February 11

Apparently Dove dark chocolates thinks I am not a genuine person.  This is what the foil lining told me–

Be free.  Be happy.  Be you.

and–

Feel free to be yourself.

Does this worry anyone else?  Just a little bit?

Other than the sad truth that I am eating chocolate at my desk, there are two ways to tell that I’m very busy at the moment.  One is that my desk has also become my dining table: I have a mug, a cup, a bowl of half-finished soup, two plates, two spoons, and an empty container of yogurt keeping my computer company.

The other way to know I’m busy is that my dining table has not dishes but books on it:  four novels in various stages of being read and six nonfiction reference books for my preface, along with eight to ten photocopied articles, a folder of my homework, and a folder of my grading.

Maybe more chocolates are called for.

February 9

My joy at the snow day today was mitigated somewhat by the fact that the automated alert program at my university waited until 6:11 AM to call and tell me about it.  So while I was grateful to hear the news, I was annoyed that I was now wide awake nineteen minutes before I would have been if I’d adhered to the original plan of teaching this morning.  So I stayed in bed for an excruciating forty more minutes, thinking about getting up and having breakfast and emailing students and planning my day, until I actually got up and did those things.

So my day consists of working on my thesis as long as possible at all costs.  To commence at 9:00 AM after I have the world’s longest, hottest shower and one or possibly two cups of tea.  Operation Thesis Guilt will be in effect until 4:00 PM, at which time I plan to give up and read more of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow.  But if I genuinely work on the thesis even most of that time, I will have gained a lot of ground toward finishing my preface by February 15.

Strangely, it does not appear to be snowing right now.  The roads appear white, but not the ground.

February 7

Dear Weather,

Please get snowy and stormy again before 6:00 tomorrow evening, so I can decide that it isn’t safe to drive to my class so I can not go to school without feeling guilty.

And if it isn’t too much to ask, could you keep road conditions hazardous through Wednesday morning, enough to make the university close again?  I’m supposed to teach a writing class then, but I don’t want the cancellation to be my fault.

Gratefully Yours,

Someone who really loves to read novels bundled up on the couch with a cup of tea

February 5

Truth.  If you read weird books and watch weird shows, you will dream weird dreams.

After dosing my brain with Jasper Fforde and Iain M. Banks, and Inception and Fringe season 2, I definitely had a dream in which I repeatedly kept waking up from a dream in which I was chasing someone (possibly another version of myself) through my own mindscape because I passionately wanted to torture them.

I’m doing better now, though.

February 2

I have two sets of two books each to write about.  One is a pair of books I have reread, the other is a pair of books I have elected not to read.

1a.  Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith.  For my January-February reading bridge, and to cheer me while I was pretty well plastered to the couch in a haze of cold medicine and sinus headache, I reread one of my favorite fantasy novels.  Meliara is a countess of nowhere particularly important who starts a war when she learns that the ruling court is scheming to violate a code of ethics that will deplete the countryside of the rare colorwoods.  Along the way, she and her brother encounter more than just soldiers, but also Mel’s own prejudice against the enigmatic Marquis of Shevraeth.  If you want a fantasy Pride and Prejudice, this is it: a well-realized world filled with derring-do and good humor, plus a dash of romance.

1b.  Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde.  This book concludes my accidental monthly rereading of the Thursday Next series, but my sadness is alleviated by the knowledge that book six will be coming out shortly.  In book five, Thursday tackles her textual duplicates, a teenage son who refuses to save the timestream, and Goliath Corporation’s latest scheme for traveling into fiction.  It’s as zany a tale as any Thursday fan could want.

2a.  The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.  I don’t know how long I’ve owned this book, but it must be at least three years.  The only reason I can think that I would have been given this book as a gift (because it surely can’t be something I would have bought for myself, unless it’s truly old and unless my tastes have changed that much) is that its subtitle says: “Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.”  Perhaps the kindly gift-giver neglected to notice that this isn’t, in fact, a novel, but a true crime/history about the intersection of an architect and a serial killer joined by the 1800-something World’s Fair.  Which sounds like a great premise, but (strangely) is less appealing to me for the fact of its being true.

2b.  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.  This does sound like a book I might have bought for myself once upon a time, since it was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2001, which is probably about how long I haven’t been reading it.  It’s a strange genre-bending blend of fiction and memoir, I understand, with pithy things to say about the human condition–at least of twenty-somethings who wonder what the purpose of life is while conversing aimlessly and possibly sleeping with each other.  Or so I gathered from flipping through it for the first time since I may have plucked it from the shelf.  Although, it looks like a used copy, and I’ve only gotten over my aversion for pre-read books in the last couple of years.  So this one is a mystery too, but I might get something good (i.e. something set somewhere not-real) when I trade it in.

Thus my Unread Books list is reduced from its original 53 to 30.  I congratulate myself.