GeeCee's Not-Entirely-Original Miscellany

I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. (Okay, it's really more that I seriously do not want to go back to work tomorrow.) Friday evening nminusone and I met up with the fabulous jessicamelusine and friends to see "Elizabeth: The Golden Age". "Textile porn", Salon called it, and I don't disagree. Historically accurate? Probably not so much, but very, very pretty. It was very nice to finally meet MzMelusine in person, which I hadn't quite managed to do yet for various and sundry reasons. Got home late, took Nyquil, passed out.

Yesterday Chris and I trekked down to the Green Valley Book Fair. Sorry, but it was kind of a last-minute trip and so I didn't extend an invitation to other folks. There's another iteration coming up in late November I think, maybe we can plan a group road trip. It worked out to being something like four hours of driving for an hour and a half at the warehouse, but this wasn't a problem. I really don't need any more books to add to the "to be read" stack, but I still ended up with ( a decent haul. ) You see why this is a dangerous place for a book addict.

Part of the reason we didn't stay longer was that we had tickets to see Issa, formerly known as Jane Siberry. She was quirky (to say the least) and charming, as always. Since I'd last kept up with her, she's changed her name, given away or sold almost all of her worldly possessions, and moved all of the music to which she controls the rights online with a self-determined pricing model. I have to say, I had a brief moment of envy because I am not brave enough to travel the world living out of a knapsack right now.

Today I skipped the Marshall Crenshaw show in favor of hanging out with chadu, during which it was discovered that I cry like a baby during "Nature" specials involving animals. Newborn baby polar bear and mama? Tears. (Contemplating polar bears and the fact that they may not exist in the wild for much longer makes me sad.) Watching chimps from animal research labs being too scared at first to leave their transport carriers and step onto the grass at their new sanctuary home? Tears. Seeing the chimp who is primarily responsible for the fact that we have a hepatitis vaccine today and who died a few days after the footage was shot? Lots and lots of tears. Being sure that something bad's about to happen to an hours-old foal who can't stand up for some reason? Gotta leave the room, seriously. Watching Shirley and Jenny at the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee? Tears. Listening to Shirley's keeper of 22 years at her previous zoo home say goodbye and talk about how happy he was that she'd never have to wear a chain again? Ohgod, when he started crying, it was all over for me. Don't tell anyone, okay? It can be our little secret.

Hello from Amazon.com.

We are pleased to report that the following item will ship
sooner than expected:

Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie "Lost Girls Collected" [Hardcover]

Original shipping estimate when I pre-ordered a few weeks ago was, I think, October 10. Today:
Shipping estimate: August 30, 2006
Delivery estimate: September 1, 2006

Because I don't already have enough on my "to read" stack. ;-P

bookslut ("Where the hell is your copy of Lost Girls?") links to The Comics Reporter, with indications that the book is already into its second printing even before its official release.

It's time again for the Green Valley Book Fair, Aug. 19 - Sept. 4. For folks who haven't been yet, it's essentially a big book outlet sale that's only open a few times a year. The most I've ever paid for any single item there is $12, and that was for a $40 retail book on writing Dreamweaver MX extensions; most fiction titles I've found are in the $3-$5 range, and you can easily leave the place with two or three shopping bags full of books after having spent $50. (They've got some some example titles and prices on the preview page at the first link up above.) Anyone interested in carpooling down one weekend and checking it out? It's just south of Harrisonburg and it usually takes me about 1:45 or so to get there from the Fair Lakes area. I figure drive down in the morning, spend a few hours with the books, grab dinner someplace on the way back.

winterbadger, I think you'll like this one: The Company of Books

Eeee!!! Look what I found while *cough* innocently wandering around Amazon, window shopping:



I have, of course, already ordered my copy. (The image is linked.)

And now I mean it, I'm on book-buying restriction until I get through a lot more of the unread stuff I already have. Think I can hold out on buying any more books until I somehow manage to finish Dhalgren? Heh. No, I don't either.

