An invisible procession going by

98. Deadline by Chris Crutcher
99. Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris
100. What the world will look like when all the water leaves us by Laura van den Berg. Technically as it is 2:30 in the morning on January 1st, 2010, and I still have 50 pages to go in this book, it may not count, but I will allow it in good faith at any rate. I like this book quite a lot, actually.

96. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
97. Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

93. What Now? by Ann Patchett
94. Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel by Cara Lockwood. This little book was a-mazing! I mean, where else would you find a scene in which Emily Bronte, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Heathcliff, Mrs. Rochester, and Dracula all get in a brawl over some teenage delinquents? Also, Hunter S. Thompson is the bus driver.
95. Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama by Tim Wise

87. Push by Sapphire
88. The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges--And Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, by Daniel Golden (note: This sounds like a fantastic idea for a book, but is poorly researched and petulantly written, also somewhat racist and classist because it just ends up whining about affirmative action making way for dumb black kids while middle-class Jewish kids and Asians are screwed. Yeah, life's rough.)
89. Admission (a novel) by Jean Korelitz
90. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher. I LOVED this book!
91. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell (also excellent)
92. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (boring)

81. What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
82. Perfect Chemistry, by Simone Elkeles
83. Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
84. The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, by Jacques Steinberg

Official:
71. A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L'Engle
72. Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange
73. Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
74. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
75. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008, Jerome Groopman, ed.
76. The Best American Essays 2004, Louis Menand, ed.
77. The Best American Essays 2008, Adam Gopnik, ed.
78. A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris
79. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
80. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

And unofficial:
29. Claudia's Book
30. BSC #80: Mallory Pike, #1 Fan
31. BSC #74: Kristy and the Copycat
32. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume
33. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (I kind of want to count this as three but I'll be honest)

official:
66. Shakespeare's Christmas by Charlaine Harris
67. Shakespeare's Trollop ibid
68. Shakespeare's Counselor ibid
69. Real Murders ibid
70. A Bone to Pick ibid

And unofficial:
27. BSC Super Special #12: Here Comes the Bridesmaids! by Ann. M. Martin
28. BSC SS #13:Aloha, Baby-Sitters!

57. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
58. Dead to the World ibid
59. Dead as a Doornail ibid
60. Definitely Dead ibid
61. All Together Dead ibid
62. Dead and Gone ibid
63. Shakespeare's Landlord ibid
64. Shakespeare's Champion ibid (I've developed a healthy obsession)
65. Godless by Pete Hautman, which was disappointing.

Hello Livejournal! This summer has been wonderful and amazing and busy busy busy with children, teachers, and travel. So I will just quickly update my reading list. As I have not kept track of dates, I'll just say these are all from Summer 2009:

Official reading...
44. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama.
45. For the Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell
46. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
47. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
48. Gang Leader for a Day by
49. His Brother's Keeper by Jonathan Weiner
50. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
51. From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
52. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
53. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
54. BSC #127 Abby's Un-Valentine
55. BSC FF #6 Stacey and the Boyfriend Trap
56. BSC FF #7 Claudia Gets Her Guy

And unofficial reading...
23. Death at an Early Age by Jonathan Kozol
24. Buffy season 8 vol 4 Time of Your Life
25. Angel After the Fall vol 4
26. Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

28. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, by Ann Patchett. This was one of the darkest books I've read all year. A memoir about Patchett's twenty-year friendship with writer Lucy Grealy, who eventually died of something like an accidental heroin overdose (the telling and probably the fact of it is unclear), the book starts out with the exuberance of two girls fresh out of college, and concludes with one of the girls spiraling into depression and addiction and her eventual and inevitable death.

I always feel sad when I read books about intense friendships, especially nonfiction, because while I have many friends I love dearly, none of us are quite pathological enough to have the kind of relationship where one of us feels the need to call the other every day and ask "Do you still love me?" (as Grealy does). I think I almost had one of these friendships once, in high school, but neither of us deserved the other: Jennifer was too smart for me, and I was too unself-centered for her. This sounds cruel, and maybe it is, because I am still resentful not only of her but of the failure of our young girlhood friendship to turn into a lifelong obsession that would have fueled endless novelizing and memoirizing of our lives.

