Bustle, Excitement

I got a whole evening to myself tonight, and all I've really done with it is watched a lot of Seinfeld. Well, and sewed a button on a shirt. I just brought my TV back from Cville, and discovered that I had more cable than I thought, and about 10% of it is in Spanish. Right now the show involves an older lady with a tiny dog who is
a) definitely wearing fake green hair.
b) possibly named Nabokov, but I don't speak Spanish, so that general collection of sounds may have been an actual word.
Oh, also I framed a poster. But the gist is, I have so many things I want to get done, and when I get time to do them, I forget what they are. I need to make a master list, and post it prominently on a wall, with a heading of something like: WHY AREN"T YOU: (list of things I want to be doing). Preferably, it should be visible from the couch. Except that one of the things I want to be doing is throwing my couch off a balcony. Not that it's a bad couch; actually, if you want a good couch, it's soft, smells ok, and still has the matching throw pillows.

I finished my library about a week ago: 4 and 1/2 bookcases of assorted works. There's still room on several of the shelves, which is good, because I don't have room for any more bookcases. Recent additions include a book of Swedish folktales my parents gave me for my birthday, two volumes of Cyril Birch's Anthology of Chinese Literature, a book on Delacroix's paintings, something by a Churchill, and a book on the fair tax by Neal Boortz (belated Christmas gift from some cousins.) I've been using the library recently, though, due to the number of recommendations I'm getting from people. In the recent batch, I finished The Loved One and Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. I could get used to his flashy 30s nihilism, and even if I don't he writes it so well I don't mind. I can't really identify with his characters most of the time, but I think I'd like them if I met them, and I can see why they do some of the things they do, and maybe that's enough.

I also tried a gigantic biography of TE Lawrence, then found a smaller one by Nutting among my own books and am reading that instead. He sounds rather like a fairy tale. So far he's just helping the Arabs defeat the Turks , but he has to do it by riding all over lava deserts, which I didn't even know existed.

I think I remembered something I wanted to do (write letters) so fin.

i lied

I updated and said that I hadn't been reading very much, but I forgot that I had. So here it is. I'm still working on Solidarity by TG Ash and By the Bomb's Early Light. I finished the Arabian Nights, The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley, Beauty by Robin McKinley, began the Djinn in the Nightengale's Ear (?) by AS Byatt, and am in the middle of some short stories by Evelyn Waugh and Nabokov. A friend recommended both of of the two last, and the first three came upon the merits of all of McKinley's stuff (not-so-guilty pleasure, even though I find so much of it in the children's section) and Posession, respectively.

It might not be a coincidence that I've been reading fairy tales lately. I actually went and reread a bunch of McKinley's books between school and moving. They now occupy a honored place on my shelves, above the fiction, along with MM Kaye and William MacLeod Raine- fetishes of mine, all. McKinley described fairy tales as essentially (necessarily) showing moral truth, which I could stand a little of recently. Meeting new people and getting used to a new area and finances and obligations has, of course, shaken up what I believe: look, she-who-wouldn't-compromise has taken a job in bureaucracy, is putting off her exciting plans for prudent ones, and is realizing more of her limits. There's nothing new or particularly insightful for others to get from this, but it sure does wonders for me personally. So the fairly tales are, generally, escapism (though in the case of Byatt it sure feels like high literature) and, more specifically for me, affirmation.

The Nabokov are hard to pick up, just because I know that when I do it's going to move me around. I'm still working my mind around "A Letter That Never Reached Russia". The three pages much as titled to an intimate back home conclude: "...my happiness will remain, in the moist reflections of a streetlamp, in the cautious bend of stone steps that descend into the canal's black waters, in the smiles of a dancing couple, in everything with which God so generously surrounds human loneliness."

All I've been doing recently is practicing loneliness, and sometimes practicing avoiding loneliness. I think it's working. I had been afraid I couldn't live alone, so I had all the more reason to start off that way. I don't think I'd want to get too good at it, but I appear to be suited. It's still the transitional period, though. We shall see. I just didn't expect it to feel good to be lonely: I'd thought the word only applied to the state of wishing one weren't alone.

I have the end-of-training test tomorrow, so bed it is (alone). Before I go, though: I saw two unexplored used book shops on my travels this weekend, and bought

1) Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass by Isaac Dinesen/Karen Blixen
2) Assorted stories by Ray Bradbury
3) The Penguin Book of English Poetry
4) The Thinking Grain by Rebecca West (I do hope she's not more fascinating than her books, what with having HG Wells' love-child and all)

at a third, for 2$. I was informed that I could have had five for $2, also, which will precipate repeat business. I also saw the Gospel of Judas and an exhibit of John Lennon's prints, and a couple good friends from college, which was perfect.

on and on

From the titular Jack Johnson CD. Relaxing, but when I listen to it 15 times in a row, it gets preachy- not sure if that's my fault or his.

I started my job (Patent Examiner) last Monday. From the end of school 'til now, I've been avoiding writing here, since I've been reading very little. I've just been catching up with friends and moving and buying and building and achieving small life things that might someday culminate in my total maturation. Ha!

One of many things I like about the job is the commute: I take the bus is, so a) I don't kill the planet, and b) I have 30 min. to read each way. Plus, I got a library card the first morning I was here, so.