I've finally finished entering all of my books (just stuff I own or that is jointly owned, not any of nminusone's titles) into LibraryThing. 629 titles, which is both more and slightly less than I expected. (It makes sense to me, don't hurt your brain chewing on that one too hard.) In part this explains why people hate to help us move. Actually, it's the 1500+ CDs that really puts people off helping us move. ;) ** Still need to do some tag clean-up, but that can wait. I wouldn't be suprised if I run into a few more strays still, but that's everything I can account for right now. Now comes the hard part: figuring out where to put them all. Need more bookshelves.

How did it get to be 1:30 already? Yeesh. So much for getting to bed early so I can go pay my property tax before work tomorrow.



** I kid about this; our friends have been true saints about helping out when we move, and we loves them for it, we do.

Catching up in one swell foop. (Plus, I just wanted to use the new default icon.)

The weekend
The good part first: having friends come over for a slack evening of takeout from California Tortilla and sitting around watching Lewis Black DVDs and parts of "The Best of Christopher Walken" from Saturday Night Live. Made me think of zuggy9 and his "Cham-pan-ya?" icon. ;) And used CD and book shopping on Sunday. (*sigh* I know, I know; I wasn't gonna buy any more books. But I got Gorky Park and Polar Star for like $3.20 total, which is almost like not spending any more money on books. It does still count as far as adding to the "teetering stack of books yet to be read that's threatening to fall over on my head" though, which I think is the real problem.)

The rest: it's hard to have Father's Day fall on the 19th. I freely admit to having been a daddy's girl when I was little, and I often wonder if he'd have been proud of the way I turned out. I think he'd have found it interesting to see how the three of us turned out: my sister's married, owns the house we grew up in now, and has kids; my brother has a wife and kids and a nice house and his own successful company; and I'm, er, none of the above. It's been fourteen years now, so the day isn't as stressful as it could be, but there's still a tinge of sadness every year when the 19th rolls around.

On the other hand, that's also the birthday of my oldest and dearest friend (and I happened to meet said friend that same summer, coincidentally), so the day has some few redeeming qualities. I don't think you're reading at the moment, but just in case: happy birthday, darlin'. I hope next I hear from you, one of your leads has panned out and you've managed to make it back "home" (although that will make it much more difficult to buy me the multitude of gin and tonics you surely owe me by now).

Today
No jackhammers, but they were replaced by the soothing sounds of the asphalt tampers and the glorious aroma of hot asphalt. I guess doing repair work today is kind of like doing repair work over the weekend, except for the "completely not" part. As a bonus, my blinds wouldn't close today; it's very hard to concentrate on parsing someone else's code when there's someone outside staring in your window. "Mooooom, he's looking at me! Make him stop looking at me!"

Caught up, I think, on most of the email that needed answering. If you think I still owe you a response, ping me and remind me about it, mmkay? I've been leaning towards the low end of the cope scale, and stuff like email and LJ comments have gotten pushed further down on the stack.

In the "you dumbass!" moment of the day, I temporarily forgot about the fact that my steamer has vents in the lid and reached across the top of it to grab something else while it was in full swing. Ow ow ow ow ow. At least I got lotus seed paste and mung bean baozi to distract me from a slightly-scalded hand. Nummy.

I don't want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good. Anyway, it's my money. And I'll bet you do it too.

-Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree "A hilarious and true account of one man's struggle with the monthly tide of the books he's bought and the books he's been meaning to read"

(which I picked up when I went to B&N to find a copy of Clean House Clean Planet, which they didn't have, and instead came out with The Polysyllabic Spree, The Time Traveler's Wife, and Haunted. And, uh, my copies of Never Let Me Go and Fleshmarket Alley should be here by Tuesday. Addict? Me? I can quit whenever I want, I've done it hundreds of times.)

Right, then. Bed.