I voted!

I got up extra early this morning to vote (I had to go to DC, so early was already non-negotiable).  It was FREEZING this morning, and I wasn’t dressed for it (I’m not ready for winter), so I was trying to get inside the high school as quickly as possible.  Of course, the volunteers (all wearing coats and scarves) wanted to chat.  One guy said he was campaigning for the Republican guy, and promised me a flyer with his name on it when I come back out ’cause he’ll running for something soon.  I don’t remember what – I tuned him out when he told me who he was campaigning for.  And isn’t he not allowed to campaign for anyone that close to the school?  Anyway, I was nice to him because, you know, I’m nice like that, and then another volunteer asked me if I wanted a sample Democratic ballot to take with me.  I was really cold and in a hurry, so I said no, thanks, I know who I’m voting for.

I’m afraid I may have misled those nice volunteers into thinking I voted for Republicans.  Was nice to the Republican guy – check.  Was possibly a little short with the other guy and refused a sample Democratic ballot – check.  I hate being misrepresented, even by myself.

I voted for the Democrats, I swear!

Now I have to hunker down and finish my book.  It’s very important that I finish it tonight because I have a book to re-read before I can read the one I bought today.

Where the grass is labeled

I want SO many books.  John and I ran a bunch of errands today, and one of them was a trip to Borders (33% off coupon – yay!) where I got the new Connie Willis book (love her).  I walked through the science fiction section and saw at least two books on every shelf that I want to read.  And own.  And keep on my bookshelves forever.

This is a problem.

I don’t have enough time to read all these books.  And I haven’t read at least 30% of the books I already own.  Maybe only 20%.  Hm.  I should figure that out.  Later.  How do I convince someone to pay me to read what I want, when I want to (which is all day and all night)?  If any of you have the answer, please share.

Wait.  Wait!  I’ve got it.  Jess, hire me to be your editor.  (You know, with all that spare cash you have lying around.)  Put me on retainer and, in between editing the chapters of your book (which is going to be fantastic), I’ll read.  No, I have no experience as an editor (other than editing college papers for John, Erik, and my roommates), and no, I don’t have any contacts in the publishing world, but wouldn’t that be fun?

(Jess, this is not a serious offer.  Well, it is, but I wouldn’t expect you to pay me until your second book, after you’re rolling in cash from the first book.  🙂  )

More free time please

I finished The Power of One tonight.  Really liked it, but I thought the ending was too abrupt.  I want more!  Good thing there’s a sequel.  Too bad John wants to read it first.

I would really (REALLY) like to have a lazy weekend, but I don’t think that’s in the cards.  What would I do with my lazy weekend?  Weeds marathon.  There are five seasons available on Netflix Instant, and John and I are in the middle of the second season.  Maybe we’ll take breaks from replacing the brakes on my car and other chores and have a couple of mini-marathons.  Maybe.  And Arrested Development.  (Did you follow me there?)  We’re still in the first season on that show.  There’s just too much TV to watch!

The Fibonacci Quarterly

Google is amazing.  John is reading Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra (I know, right?), and he asked me to google the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences.  Google listed that as the first choice by the time I got to “the online enc”.  No kidding.

There must be thousands of other online encyclopedias.  Hundreds, anyway.  How did Google know I was looking for THAT one?  (I’m aware that that there’s a real answer to that question, that it’s mostly about statistics and possibly about the sorts of things I google, ’cause if everyone else tracks what I search for and buy and spend time on, why wouldn’t I expect Google to, but I’m not looking for it right now.  Mostly I’m interested in the fact that John’s reading a book about algebra and I spent about an hour today putting together a spreadsheet to track the TV shows we’re watching, when each show is on, what episodes we’ve seen, and how far behind we are, since we no longer have a DVR to keep us on track.  I’m not sure what that says about us.  Let’s not dig too deep.  Also, let’s get out of parentheses.)

Lunges make your butt sore

Mine, anyway.  Thought you should know.  I did some lunges after my run yesterday morning, not even that many, and today I can hardly sit.  It’s the act of sitting (and then standing up again) that kills.  And forget stairs.  I’m crawling up them.

After buying a bunch of books at Borders on Saturday, we felt we needed more, so we went to the used bookstore in Reston this afternoon.  I like that store, and we always find books we want, but every time we go I feel like I’m missing something, like I didn’t look everywhere I could for a particular book.  I think it’s because the shelves go so high I can’t read the titles on the topmost rows.  The book I’ve been looking for, THE BOOK (there are about 12 of those at any given time), could be up there, and I’d never know.  Tragic.

