steampunk short stories I was reading and moved on to a fantasy novel by an author I like, and I feel SUCH relief at being able to dive into a book I really enjoy.  Apparently, forcing myself to read something causes me stress.  The whole day turned around once I made the change.

Cold hands make typing difficult

My day has been unsatisfying, I think because I don’t really like my book.  I like it okay, but I would prefer to like it more.  It’s a collection of steampunk short stories, some of which I like better than others (of course), and I’m just not excited about reading it.  I’m halfway through, and I know that if I finish the story I’m on and put it down, it’s unlikely that I’ll pick it back up.  That seems like a shame.  Like I’m punishing the book for something that isn’t its fault.

This is dumb, isn’t it?

Need more memory

One of the downsides to e-books is that there’s no cover.  You can’t read the blurbs from other others.  You can’t read the back cover of the book (or the inside flap of the dust jacket) to see what it’s about.  Where you bought it from (like Amazon or wherever) has a description, and I guess you could go back there to look at it, but I never do (or it’s not convenient when I think about it), and that doesn’t tell me everything I need to know about why I decided to buy it.

I don’t do a lot of impulse e-book buying.  I usually get a recommendation from somewhere (a tweet, comments on someone’s blog, an actual person talking to me in actual real life), and then I add it to my Amazon wish list.  My Amazon wish list is more of a reminder list for myself, and Amazon added a feature not too long ago that lets you add comments to individual items.  I can add a book to my list and add a note that says “from Bloggess commenters” or “saw in bookstore” or “tweet from Rainbow Rowell”, and when I go back to buy it, I have some context for how it ended up on my list, and I can make the decision about whether or not buy it based on some information.

I run into a problem when I see a tweet (or whatever) where someone is recommending a book and it’s on sale. Like, some crazy-low amount ($.99 or $1.99) that I can’t resist.  When that happens, I just buy it and download it to my Kindle app.  But I’m not reading many Kindle books lately, and even if I were, I’m usually in the middle of one, so I’m not going to read this new book right away, and now I don’t have any notes on it.  Who recommended it? What sounded interesting about it?  Do I even want to read this random book with the completely unfamiliar title by an author whose name doesn’t even ring a bell?  Months later (or some period of time that is long enough for me to forget those details (an hour)), I’ll go back to my Kindle and not recognize ANY of the titles on it.  What’s “Inertia” and why did I buy it?  What’s it about?  Who told me about it?  And when it’s not good (like that one – the writing is bad and the author (and editor) should feel bad), I would really like to know how I heard about it because just maybe I won’t trust that person’s recommendations anymore.  Unfortunately, that information (which existed only fleetingly in my brain to begin with) is gone forever.

This latest experience with that one book (and the sequel that I bought and read ANYWAY) might teach me to use on my many note/list apps and try to keep better track.  It’s (sadly) too late for the books that are sitting on my Kindle right now.

I still like to read, don’t I?

I gave up on another book today.  Turns out I am not in the mood to read about Elric, Stealer of Souls.  I may never be in that mood.  But now I’m angry with my bookshelf, and I’m afraid to pick another book.  What if I pick up a perfectly good book, one that I would enjoy if I were in another mood, but that might be forever colored by my current mood if I try it and reject it now?  Because, oh yes, I’m in a mood.  I have no reason for it (I could blame it on today being the anniversary of Riley’s death, but that would just be a handy excuse, I think, and not the real reason), but it’s true anyway.

I didn’t start the day this way.  When I woke up, it was a nice morning.  A bit cold, but I wasn’t planning on running.  John and I decided that our Sunday brunch tour of Annapolis would begin today, so we headed out West St figuring we’d find something.  The wait at Miss Shirley’s Cafe was too long (40 minutes), so we’ll try that some other week (earlier), but it was 10am when we came back by Rams Head, and they had just opened for brunch – no wait.  The place was basically empty, so we picked a table all the way in the back.  Shortly after sitting down, we found out that the jazz trio was going to set up right there.  We couldn’t have picked a better spot.  The trio was really good (they did a funky version of “Summertime” (from Porgy and Bess) that I liked a lot), and we were close enough that we could chat with them between songs.  We ended up staying a lot longer than we planned (John has a lot of practicing to do – more on that soon), but we were having a really good time.  When we finally left, I felt like doing some practicing of my own.  We kept our bass guitar because I’ve been thinking about actually learning to play it (as opposed to the barely-getting-by fakery I had down for a few months my senior year in college), and after watching the trio, I felt inspired to start today.

For a while, that went well.  I can get through scales (not prettily, but that’ll come with time – my hands aren’t tiny, but they’re not used to stretching for frets and strings), and before I stopped, I was able to play “Eight Days A Week” along with YouTube (thumping along on the roots only, but it was recognizable).