I checked out "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Kundera (why does no library I frequent ever have "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" available? Is it just so good that it's always being read, or do they just never have a copy?). On the bus, I'm reading "The Story of Philosophy" by Will Durant.

Consider this updated, and perhaps even newly begun.

PS

I forgot to mention that I got

1) The Arabian Nights
2) The Nazi Conscience

from Barnes and Noble with a gift card my parents gave me for Valentine's Day (proving that they do love me, but more, they know me.)

I finished 'Reading the Holocaust' by Inge Clendinnenen (ennninnin?) Thursday. I'd recommend it to anyone, but I don't actually think everyone would like it, like Tales of the South Pacific. Please read it, though. It's a series of essays on some of the themes and major questions in works about the Holocaust, by a woman who studies Aztecs. Trust me, it works.

Had a very nice Thursday/Friday/Saturday. Presented my thesis, won my debate, talked to people I hadn't in a while, then Friday Book Club (great speeches, and boy were they) and a concert that began and ended unexpectedly, but pleasantly, then Saturday had tea and a long conversation with someone I'd been meaning to get to know better, and it set me thinking. It was a fantastic afternoon, despite the rain. I talked about a lot of things that have been formulating in my head, things I could do better, the odd ways people treat each other, and it helped me crystallize some things. Now I'm uneasy, but hopefully in the good productive way.

leave the chaff, and take the wheat.

Gordon Avenue Booksale again. I consider myself a sane, functional individual, but put me near cheap books and something happens. I stack books like physics doesn't exist, I carry loads that'd leave me gasping in the gym, I have to read every title on the shelves, and time ceases to flow. I'm sure there are other effects but I'm oblivious to them. Also, everything else.

Anyhow, I got the following:

1) The Fall (and something else I forget) by Camus. For my little brother. He likes Camus! I am proud of him, and he's obviously deeper than me. I couldn't get through The Stranger.
2) I Married Adventure- Osa Johnson's autobiography. I read parts of her work in the anthology of women travelers.
3) Isles of the South Pacific, by the National Geographic Society. Color Pictures!
4) Maps of Jerusalem, the Holy Lands, and the Ascent of Man, also National Geographic. The map of Jerusalem is a painting of the Old City- it's very beautiful. Also, of course, annotated.
5) Departmental Ditties, an old copy of Kipling with some Arts and Crafts design on the cover. I'm a sucker for Arts and Crafts, and Kipling.
6) Burmese Days, by George Orwell. (My little brother also likes Orwell!)
7) Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez. Travel/Nature/History of a very cold place.
8) The French Revolution, by Carlyle.
9) The King of the Fields, by Isaac Bashevis Singer. From what I grasp, this is a weird introduction to his work, but it sounded interesting on the front flap.
10) Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, by V.S. Naipaul.
11) A Hero of Our Time, by Lermontov. One of my favorites, plus it's translated by Nabokov and has a beautiful picture on the cover. It's got one of those paper bindings that just feels nice in your hands.
12) 3 Doonesbury Collections, two from the 2000s and one from 1978-1980ish. I haven't read the most recent comics, but I'd already read most of the older one from the smaller collections I have. 9/11 was covered in the more recent collections.

I'm headed to TN tomorrow to visit my grandparents and attend the regional ASME conference. I'm driving down with a friend I'll collect from Tech, and taking some people also attending the conference to meet my grandparents. They want to meet my friends, and Granddad is a Mechanical Engineer- went to Tech himself, in '46- with really cool stories about the space program and nuclear power plants. I read a biography of Werner von Braun with him- he read it and annotated it for me. That was really neat- plus, when we go to the Air and Space museum in DC, he points out the satellites he worked on himself.

Have a nice weekend.

if only

I don't subscribe to any religion persay, I don't practice anything regularly- I mean, of course I don't, I can't make it to class on time, I exercise infrequently, and that causes certain, tangible problems in the short term. I'm certainly not covering for any hypothetical future problems.

I really like going to religious rituals, though. I like being in a space where people are doing things I don't understand all because they believe something a whole lot. I feel weird being there- I feel like a taint on the thing itself- but I really enjoy services, and christenings, and prayers, and chanting, and the hey-hey-hey. It's probably just being around people who sincerely believe things. That's all sorts of refreshing. Plus, the singing is usually pretty.

just wait

The Gordon (-den?) Avenue Library Book Sale opened for two days this weekend, and begins in earnest Saturday. I exercised today by walking over there and carrying my new books back. Spoils were as follows:

1) Vol I and II of the three-volume Complete Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence. Rach says they're fine, and Lady Chatterly went down ok, so why not.
2) First on the Moon. Record of the first flight to the moon with material from the three astronauts aboard Apollo 11, and an epilogue by Arthur C. Clarke.
3) Prose and Poetry of the American West, Ed. James Work.
4) By the Bombs Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, by Paul Boyer
5) Yevtuschenko Poems, bilingual edition tras. Herbert Marshall.

I'm almost done with a compilation of Damon Runyon's stories. I've been working through them in off moments for a few weeks. Apparently, only once in all of his stories does he ever use past tense- all the characters talk about everything in present tense. Hm. They're good mostly for the language- little twists at the end are sometimes too forced or afterthoughtish.

This week the VA Festival of the Book is going down in Charlottesville. They're showing Buster Keaton movies Wednesday, which sounds exciting, but I'll feel a bit silly going to a book festival for the movies.