Books, glorious books!

I had a coupon for 33% off one book and 10% off my entire shopping trip, so we went to Borders this morning.  Bought lots of books, mostly because in addition to my coupons (COOpuns!), they were having a sidewalk sale.  In the parking lot.  Whatever – everything out there was between $3.99 and $5.99.  Lots of books were bought by us.  And now I get to catalogue and shelve them.  Well, maybe not NOW, since it’s a beautiful day and I’d like to spend it outside.  Later.  But soon!

An aversion to work

Not work of all kinds, just the kind of work that’s paying my salary right now.  I haven’t been able to focus on work for two days straight.  And I know it’s not a general inability to concentrate since I’m perfectly capable of concentrating on just about anything that isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing from nine to five.  I do have a solution for tomorrow, though, so I’m not really worried about it.  Deadlines help, too.

You know what doesn’t help my powers of concentration?  The band.  They’re rehearsing (their next gig is this Sunday), and I can’t seem to finish a thought.

I was able to finish my book.  That was last night, though, so it doesn’t count.  (No band to compete for my attention.)  Holly sent it to me (Thanks, Holly!).  I liked it, and I plan to look for more from him (I read Breath, by Tim Winton), but the ending felt a little…off.  He brought up and quickly glossed over a lot of things right at the end that didn’t seem to be directly related to the majority of the book.  I can see how maybe everything could be pulled together, but it would take another book.  For the end to work, I felt like I needed more information about that part of his life.  And that’s what got glossed over.  But that was just the very end.

Dog books

I believe I’ve made my opinion of Marley and Me (book and movie) known.  Actually, now that I’ve done a quick search of my archives, maybe I haven’t.  I didn’t like it.  Not even a little.  Train your damn dog!  I’m all for funny dog/animal stories, really I am, but when all the scenes that are supposed to be funny are based on the fact that the dog is out of control because his owner NEVER TRAINED HIM, I start to get really annoyed.  I’ve read a couple of other books about dogs or “by” dogs (Edgar Sawtelle, some book about a dog who helps his owner solve his wife’s murder, another book about a guy who gets a herding dog and quits every time he starts training ’cause it’s too hard – whiner, etc), and they generally aren’t my favorites.  I’m not entirely sure why I keep trying, but I’ve heard only good things about The Art of Racing in the Rain, so when I saw it on the bookshelf last weekend, I asked Emily if I could borrow it.  I started it yesterday, and so far, I’m happier than expected (given my history with dog books).  It’s not about the dog, it’s about the family.  Told from the point of view of the dog.  That makes it a little twee, but it’s not stopping me from getting involved with the characters.  To the point where I get mad (and maybe yell a little) when bad stuff happens to the poor guy.  So…I like it?  I’ll let you know.  If I had to say right now, I’d say it’s not one of my favorites, but if someone asked me if they should read it, I’d probably say yes.  Couldn’t hurt.  Won’t make you dumber.  🙂

It does make me wonder if Roxy and Riley really understand every word I say.  If they do, I should be a little more careful…

I wouldn’t say I’m bored, exactly…

I’m between books again.  I picked up Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi, but it’s a retelling of The Last Colony from the teenager’s point of view, and I’m not really in the mood for that.  On the other hand, it’s a quick read (and enjoyable), so I’ll probably finish it now, rather than put it back down.  But that doesn’t solve the real problem.  What’s next?  What am I in the mood for?  And I don’t mean just for my next book.  This has been kind of an aimless afternoon.  We called a few Sprint stores to find out if any of them had the EVO (EVO or Evo?) in stock.  None of them do.  We’re thisclose to ordering them.  I’m not really sure what’s holding us up right now.  I read out on the deck with the dogs for a little bit, but since I’m feeling all wishy-washy about my book, I got distracted easily.  I came in and watched an episode of Dead Like Me (yay Roku!), and then John asked me to play around on the electronic drumset a little, so I did that…  John is installing upgrades on his studio computer, and I’d like to curl up on the couch next to him with a book, and here I am.  Back to the book issue.  I might be able to settle down if I had my next book all planned out.  The books I really want to read, or at least the ones on my mind right now (the next Jim Butcher, the next Sherwood Smith, the next Jasper Fforde), I don’t have.

I’m making this harder than it has to be.  The solution?  A mystery.  And I’m going with a Dorothy Sayers mystery because I haven’t read any of hers yet.