Then the phone rang (it was Ed, checking in with us since we checked out (and test drove) a Jaguar for him yesterday), and something about that soured my mood.  That’s a little dramatic (and simplified) – I don’t blame the phone call or Ed – but it was around then that I lost any drive to do anything.  I tried to read the Elric book, finishing the first story and starting the second, hoping I’d be more invested, and I just wasn’t.  Skimming pages to get to the end of a chapter is a sign I’m not interested.  BIG sign.  So I gave up on that one and then got mad at books in general (when I scanned the shelf looking for the next one).  I might be feeling the limits I set on myself.  I have maybe 15 physical books left on the shelf, and I told myself that I was going to read them all (and get rid of them) before I went back to e-books.  They’re only on the shelf because they’re books I want to read, so it shouldn’t be a chore.  I could let myself off the hook for one book and read something on my tablet, but in my current mood, that might not work for me either.

John thinks we haven’t had enough down time (people coming to visit, I’m working all the time, we spent all day yesterday driving from here to VA to DC to Alexandria and back home, etc.), so it’s perfectly acceptable for me to melt my brain a little by watching Scandal.  Rationalization is fine with me, so TV it is. May the magic of TV fix my mood!

I knew it!

So that book I finished the other day?  The one where I was guessing all the plot twists?  I was totally right.  I mean, my last guess, the one I wrote about, that one was right. Well, it was a little less sensational than I had imagined, but that’s a good thing.  So I was mostly right, but I’ll take that.  All the guesses before it were very wrong, based on not enough information.  Even guessing the ending, I still enjoyed it.  And now, of course, I have to pick another book.  It’s such a burden to live this way.

Predictability isn’t always a bad thing

I have read all of Kate Morton’s books.  Well, I’m a quarter from the end of the only one of hers I hadn’t read, so that’s mostly true.  I have enjoyed them all, some more than others.  They’re very similar, but that’s something I kind of like about them.  They have all these twists and turns.  And with this one, I’m enjoying anticipating the twists and turns.  It’s like watching a movie, when you have to pause and say out loud (it doesn’t count if  you only think it) who you think did it or how you think it’ll turn out.  You have to call it.  I’m doing that with this book (although not out loud – the rules are different for reading), and it’s kind of fun.  I’ve already been wrong twice, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got it now.  I’ll let you know.

Task completed

We signed a lease for a cool apartment in Annapolis this morning!  Yay for us!  That’s one thing I no longer have to worry about.  Now that the housing situation is taken care of, I can move on to the next couple of things, like moving.  We’re moving in THREE WEEKS, so I’ll just switch over to thinking/planning/worrying about that full time.

We took today off work and spent three hours in the storage unit going through the rest of the books.  There are twelve boxes in my car now, so I’ll ask my coworkers to go through them this week and then donate the rest.  The storage unit has officially been purged (except for the bookshelves, which are going to Brian (if he still wants some) and Sean and Emily (who will take as many as we’ll give them).  So this weekend, we’re going to turn a sharp eye on everything in the apartment.  What can go?  What’s being stored?  What’s traveling with us?  The biggest thing for me is trying to get all of my clothes into one dresser.  The smaller dresser.  I can do it.

Totally above board

So I’ve had all these books in my car (like 7 boxes) for 5 days, and whenever I mention it to someone (with the intention of offering them the books), I feel like a traveling salesman or something.  A shady one.  Like I’m dealing books out of the back of my car (which is EXACTLY what I’m doing).  Except I’m giving them away for free.  I won’t go so far as paying people to take the books (I have other ways to get rid of them – that sounds shady as hell, too), but you can have any or all of them!  Please!  Take!  And keep in mind there will be more soon.

The purge continues

We’re still going through everything we own and trying to get rid of as much as possible.  We want to lighten the load, both for moving and for living.  “As much as possible” = as much as we’re comfortable getting rid of, and we don’t always agree on that, but we’ll keep adjusting as we move along.

We spent about 4 hours on Friday in the storage unit choosing which of our children to give away and which ones to keep.  It was painful, and we only got halfway through, so we’re going to have to do it again soon.  On the plus side, I don’t regret our decisions, and I get to drive around with a carload of books until I get rid of them (the car smells good).  It was the right thing to do!

Then we got home and I started going through my dresser drawers again.  I’ve got a stack of t-shirts that are going away, and Molly has claimed much of my work wardrobe (such as it is), which is helpful to a point – I don’t dress up for work much (mostly jeans), so there’s not that much to give away.  I think I can get rid of more shoes…  Winter clothes are harder to make decisions about now.  I’ve already done the easy stuff (I didn’t wear at all last winter?  It’s gone.), but in summer I’m inclined to toss everything.  That won’t be all that helpful when it starts to get cold again, and I have to buy new things.  I wonder how much of a pain it would be if we used the storage unit to store seasonal clothes.  Too many trips?  With boxes?  Maybe.  I didn’t even go to the trouble of storing seasonal clothes in the house (which is why I needed two dressers and a closet).  But it would mean we’d be traveling with less.  Except when we go somewhere for longer than one or two seasons…yeah, I think that’s a bad idea.  Fewer clothes!  I need to get rid of more stuff.

