What is the cutoff for deeper meanings? I was quite alert and ready to go on with my day from about 9:30 this morning, to about 12:30. I was getting a lot of things done. Then I decided I would take a little break and read a book that was recommended to me. A fiction book about Chinese religion and mythology.

I think I come across as a negative person who will reject anything, but in the case of many of the things I reject, I am also coming up with a counterpoint, which slowly unravels my mind to reveal what I am capable of.

As I read the book I became very sleepy. I knew I would become useless for conversation with other people, so I retreated into my brain. I stopped reading the book. I went out for a little bit, and while taking the bus back, I vaguely wondered if I looked out of it, or sleepy. Two guys were discussing wanting to buy a used bus. I tried to remember if Pepsi had a red can or if it was Coca-Cola, and whether I was truly unobservant or if it was understandable given that I don’t drink either. I got off the bus and realized only halfway through crossing the street that I hadn’t stopped to look if something was coming.

I hadn’t stopped thinking of the book. I don’t like it very much. I am tempted to ask the person that gave it to me what it is that I’m supposed to get out of the reading. The main character so far is described as someone who is very good at poetry. The best at poetry, even. I stopped there because I felt very cross at the idea that someone is simply “the best” at something, and the author states this as a matter of fact. I always thought the rule was “show don’t tell” but does that apply for old Chinese myths? Is this a Chinese myth? It’s trying to be, but I think that the entire book is written in a very “Western” way that denies some of the essence of Eastern writing. My head got murky from thinking more about the writing style than what was actually being said. I don’t know if I’ll ever be one of those people than can devour a good novel. I don’t know what books I should be reading that are excellent for devouring. Can someone recommend one?

See, this is what happens when I read printed books. I listen to them so I don’t think so much. It’s way too easy to set the book aside and get lost. I didn’t get past 10 pages. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Some people keep reading lists for the previous year, and I didn’t do that, so herrre we go:

- William Shatner – Up Till Now. William Shatner is a hilarious guy I enjoyed finding out about his life.
- Yevgeny Zamyatin – We. The first of its kind, but way poetic. I dunno, I wouldn’t read it again.
- Stephenie Meyer – The Twilight Saga. DON’T REMIND ME. GOD. ~SPARKLES~
- Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything. It was interesting at first, but either the continuing talk about geology and other stuff I don’t like, or the narrator’s voice just got annoying. I listened to most of it.
- Walter Miller – A Canticle for Leibowitz. Interesting Except for the middle part. The Middle Ages were never my cup of tea
- Robert Heinlein – Starship Troopers. I enjoyed it. It made me want to join the army Apparently the movie is insultingly different.
- Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake. I loved loved loved this book I enjoyed the theme and the characters. So I went on to try…
- Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale. The feminist overtones was a little too much. I have no idea how it ends and I don’t much care!!!
- Bard D. Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus. This book is about looking at the bible critically, and comparing ancient bible manuscripts and speculating why they are so different. It raised a lot of good points.
- Ray Bradbury – Martian Chronicles. It’s very good, and I would say better than Fahrenheit 451. YEAH I WENT THERE.
- Philip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dude, whatever, Buster and his Friendly Friends is not a tragic cut made by the movie. Everything about this cult classic is fairly average, but electric animals are an interesting idea.
- Ursula LeGuin – The Left Hand of Darkness. I enjoyed the second half. I don’t usually go for books that require an appendix (I don’t think the book does, but certainly the overarching universe LeGuin wrote in this series), but I got into it eventually. It does take a while to get to.
- Jonathan Lethem – Gun, With Occasional Music. Mehhhhhhhhh.
- Neil Gaiman – Stardust. I preferred the movie, but the book had a lot of interesting stuff too
- Michael E. Gerber – The E-Myth. WHY did I read the end of this book! It turned from a cool book with a lot of business ideas to some sort of love story with a client of his. Ummmmmm. Actually, they weren’t in love. He just kept bringing her up and then wrote a letter to her at the end. I pretended they were secret lovers~!
- Jack Welch – Winning. CANDOR! CANDOR CANDOR CANDOR. Or should I say “candah” Mr. Welch?
- Michael Smolensky – Body Clock Guide to Better Health. READ IT! Very important to everyone’s health.

I think I read some other ones, which I obviously neglected to put in this list. But wow, I read a lot, actually. 20 books (Twilight Saga is four) in a year? WOW.