Going nowhere

I can be organized, but I’m usually not.  Our book collection is one of the only exceptions.  Maybe the only exception.  A few years ago (maybe four?) I created a spreadsheet with details of every book we own, and now it’s terribly out of date.  Yesterday, I started going through the shelves and updating that list.  It’s going to take a while, but I’m already about 25% done with the fiction after just a couple hours spread across today and yesterday.

I know, this is fascinating.  My point might be that I always want to be organized, and I can be about most things, but only short term.  You can see where my priorities lie.  Everything else takes more effort that I want to put in.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this.  Possibly nowhere.  And that seems like a good place to stop.

Down to two and a half free shelves

I was home from work a little early today, so I decided to spend my free afternoon doing my favorite kind of housework: putting books away.  I shelved all of the new books, and since I had to put them in the right places (alphabetically), I had to move all of the books, shelf by shelf.  We used to have six free shelves on this last bookshelf in the dining room, but now we’re down to two and a half.  Another 60 books or so, and we’ll be out of shelf space again.  Poor us.  We’ll have to buy more bookshelves.

Go see Bridget. She had an alien encounter (and made Cleveland look gorgeous).  Then watch this. (The two things are not at all related.)  I laughed so hard I nearly cried.

Close call

I came thisclose to missing this year’s huge used book sale.  You know, the one that happens the last weekend in June every year?  The one I usually talk up to everyone I meet?  The one I usually invite people over for so they can be in town to go with me?  I forgot about it.  John and I were just going through the garage, looking for hazardous household waste to get rid of at the high school (the county has a contractor come by every couple of months for that sort of thing), and the book sale popped into my head.  I kinda shouted “Oh, shit.  The book sale!” as I ran for the computer to check the dates (yes, it’s that important to me), and from the garage I could hear John asking, “When is it?” with some concern.  Yeah, it’s this weekend.  Like right now.  So we’ve put everything else on hold (everything else equals, um, not really anything since we weren’t doing anything and hadn’t made any plans – that’s interesting.  Maybe subconsciously we knew the book sale was this weekend and deliberately left our schedule open.) and we’re going right now.  I’m not prepared (I usually have lists), but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what we have and what I want.  Not having a list means I’ll browse more.  And that’s okay with me.

I’m getting a lot of mileage out of Sunday

Not a real statue.

See?

You may not know this about me, but I have a sign on my forehead that says “Pick me!  I’ll play along!”  I love street performers.  I’ll always stop to watch.  And 9 times out of 10, I get picked out of the crowd to participate in some way.  (Or four times out of the five I can remember off the top of my head, if you want to get specific.  The fifth time I can think of it was Sandwich Stealer who was chosen)  I love it.  This past Sunday, as I was leaving the aquarium to go to Harvard (and before I couldn’t find the State Street T station), I wandered around Quincy Market/Fanueil Hall and stopped to watch a street performer.  Of course.  Did I get picked out of the crowd?  Yes.  Do I have proof?  Yes!  Because I asked some nice lady to take pictures.  Are they any good?  No.  But here’s one anyway.

I handed those flowers up to him and then did weird things with my hand before catching that pillow and throwing it back to him. Fascinating, right?

I shouldn’t go to bookstores when I’m away from home.  Unless I’m out of reading material, of course.  And if I’m driving, I think it’s okay.  So really, it’s just when I’m flying that I shouldn’t do it.  Boston has lots of bookstores, lots of used bookstores, and lots of good bookstores.  I’ve been in four of them.  And one of them was on a sidewalk near Harvard.  See?

I found four books there, $2 each.  Then I went to Harvard Book Store.  New books upstairs, used downstairs, and bought a few more.  THEN I went to one near where I’m working and bought three more Lawrence Block mysteries (I’m in the middle of one of them now).  And I have to fit them all into the two bags I’m already checking to get them home.  No more!  I’ll refrain from entering any more bookstores as long as I’m here.