The danger in picking the wrong book

I’m reading a book by an author I’ve read before (and liked).  I’m reading a book John really enjoyed.  I’m reading a book I’m enjoying, but I can’t seem to find the time to read it.  That is a sign that I’m not in the right head space for this book.  When I REALLY enjoy what I’m reading, I can’t put it down.*  I find the time to read.  I read when I should be going to sleep, when I’m making dinner, between commercials when we’re watching TV, at red lights in the car.  I started this book two weeks ago, and I’m only 30% in.  I like it, I really do.  I guess I’m just not in the mood.  But I’m NOT going to put it down.  I don’t give up that easily.

*I almost wrote “When I’m reading a book I can’t put down, I can’t put it down.”  Duh.

Same old

It’s that time again: time to pick a new book.  But it’s bedtme and I’m sleepy, so I’m going to put it off until tomorrow.  Which really means tomorrow after work.  Why do I even want to put it off?  I certainly don’t want to NOT read something.

I have made this complaint before.  No more.

Hey, my company offered Molly the job she interviewed for, and she’s accepting it!  That’ll be interesting.  Good, but interesting.  More to come as the story unfolds.  Or however that goes.

You know what’s cool?  My keyboard.  It lights up.  See?

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Yeah, that’s a great picture.  I’m on a roll tonight.  I should definitely keep writing random stuff and then trailing off without any attempt to make it interesting.  Yup.  That’s what I should do.

Oh, wait!  I know what I’m reading next.  Finally, I have purpose!  Energy renewed, off to start a new book.  (Is this my process?  Kind of irritating.  Thanks for wading it through it!)

Want something good to read?

Now that I’ve outed myself as a fangirl, I might as well list the books I’ve been reading lately that have been great.  I’d say you could go check out my What I’ve Been Reading page, but I haven’t updated it in months, so there’s not much new to see.  I should do that soon.  For now, here are my latest favorites.  I’ve been reading a lot of really good fiction.  And speaking of fangirls, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is on that list.  I’m working my way through all of her books.

Fangirl, Attachments, and Eleanor & Park, all by Rainbow Rowell – I think there’s only one more of hers that I haven’t read yet.  I bought it a while ago.  Am I saving it?  Maybe.  For what?  I don’t know.

A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan – at least one sequel has been published (yay!), with another one on the way/maybe published.

The Name of the Star, Maureen Johnson – this is the first in a trilogy that is COMPLETE.  Hooray for that.

Sword, Amy Bai – as I’ve mentioned before, she’s writing the sequel of what I’m assuming is a trilogy.  I’m willing to bet the third one will be called “Crown”.

Valor’s Choice and The Better Part of Valor, Tanya Huff – I just found out there are three more!  I’m very excited.

Redshirts, John Scalzi – he’s constantly writing more, so I’m not worried about running out of his stuff to read.

The Apothecary and The Apprentices, Maile Meloy – the third one is…being written?  dreamed about?  I’m not sure where it stands.

I really am working on updating my What I’ve Been Reading page.  I got from July of last year to the beginning of October over the weekend.  I’ll get to present day eventually.

P.S. These people are all fun on Twitter, too.  Well, the four of them I follow are fun.

At loose ends

Today has been such a weird day.  We slept in (didn’t get up until nine – gasp!), and we didn’t really have any plans at all.  Had some breakfast, watched a little TV.  All I knew was that I wanted to work out and I might make cookies and I might get to the store.  Anything else was fine.  John went into the other room to play his guitar (I believe he’s trying to write something), and I…couldn’t decide what to do.  I finished one book last night, so I started another one.  Got 6% in.  Not interested.  Put it down.  No big loss – it was $1.99 and I don’t remember whose recommendation put it on my list, but it’s been there for a long time.  Picked another book, one I should LOVE.  Got 8% in.  I don’t like it.  I think.  I can’t tell if I really don’t like it or if I’m just not in the mood.  But I put it down.  Okay, then.  I decided I’d go to the gym.  (It’s really cold and windy – not running outside.)  I put workout clothes on.  I got ready to leave the apartment.  Eh, didn’t really feel like using the treadmill, and I can do plenty of exercises right here in the living room.  So I didn’t leave.  Tried to do zumba with Lisa’s youtube videos.  Too weird.  Push-ups?  I did 15.  Anything else?  Nah.  Didn’t feel like it.  …  Okay, then.  What do I do when I don’t feel like exercising and I can’t decide what I want to read?  Play on the internet, right?  Wrong.  Not in the mood.  What the hell is wrong with me?

