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.

bearing many books. Didn't leave at 1 as I'd planned and there was a rather annoying traffic backup between Manassas and Gainesville (never thought I'd envy the reported 18 mph average on 95 south, but it was three times what I was doing at that point), so ended up having just slightly under two hours at the book fair. I think two and a half would've been just about right, as I ended up skimming a lot of the fiction, sociology and military history sections. At least there are sections that I know I can skip entirely due to extreme unlikelihood of there being anything remotely interesting, like the "chick lit" and "religious fiction" areas, so that helps keep things moving. Luckily we weren't headed east on 66 instead, because it was closed east of Linden for what looked like a bad wreck. We passed a whole lot of people wandering on the shoulder and out leaning against their cars, so obviously it had happened a good while before we drove by.

( The haul: )

I found a hardback copy of something I've had on my Amazon wishlist for a while, Figure It Out! The Real Woman's Guide to Great Style (yes, "real woman" irks me too), for $5. Having flipped through it, I decided I didn't want to pay even the fraction of list that they wanted; it seems that absolutely nothing, based on the number of pages with the "o" crossed out, is an appropriate and flattering outfit for an apple-shaped woman. I need to spend money to be told that I don't look good in anything that doesn't resemble a muumuu, with perhaps a halter top if I'm lucky? No thanks. I put it back.


All that for, well, not nearly as much as they list for (and they all are technically new). The most expensive one was I think $5. I guess I'm pretty well stocked up for when I finish The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Not that I wasn't before, of course, but now I'm even more so.