I’ll take it where I can get it

I’m not going to pretend I’m happy to be away from home, but last night and today so far are making it a little easier to bear.  I guess I can’t be unbearably depressed and crying all the time.  John, can you forgive me?  🙂  If I had my way, this plane would be heading towards home, not Boston.  Since it’s not – damn.  Ignore the no-crying statement.  I’m not crying, exactly, but the song that just started (“(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am”) brought tears to my eyes.  Because I’m a sap and I’m away from home.  Today’s post is brought to you by The Living Sisters.  If I could find that song on YouTube, I’d post it.  Here’s the one that was playing right before it, when I was feeling a little happier:

Back to what’s made the last day and a half bearable (and, you know, good).  Mom, Dad, and Gaby drove up from Corey and Candy’s place yesterday to spend the afternoon and evening with me on their way north.  Mom and Dad have been all over the south over the last two weeks, and I’m ridiculously happy they realized that coming through Atlanta wouldn’t put them too far out of their way.  I was done with work yesterday right about 1pm, and I wasn’t expecting Mom and Dad to arrive until about 4:30, so I went to the aquarium.  It was cool and everything, but I think Baltimore and Boston have better ones.  Not at all the peaceful afternoon I’d imagined when I thought about going to the aquarium.  Yesterday was the last day of school for many of the districts in Atlanta, and it looked like most of them let out early and shipped the students to the aquarium.  NOT quiet, pretty crowded, but while I didn’t get to experience the whole meditation-while-looking-at-fishies thing, I did have perfect timing to see all the animals get fed.  I was checking out the otter exhibit (they were all napping in a big pile) when an aquarium employee appeared and tossed some food at them.  They bolted out of that pile like they’d been faking the nap and scurried all over the habitat scooping up the food, doingcutelittlehumanthingswiththeirhands. Where was my camera?  That’s right.  Hotel room.  But it was fun to watch.  Oh, one thing that is totally cool about the Georgia Aquarium is how they’ve put half of the tanks and exhibits over the heads of the people walking around.  So in the Georgia swamp area, you’re wandering around looking at frogs and snakes and things (this one little boy had camped out in front of the tree frog tank and made it his business to show me every single slimy, slithery thing in there), and then something catches your eye and you look UP.  And above me, right there over my head, was a huge tank of water with a glass bottom, and a two-foot long catfish looking down at me.  There were all kinds of fish swimming over my head.  And that’s just the river exhibit.  When we got to the ocean part (Ocean Voyager, maybe?), the track leads you into this tunnel that goes under and through what they say is the largest aquatic exhibit in the world.  Lots of sharks, giant grouper, a manta ray, and four half-grown whale sharks.  And lots of other fish.  LOTS of other fish.  After you get through the tunnel (which is just SO cool – seriously the fish and the sharks are swimming next to you and over you and it’s SO COOL – they had hammerhead sharks and the kind with noses that look like chainsaws.  I can never remember what those are called.), you end up in a room with a window onto the exhibit that’s the size of a movie screen.  I got there just in time to watch them feed these fish, which they do by pumping food in through a pipe.  Everything in the tank zeroes in on this one pipe, right in front of the glass, I got to watch the feeding frenzy.  Then, while I was in the tropical reef exhibit, they fed those fish, too.  It was neat to watch, but I think I’ve had my fill of watching fish eat.  After a couple of hours, I’d seen everything (minus the exhibits with an extra charge), so I went back to the hotel.  About an hour later, I got a phone call from Gaby telling me they were checking in, so I met them in front.  Where Gaby got shy for about five seconds.  Then she got over it.  I can’t blame her.  I think it’s been a year since I saw her last.  And at four and a half, I think she can be forgiven for not immediately recognizing an aunt she’s seen all of five times (now six) in her life.  She’s the funniest little kid.  We went to dinner at PF Chang’s (they have a reliably gluten-free menu for Dad, and besides, they’re good), and she started to fade a little.  At first, she wanted to sit with the girls, so they three of us crowded into one side of the booth with Dad all by himself on the other side.  After a while, she disappeared under the table after a crayon she’d dropped, and when she came back up, she’d moved to Dad’s side.  Mom bagged up the leftovers and left them in the middle of the table.  I started making faces at Gaby, who gave me a blank (tired) look and then slowly slid the bag over until it blocked her view of me.  Cracked me up.  And she insisted on sleeping with me instead of Grammy and Poppy last night.  I guess Mom and Dad had suggested it to her earlier in the day, but we all expected her to back out once it came down to it.  Not Gaby.  I was about to drop and she was on her second wind (and an hour behind me, since she was coming from Central time), but even knowing that if she stayed with me we were going to bed right now didn’t deter her.  So we headed across the hall to my room after Mom made her brush her teeth and she settled onto the right side (if you’re on it) of the giant bed.  I got ready for bed and climbed in, and she scooted over to the middle so I could read her the two stories she’d been promised.  After two stories, I was putting myself to sleep, so we turned off the light (leaving the bathroom light on and the light over by the door so it wouldn’t get too dark).  She tossed and turned a bit (and was still in the middle of the bed, leaving me less than a third on the left), and then decided she didn’t want sleep at the head of the bed.  She wanted to sleep at the foot of the bed, under the comforter that was folded up there.  I didn’t care, so she moved and tossed and turned down there.  And then demanded another story.  And another.  And another.  So I made one up, which apparently didn’t go over well, because she asked for princess stories after that, particularly Ariel and Belle.  So with my eyes closed and my words slurring (I think), I managed slightly butchered and completely condensed renditions of “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast” (the Disney versions, naturally).  At some point, she moved back up to the head of the bed, in the middle, sprawled out at an angle, and fell asleep.