Well, cleaning the apartment was also on the list for the weekend, so I clipped my tiny mp3 player to my shirt (still in my workout clothes), and cleaned the apartment.  While singing along to random favorite songs.  You know what?  THAT’S what I needed to get me out of whatever funk I fell into after breakfast today.  CLEANING.  Again, what the hell is wrong with me?

Actually, I think it was the music and the singing, so you can all rest easy.  John eventually came out of the other room, decided HE wanted to work out, and I tagged along.  Much better.  Now I’m clean and dressed in normal clothes and the apartment is clean and I’m waiting for John to get out of the shower and then we’re going to try to grab some dinner out and see Kingsman: The Secret Service, which I’ve been excited about since I saw the preview months and months ago.  Possibly when we saw Guardians of the Galaxy, way back in August.

I’m glad I got all that sorted out.  Of course, I still haven’t picked my next book.

I’m usually not that kind of fan

I finished reading Sword, by Amy Bai, Sunday afternoon.  Within three minutes of finishing it, I’d sent her an email telling her how much I loved it.  I’m pretty sure I managed to keep the gushing to a minimum, and it wasn’t a long email or anything, but seriously – I really liked this book.  (Also, I love the internet.  I’m not one for sending fanmail under normal circumstances, and if I’d had to write an actual letter and put postage on it and mail it, I NEVER would have done it.  This way is so much easier.)  I’m pretty sure it’s the opener to a series, but it doesn’t have to be.  It IS her first book, which makes me happy for her and sad for me.  She doesn’t have anything else for me to read!  What am I going to do?

Here’s how I heard of her: The Big Idea: Amy Bai, on John Scalzi’s blog.  I bought the book within a day of reading that.  (It’s only $4.99 for Kindle right now, by the way.)

Picking a book shouldn’t be this hard

Finally read Redshirts (John Scalzi), and I don’t know what took me so long.  It was hilarious.  I read it in about 18 hours, starting Sunday night – it was helpful to have Monday off work, and also helpful to have it on my Kindle app, so I could read it while charging away on the not-exactly-an-elliptical-machine at the gym for an hour.  I couldn’t put it down (and didn’t have to).  Just as well I wasn’t at work.

Now I face the always difficult task of picking my next book.  Will it be as good?  Should I pick something along the same lines or completely different?  I finished A Discovery of Witches Sunday (which I thoroughly enjoyed).  That’s different (as was going to Redshirts right after it).  Should I start the sequel?  Move on to something else entirely?  I don’t know.

No, I do know.  I have a few books already downloaded to my tablet that I haven’t read it, and I’m going to choose one of them.  Just because.

Now, having made that decision, I’m going to watch some TV.

It was a tabletop kind of weekend

Our trip to the mall yesterday was prompted by our need to get to a Barnes & Noble because, as I mentioned a week or so ago, John’s family knows us so well that we ended up with two copies of Geek Out.  One of them came from Barnes & Noble, so we headed there, receipt in hand, to exchange it.  Our plan was to get Lords of Waterdeep, but they didn’t have it, so we got D&D: Wrath of Ashardalon instead.  We played it last night, just the two of us, and it was actually really fun (it comes with a big dragon!).  We classed it up a bit with dinner (wine, baguette, cheese, apple, honey).  Right now I can’t remember if we won (too much wine?)…I think we did.  Today, we finally tried Elder Sign.  Also fun, but much more complicated to get going, and we lost – the Ancient One devoured us.

To end our nerdy weekend, we are probably going to watch the first couple of episodes of Agent Carter (or possibly watch Star Wars, which I have borrowed from a coworker and will have to give back soon).  For now, John is trying to solve an email server problem, and I am going to read my book, I think.  I just started A Discovery of Witches, and I think I want to be this character.  She went to Oxford for grad school, and the book starts with her in the Bodleian Library, doing research.  I’ve been there!  Took the tour!  And she runs AND she does yoga.  She’s also a witch who I think is going to end up in love with a vampire, so maybe I don’t want to be her exactly, but the framework for what I want is there.

Conjunction Junction

Some books are mysteries (I just read a good one), some are romance, some are thrillers, and so on, right?  I mean, genre fiction – it exists.  Duh. A couple of the books I read recently covered at least two genres each, depending on how you want to categorize them.  They weren’t bad (I enjoyed them both), but I didn’t go into them with any idea what they were about, so it was a bit of a surprise to find that one was a Victorian mystery with vampires and werewolves and oh wait it’s a romance, too, and the other was a superhero book (that part I knew) with zombies (surprise!).  Are authors afraid their readers will get bored?  Or maybe the authors are bored?  I really did enjoy both books, but the premises sound so sensational, so ridiculous.  (Trendy?  Maybe.  Yes.)  You know what, though?  I don’t care.  I want to read anything and everything.  Mostly.  If it’s fiction.