Or um… listening list. Here are some of the books I got recently that I feel I should listen to:

- A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster. My best friend recommended it to me, and then followed it up with “It’s not really a book you should listen to” so LISTEN TO IT I SHALL.
- My Life, by Bill Clinton. I dunno, it was there and I bet he has all sorts of crap to say. Hurrah!
- Two Bill Cosby standup cds. He’s pretty funny, but I think his humor is lost on current generations. Like MASH.
- Some trilogy by Neal Stephenson. It was rated pretty high on Amazon, but then again, so was Twilight. I think ratings are only relevant if you have enough interest to have not only already read it, but bought it. Or however else you want to word that. “Clarity” my foot.
- The Story of Civilization, this huge multi-volume history book, basically, but it’s supposed to be really good. I listened to a bit, but didn’t get past the intro into the actual content. Boo.
- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I listened to the first hour of this one, actually, and it’s pretty interesting. It’s about exceptional people and statistical anomalies. He talked about how good Canadian hockey players almost all happen to be born in January-March. I don’t want to ruin the answer for you! Haha, go read it.
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I don’t know, it’s some kind of business book. I stole it from a business friend.

Quite a lot, but I get bored when I’m outside, soooo we’ll see. I’ll keep you updated

I’m back!  And have been shamelessly playing Persona.  Or at least I was… I blew a fuse I beat a boss and got through a million cutscenes and the power just blew I had to do the fight all over again… luckily it went well and I was able to skip through the cutscenes pretty quickly.  Turns out there were even more cutscenes after them.  They were funny

Ummm so I mentioned I started listening to “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”  Well, I got through about a half hour of the audio version when I had the sinking feeling that this book was not intended for my age group.  The character in the book was 14 and a freshman in high school.  Clue number one.  I hadn’t looked up anything about the book, so then I did and found out they sell it as young adult fiction.  Ahhh.  I got through a third of it, anyway.  I’m considering just finishing it.  But unless someone barges in with a glowing review, I think I will abstain and assume that Catcher in the Rye is a better coming-of-age story.

Even though it was Christmas gifts and all, I took my cousins out shopping for some books the day after Christmas… and refused to buy them any young adult crap.  The youngest is 17 for god’s sake.  I was reading plenty of adult fiction years before then.  Christmas or no, I will not be held responsible for their dumbing down of literature.  Bah humbug.  They got me back by then picking out stuff from the Romance section And then they told me they hadn’t read 1984 And then I found out that they were sold out of it So I got them Love in the Time of Cholera and some romance stuff and called it a day.  And promised to ship 1984.  I swear I have a copy but I think I’ll just buy a new one.

I have new baking pans as a gift They are beautiful and I hope to be baking lovely things in them.  I also got to pick out some knee-high socks from my favorite sock store.  Most are respectable argyle.  ONE pair is a horrid green with black stripes design.  I cringe when I see it So great.

I did a terrible thing.

I managed to control the crisis within my holiday break, but it threatens to spill over, maybe a little bit.

Okay, here goes:

I read the entire Twilight series.

Yes, it is an angsty teenage vampire love story, and yes I know the movie got terrible reviews. But I just HAD TO KNOW. I don’t know why, but I just needed to see what the fuss was about. And then I took in all… wait, let me check… 2460 pages of the series over the course of 4 days. I took the most time listening to the beginning of the first book, just to see how it would go. I liked the narrator’s voice and acting. Then it became unbearably slow and I switched to the print version. Good thing, too. I could actually take off 200 pages of that count because the second book had some really boring bits.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me Stupid vampire drama!! At least I finally caught up with it after the series was finished. That’s the best way to do it.

I’m listening to a book called Oryx and Crake right now. It’s pretty good. I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s a book about how genetic engineering has basically been the downfall of mankind. The way the book is written, though, is both maddening and addictive. Unlike Gattaca, where the entire history of genetic engineering is laid out for you in the first 10 minutes (followed by another 90 minutes of really really boring shit), Oryx and Crake tells you the current action, then backtracks. And then pops back to the current situation, and then backtracks again. And every time you have another flashback, you think that they’re going to explain exactly how things got so bad, and then they go back to the present. Ahhh. I’m about halfway through and it seems like I’m ALMOST. THERE. But I also think that once I get there I won’t want to know how the current stuff ends. It’s rather clever. But frustrating. I keep running off from my computer to lie down and listen to it.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a vested interest in how a story ends. It makes me want to… read. Fiction, even. As if I were capable of reading anything but non-fiction.

What up homies. I’m drifting off to sleep… my eyes are heavy… but I thought I might mention all the exciting things I did today, like go to the post office, eat fried chicken (and mashed potatoes and biscuits), and have my cam show. Laaalalaa hmmm I started reading another sci-fi book called We, but it turned out to be a dystopian book with undertones of Communist Russia social commentary, so I’ve abandoned it as a lost cause, as I’m all dystopia’ed out for a lifetime.

I still have tan lines on my feet from where I’ve been wearing my flipflops. It’s still hot out, so I wore them again Will they ever go back to normal? They’ve been there for months now and I think even more pronounced these days. I look at them amazedly, as if maybe I’m a little bit tan all over and just can’t tell. I think it’s funny, really, that I’m the princess of sunburn and there’s a weird tan on my foot