I didn’t sleep well.

But she’s so cute!  I can forgive a lot for a cute face and a little girl who tells me she loves me without any prompting.  So yesterday was fun, and this morning, too, and I’m always happy to hang out with Mom and Dad.

On top of THAT, when I checked in online for my flight to Boston today, Air Tran offered me an upgrade to business class for a very reasonable price, and I took it.  So here I am, sitting in the very front row of the business class section, next to the window, with free wi-fi.  I’ve just finished one of those cute little airline bottles of chardonnay and two milano cookies, I’m listening to The Living Sisters (although I’m on the second round of the album and I’m thinking about switching to something else), and I’ll have all day tomorrow in Boston to do whatever I want before I have to work on Monday.  I think the aquarium is calling my name.  🙂  The one in Boston has penguins!

So, even though I’d rather be home (or be going to Boston on vacation with John), I can make the best of it.  It helps that I ran this morning.  Makes me feel like I’m holding my own in my battle against getting fat.

Enough of this. I’m going back to my book.  I just started a mystery by Tana French called In The Woods.

Not the right kind of bookstore

I went to visit one of those bookstores I was looking up yesterday.  It’s in Little Five Points, A Capella Books, and while the area is really cool, the bookstore was a little disappointing.  Eclectic, yes, but not very big and kind of a disappointing selection.  It’s not what I was looking for.  And they didn’t have any Lawrence Block books, either.

I’m tired and not feeling particularly chatty tonight, so I’m going to read in the bathtub and go to bed.  Hope you don’t mind.

Because “Non Sequitur” was taken

John thinks I should change my tag line from “What did you expect?” to “Because Non Sequitur was taken”.  And now that I’ve checked, it’s not taken, and I wonder if I should buy it…

In honor of John, here are a few unrelated items:

As I dragged my suitcases from the baggage carousel to the train for the rental car counters, I followed a woman leading a doggie train across the street.  Why didn’t I take a picture?  I’m an idiot, that’s why.  The woman had a rolling suitcase behind her, and attached to that, she had what looked like an overnight bag on wheels with mesh sides.  The top was open and there were two little white dogs (Westies, maybe) checking out the surroundings.  One was seated with just its head poking out, but the other was up on its hind legs, leaning on the front of the bag, craning its neck in every direction.  One of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.  They looked like they were riding on the caboose of a little train.

My last rental car (a Kia Spectra), while economy, had power everything.  You know, the normal things (windows, locks, etc.).  This one, a Chevy Aveo, has power NOTHING.  Can you remember the last time you were in a car without power locks?  Without power windows?  My first car didn’t have power locks or windows, but it was an ’88 Corolla hatchback, not a 2009 Chevy four-door sedan, and I haven’t been in that car since…1997.

I finished the Lawrence Block book, The Burglar in the Library, last night before I went to sleep.  That’s right – I liked it SO much I couldn’t put it down.  Started it on the plane, finished it before I went to sleep.  And as soon as I can find a used bookstore around here that’s open when I’m able to get there, I plan to buy several more of his books.  And there are lots of used bookstores in Atlanta.

I started watching Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School tonight, a movie I’m pretty sure John isn’t interested in.  I am, but I can’t watch it now.  It’s about a guy (Robert Carlyle) getting over the death of his wife.  WHY would I want to watch a gut-wrenching, soul-twisting, tearjerker of a movie about a guy who’s lost his wife when I can’t be home with John?  I wouldn’t, that’s right, so I’m turning it off.  I’m going to curl up in bed with the next Dresden Files book ’cause a little light vampire-killing (or whatever monster he’ll go after in this book) is just what I need.

