I'm flip flopping about what to be reading now. What I really want are brilliant books, books I can't put down. But authors like Charlaine Harris and Jo Clayton are so rare that I find I actually slow down when I read their books, deliberately setting them aside so I can draw out the experience.

I've picked back up the Alain de Botton book "Pleasures and Sorrows of Work" that I sat aside while I was on vacation (where I voraciously consumed Dancer's Rise by Clayton - really hope I've got book 2 in that series!) due to its weight, and I've just had a new book show up, Scarlett Thomas's "Popco" ("a grown-up adventure of family secrets, puzzles and the power of numbers") that I bought solely because her previous book was 100% amazing ("The End of Mr. Y," best book I've ever got out of a hotel's travel library). I'm still waiting for Stross' Saturn's Children to show up, but sadly the first book of the Camilleri Sicilian mysteries ("The Shape of Water") won't be coming at all as the US seller (Thriftbooks) either lost their copy or decided it didn't want to bother mailing it to the UK. I suspect the thing to do would be to read the new China Mieville book, which is supposed to be a mystery, but I didn't feel like committing to a hardback - they're so unpleasant to carry around.

On the other hand, carrying around a book that's unpleasant to read is also no fun, which is why Tristam Shandy is now languishing at home. I want to keep up with my plan of consuming the classics on the commute - perhaps Wuthering Heights should be next? I sure haven't found anything as good as Madame Bovary recently, that's for sure.

And the final element: I'm trying to actually finish all the books I've started, unless I decide (like Tristam) I don't want to read it. I've got six books that are more or less in progress right now. The David Sedaris book I'm stretchig out; everything else just got put aside in favor of something better. I'm bad.

To end: I have three books needing to be passed on: Vesuvius Club (might just read it again); #1 Ladies Detective Agency; and The Scent of the Night, a Camilleri mystery. Actually, they're all mysteries. Anyone need these, anyone I'd be likely to see in the next month?

First, before the boring bit about my day: I really like the author ellenkushner, but I like her even more after reading her rant on writers who, I guess, get their brains all twisted about what writing is really about while they're in grad school. She also links to a hysterical essay in Harpers that illustrates the point. Comments were very worth reading. I liked how the general tenor of the comments valued writing that people liked to read (ie literary is just another genre, but one more full of itself) and the recommendation that you go to school and study literature, not writing. The vision of people wanting to write because they loved to read was so much more inspiring than people who wanted to write so that they got published. Icky. (I suppose you could have a whole rant about how creative writing programs actually fuck people up instead of teaching them the mechanics of writing, but since I mostly stayed out of that jungle, I don't think I could add much to it - I still want to learn how to write, but I don't want someone trying to teach me to write in a way that will get me published in Granta - I'd much rather have Charlaine Harris or William Gibson telling me how to move a story along any old day.)

We decided that today would NOT be the "stay inside the house all day" non-event yesterday was (until 8:30 or so, anyway) and got out at around 2 to do a walk to and on Tooting Common. Snow started falling, if that's what blowing sideways and in sort of circular poofs can be called, while we were sitting at the pond. Conclusion: it was cold out, unless you were a duck.

We then went to do our shopping, which meant I got to go to a garden shop (yay! we have one nearby!) where I decided I MUST get a David Austin rose for my garden. Mmm, sweet creamy Austin roses, just like at home, only with better growing conditions. I failed to get a trowel, though, because I want the one I had at home with the soft rubber handle and not a wooden one that will make my hand hurt after just a short time. I did get potting soil, though, so the calla lillies should be taking up residence in their pot outside soon - say next weekend.

Then it was off to the various cool stores on Tooting High Street (I think), where I got the ingredients for the lamb/prune/squash tagine I'm making for dinner, as well as various other vegetables that I thought were in short supply. We got snowed on like mad for a bit before we came home, but it seems to have stopped again.

Yesterday we were awakened at 7 AM by the arrival of my brother in law and his girlfriend. YAWN. And then we slept until 10, at which point we started stirring ourselves in anticipation of brunch. Brunch was deelish Mexican food at El Maguey Y la Tuna, but the real point in going was to see Michael S., a friend of J's from the Phoenix days (also a friend of mine) and meet his husband and their 2 year old daughter (Vivi, who wanted to hold my hand when we left the restaurant and flirted outrageously with me during the meal). It was fun to see them both (er, well, all three of them). Oddly, they may wind up moving to Seattle, depending on where Husband gets his medical residency. And the food was fantastic.

