by healthlovely
A few weeks ago, I decided to start going for a daily jog at Town Lake. I start at the bridge under MoPac, run to the Pfluger Bridge, snap a pic of downtown, and then run back. I had no idea how far it was, but I finally looked it up this week and it’s 3 miles. Not bad!
We just joined the Y yesterday, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up my relentless photodocumentation of the skyline. Sorry, guys.
Right around the time I had G, I read The Drowned Life, a collection of stories by Jeffrey Ford. I’ve never been a big short story reader, but I fell in love with these - very imaginative and dreamy and dark. Really original stuff. Anyway, there is one line from “The Night Whiskey” that I literally think about at least 3 times a day (every time I put the baby to sleep). It’s refers to waking people from drunken, deep sleeps:
Calling them back by shouting in their ears would leave them dazed for a week, but, as the natives had done, breaking a thin twig a few inches from the ear worked like a charm…
I think of this because there have been so many times when I’ve put my sleeping baby in her crib and I’m on my way out of the room, and a teeny-tiny bone in my foot or ankle cracks. She wakes instantly. It’s unbelievable. This is with white noise playing in the background and everything. Sometimes I walk like Frankenstein out of the room without moving my ankles. Whatever it takes.
the second in the series
I’ve always liked having books around (except when moving, of course). I have long been part of the “Oh, I’ll never stop reading actual, physical books” faction.
This past Christmas I got a Kindle. I opted for a Kindle Touch, the e-ink kind. It’s not perfect by any means. Turning pages is very unsatisfying. It’s really annoying that I need a lamp to read it in the dark, even though I knew that’s how the e-ink screen worked. But what surprised me and made me kind of giddy, was putting a thousand books on it.
As soon as I had all those books on it I was like “Ohhhh. Yeah, physical books are dead. Bookshelves are over. It’s all over. DUH.” It was so obvious. I know people have been saying that for so long now and e-readers are old hat, but I never allowed myself to really accept the concept until that moment because I love books so much.
I feel weird about my realization. It’s not like I’m dumping all my books or anything - c’mon, our den would be so empty. I don’t exclusively read off my Kindle now either, not by a long shot. And I’m still going to get real books for my daughter. No way I’m reading children’s books to her off a screen. (I say that now, of course, but if the technology is perfected…)
What I have done is gotten rid of any reference-type books. That shit is all online.* I don’t need it clogging up my shelves. Ever since I had the kid I’ve had a strong desire to purge excess crap from our home. Less to clean, less to worry about her getting into. It feels so good to get rid of stuff, but purging books makes me feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a slippery slope - becoming a futurist - going over to the digital side. What is happening to me???
*It has to be noted that with every reference book I pulled off the shelf I thought, “BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO THE INTERNET?” I’m sure I’ve mentioned my hereditary hoarding tendencies on here before…
the first in a series of book-related posts
When I was younger I was a huge book re-reader. I would read myself to sleep during the week and get in trouble for not turning off the lamp when I was supposed to.
I think it was comforting to fall asleep to something I knew really well. Even if it was something random and not-really-all-that-comforting like Jurassic Park, which I’ve read so many times it’s weird.
Here’s one of my old favorites. I had a childhood friendship built on a shared affection for this book. We both re-read it a million times. A few years ago this decade-long lost friend contacted me on February 2nd because that was the main character’s birthday (and a plot point in the story). She was like, “I still think about us and that book on this day every year.” So do I. I bet I always will, too, and I love that.
These days, even if I love a book to pieces, I don’t re-read it. I feel like that would be wasting time based on the sheer number of good books out there I haven’t read yet. Which means I’ll never get to know another book as well as I used to KNOW my books. I have no grown-up equivalent of Anne of Green Gables or Matilda or Just As Long As We’re Together. It’s a little sad isn’t it?
by vintagegal
I’m ready for my Mad Men, please. Being forced to wait until “we build up some fast forward on the DVR. You’ll thank me later.”
Nerd Curious #1: Dungeons & Dragons
It’s when I’m facing down a lich whose evil spirit has been imprisoned inside of an accursed gemstone that I finally “get it.”
My name, for the session, at least, is Lenore. I’m a cleric whose abbey was overrun by the undead horde at some point in my recent past. I was one of the few survivors, and I still bear a burning desire for revenge. That desire has carried me here, to a city built of bone, filled with evil spirits, dark shadows, rats that turn into men, and vice versa…
This article was BY FAR the most I have ever read on the subject of role-playing games. I’m not even sure why I’m posting this except that I really enjoyed it. I can only think of one person reading my blog who might actually get through the whole thing. I won’t mislead you - there are a few tl;dr spots, as the first dozen commenters so helpfully point out.
I’d always felt as if I might grow up into someone completely different…in some odd way, my body was a prison. It was a place I didn’t mind being, a place I was comfortable, but it was still a place that limited me. I could look at someone and imagine what it was like to be them, but I couldn’t actually be them. And for all the seven billion on the planet right now, this is true. You drive down the highway and are surrounded by other people who have thoughts and dreams and desires and hopes that are just as real and pressing to them as yours are to you, and you will never know what that’s like. And it’s always going to be that way.
I have thought those same things so often that I’m now wondering if D&D is the most fun I’ve never had. I would try it someday. My tastes cannot be pigeonholed.
Armisen and Brownstein text each other every night before bed. Brownstein says of their friendship, “Sometimes I think it’s the most successful love affair either of us will ever have.” Both claim that it wouldn’t work if they were romantically involved. “It would be colder, because we’ve both treated our romantic relationships in a cold way,” Armisen says. “Carrie and I are more romantic than any other romantic relationship I’ve ever had—that sense of anticipation about seeing the other person, the secret bond. But things don’t become obligatory. I’m not thinking, I’m doing this because you’re my girlfriend; I’m thinking, I love Carrie.”
“Stumptown Girl,” The New Yorker, January 2, 2012
I always had a thing for her old-timey shoes. Like the ones she pulled out of that bottomless carpet bag? I just really wanted more close-ups of her shoes.
Stories from My Phone
1. I stormed out during an argument with M. “I’ll be back in an hour.” (over my shoulder as I walked out, way too dramatic). I needed a break from being in the house, fighting, taking care of G. What did I do during my hour? Drove around for a while and then went to the grocery store. Ew. And a waste of gas. And then I became a person standing in the parking lot taking a picture of clouds with her phone.
2. After a lovely dinner at Truluck’s where I was dressed embarrassingly casually (think men’s athletic pants and a free basketball tshirt - unbelievable). Their front porch has a good view of Frost Tower aka the one good building from the skyline that everyone takes pictures of all the time. Guilty:
Tons of waist-high poppies in a neighbor’s front yard right now. It’s a real pick-me-up to walk by. I am loving the blooming flowers everywhere. I was driving through a fancy neighborhood in Dallas this weekend, and I saw a corner house with what had to be thousands of tulips in bloom. It looked so amazing. Flowers are one of those things that I love but just can’t justify in the budget. I have a lot of daydreams about overhauling our front bed with all these great plants that I learned about from my days at the garden center. The sage we have now is ugly and totally dominating everything.