Me on a plane

It’s ten to three.  We pulled away from the gate on time, did some taxi-ing (how do you spell that?  Taxying?  Taxing?  Taxiing?), and then came to a standstill on the tarmac with a message from the pilot.  “Something something something from Atlanta, 30 minutes before we can take off, approximate time of take-off 16 after the hour, blah blah ten-minute warning to turn electronics back off.”  So…why did we pull away from the gate?  Why board at all?  Maybe so those of us who are sleepy can nap uninterrupted, as both of my seatmates are doing right now.  (One is snoring.  Lightly, but still.)  I’m on the window this time, exit row again, next to two seemingly ordinary people.  We’ll see how it goes.  And Mom, I don’t ALWAYS have stories to tell about my flight.  On my way home from Atlanta two days ago, my seatmate was a woman visting her daughter in Leesburg.  She was a bit of a talker, but perfectly nice.  It wasn’t her fault that I wasn’t in the mood to chat.  (Maybe if she’d been a hot ex-Marine I’d have changed my mind about that.  🙂 )

I finished my Dresden Files book while waiting to board.  I have another one with me, but I’m going to try a new mystery writer first.  New to me.  Has anyone heard of Lawrence Block?  I read about his books somewhere (almost everything I buy comes from a recommendation now), but I can’t remember where.  So far so good.  The book is called “The Burglar in the Library”, the main character owns a used bookstore, and he’s heading to an English-style bed and breakfast to look for a possibly non-existent rare book.  Just my cup of tea.

Yesterday, John and I went to Erik’s place to help him celebrate getting his Masters degree in International Commerce and Policy.  (Erik, did I get it right?)

Hey, ten-minute warning.  I’ll finish that later.

Much later:

I’m in my hotel room after a trip to a nail salon (yay for pretty toes) and a trip to Kroger for breakfast and lunch supplies for the week.  Food and relaxing are at the top of my list for right now, so, um, bye.

A book I can’t recommend and a cheesecake I can

I finally finished The Impossible Bird a couple of days ago.  What a weird-ass book.  I can’t even describe it.  There are these two guys, brothers, who are dead (the book says so in the beginning), but they’re still acting like they’re alive, and there’s something to do with aliens that are hummingbirds, or they’re using the hummingbirds, and they (the brothers) have to kill each other, but they’re already dead, and they have to come to terms with…something…it was seriously weird, and I don’t really know what it was about.  But it’s over, and I moved on to the next book in the Dresden Files series.

I had this delicious shrimp etouffee at Copeland’s of New Orleans for dinner tonight.  And then, because I couldn’t resist, I got the cheesecake napoleon (cheesecake with layers of pudding cake on either side) with bananas foster as a topping to go.  It looks and smells like the best thing ever, but I haven’t tried it yet.  Typing is keeping me away from it and I’m starting to think that’s not the best arrangement.  Which means typing will have to go.  It’s calling my name!

Updated: Who cares about cheesecake?  Not me.  It’s the pudding cake drenched in whatever bananas foster is made of that I can’t get enough of.  SO good.  And SO not good for me.

Roaming the Internet when I should be outside

Thanks to this post at Three Word Chant! (punctuation theirs), I think I’ve found my new favorite place to go for a chuckle.  Check this one out.

I found that link because I’m in the middle of organizing my bookmarks.  Again.  (And that means I have to go to every single bookmarked site to see if I want to keep it.)  When I organized them last time, I put all the blogs I read in one folder, in alphabetical order.  When I have free time, I go through the list in order.  But I’ve had so little free time lately that I haven’t been getting far down the list, and I’ve inadvertently been missing some of the sites I used to read daily just because their names start with letters in the second half of the alphabet.  Then I feel bad for neglecting them because that reminds me of always being stuck at the back of the line (for lunch, for assemblies, for field trips) in the elementary school because my last name started with an S.  Now my last name starts with a B, but that hardly matters ’cause no one asks us to line up in alphabetical order anymore.  Anyway, I’m over that, but I don’t want to treat my favorite blogs the same way.  So now, my favorites are in a Daily Blog folder, separate from the rest.  Yes, I play favorites.  And I need to update my blogroll, but that will have to happen on a day that’s not so beautiful.  Because why am I inside?  It’s gorgeous out there!

I have to shower (ran six miles this morning – go me!) and then go to the library.  I need books on CD for my super-long commute (now that I’m not carpooling anymore).

Also, I am totally losing my mind.  There was something else I planned to write about, but I have NO idea what it was.