Anyway, even though Lucy Grealy's death is no secret, and in fact an article about it was what led me to buy this book a few years ago, it hit me too hard. I am burdened with the sadness of The Book Thief, which is a world of pain and death, and now of Truth and Beauty as well, which is an individual and personal pain. Too much! I don't know if I need to take a break from reading or from reading these kinds of books, but yeah.

Hey, remember when I used to post about things that weren't books I was reading? Yeah, that.

Well, let's go with an old tradition:

Things I Like Thursday
1. Planning my trip to Espana (okay so I don't know how to make tildes on this computer... but you know what I mean)
2. Puppies (see icon)
3. The sophomore girls who spend their free periods in my office and keep me updated on all the gossip
4. The fact that I am no longer a sophomore girl
5. Leftover Easter ham sandwiches
6. New sundresses
7. Watching endless reruns of Friends (this never will tire for me)
8. Listening to NPR while driving in the rain with the windows down enough to smell it
9. along the same lines, Big Fat Raindrops
10. Tax refunds, baby!

I just clicked on a link that led me to EXTREMELY DETAILED AND BELIEVABLE "rumors" about the BSG finale.

WHY DID I CLICK THAT LINK. :(

(not that it is a bad ending... far from it... I'm just so sad/mad at myself for spoiling myself!)


ETA: DUDE I was just looking at my profile and discovered that this, THIS POST, is my 1,000th livejournal entry ever. Happy 1,000th to me? Let's see, since I have had this journal for almost exactly seven years, that means... what... 147-ish posts a year? That sounds about right, I suppose.

( this is a story about a zit. )


PS I have finished the puzzle but keep forgetting to take a photo when it's light outside, and the indoor light makes it look terrible. Patience, friends!

3. 1/17/09: The Woman Who Can't Forget: A Memoir, by Jill Price with Bart Davis

( This is going to be long )

Day Three

Dresses? I dunno, today is lame.

Day Two of things that make me happy.

Cake.

Hamburger Helper with added peas and onions.

Mucinex.

Staying under budget for the second month in a row.

cpennylane tagged me yesterday, but I was very unhappy, so I didn't want to start until today...

The rules are that for 8 days you have to post something that made you happy that day.
Tag 8 people to do the same. (Also, I'm ignoring the "tag 8 people" part--if you want to do it, go ahead!)

Day One: Wednesday, December 10.

I am happy about my soft white scarf,
eating King Ranch casserole,
many sixteenth birthdays this week,
being a confidante.

I am happy about a lunch date with a great friend and a dinner date with another.

I am happy that the end of the semester is fast approaching and with a new year comes a new leaf.

I know it is cliche but I love this time of year.

Sometimes when I panic about the future viability of my job (working for small nonprofit = every year's budget is dependent on somebody giving us a lot of money), I think to myself, "Well, if my position is cut, I could always go be an administrative assistant somewhere*, and that would be okay."

Today --> HELL to the NO on that one. I spent seven hours straight sitting at the same table, sorting 2,000 pieces of mail by zip code. And when I thought was done, then I was told that I couldn't just sort them by the 5-digit zip, I had to sort them by the whole 9-digit zip. THEN I stamped them. All 2,000. And THEN the development lady brought me 200 more pieces that I had to stamp and sort in with the rest. Oh god, the humanity. I have now basically memorized every zip code in North Texas from staring at them all day.

I am so spoiled because my job does not usually have any crap like this. Maybe a little, but I can almost always track down a student and convince them to do it for me. Not today. My eyes are dry and scratchy and I feel like I'm going to be sore for doing the same damn motions all day.

Anyway, I know this is whiny but... I can't even express how grateful I feel that my job is so interesting & different most of the time. It doesn't pay super well, but I can live on it, and that's fine with me. I should take more time to appreciate what I have, you know?






*and of course I am realizing that even these positions are not so easy to come by as I had thought. :(

I dreamed it was Election Night, I was watching TV, and switching between one channel that showed election coverage, and LOST.

McCain was in the lead and on LOST, everyone was being killed in extremely violent ways. It was kind of nightmarish.