Afterwards it was off to the Noguchi museum in Queens. I have really come to love Noguchi in the last five or six years - the Black Hole Sun in front of the Asian art museum is his. And this had a broad collection of his stone carvings, many of which had features I really associate with him - a sort of respect for and fascination with the rock itself. Basalt isn't just a material to create sculpture - it's interesting on its own, and somehow his sculptures, especially from the 80s, make you see the rock better (as well as having interesting shapes). It was a big hike to the museum from the subway stop but the trip was well worth it - I doubt I'll ever see so much of his monumental work in the same place again. I left asking myself, now, why can't I have one of these in MY back yard?

Then it was back to Brooklyn and the official meeting of the sister outlaw and late family Christmas present opening. Afterwards we went to a Korean bar for Korean chicken wings and drinks, then across the street to Chorus for a late night Karaoke bash. And by late I mean we went until 2 AM. Apparently the bartender likes my brother in law and sister outlaw, as he gave them free shots of Johnny Walker Blue and also gifted our table with several free drinking snacks, including a wonderful plate of fresh fruit. We ordered four or five of these jugs of Korean hootch (shoju? shochu?) as well as beers (for the boys) and sang and sang. There were a fair bit of other people there but it was a really nice atmosphere - people jumped in on other folks songs and helped them out or just participated because they liked the song in question. I think we got eight people up there for "Bohemian Rhapsody," among them Tom, who later tried to give me his number. Dear dear, I think we _all_ had just a bit to drink. We were in bed around 2:30 and we all decided that we would just not plan to do much today.

I actually got up at around 11 (I had been dreaming about dreamsewing, who was in England and wanted me to go to brunch in Cambridge with her), and broke down and ate some of the turkey from Christmas dinner at around noon. Now J and I are getting ready to have some tea (it's about 1:30) and with luck we might be having some brunch soon. J's holding on to his DS Lite (his Christmas present from me) like it's his lifeline to reality, and I am waffling between reading a silly Charlaine Harris mystery (Shakespeare's Christmas, my present to me) and writing up the Nutcracker ballet. Ooh, and drinking tea. I should really do that now.

Note: my mother in law got me a (in my mind) ridiculously expensive Christmas present (necklace and earrings). I'm not talking to her or having anything to do with her now (and basically hoping to never see her for the rest of my life). Do I thank her or do I let J do it or do I mail it back? What can I do to politely discourage such largesse?

Yesterday was a fairly undelightful one for me. I am feeling like escaping from my life but the old brain pattern of "keep a job so you have a place to live" and "have to stay in place you live as it's paid for and you can't afford to go anywhere else" keep me doing what I've been doing. I do know I have places I can run away to for a day or two, and that's good - helps me keep from feeling trapped. And work isn't awful, it's just dull.

I didn't go out at all last night but found myself at home trying to read three different books at once - David Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames, the new Charlaine Harris (An Ice Cold Grave, and Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. (This exciting news is all documented on my Twitter feed, which probably explains why more people don't use Twitter.) Actually, I only managed the first two as the third was ony read on the train and I didn't actually pick it up again once I got home. The problem, see, is that the Charlaine Harris Harper Connelly books are so good I just have to stretch them out. The same is true of David Sedaris. I could probably plow through both of them in two, three hours tops but I don't want to hurry it - I want months and months of Sedaris' essays and a few weeks at least of the Charlaine Harris. In some ways Johnathan Strange is the pefect book to help attenuate my reading experience, as it's, you know, the size of In Search of Lost Time (though much easier to digest so far).

This morning I'm probably up too early, in part because my rather dull evening had me in bed before too late. I'm probably not operating at full speed yet, based on the fact that, as I stood in the bathroom getting ready to dye my hair, I realized I needed to get my water spray bottle (which is also used for discouraging the cat from begging for food too early in the morning), and then walked to the spare bedroom, our bedroom, the hall, and then back in the bathroom, finally realizing it was sitting on the bathroom counter all this time. The dye's on now, though, and while searching for a "safe" shirt to wear I found my very fuzziest sweater, which is 100% artificial (I should say it's made of whipped dinosaur, I suppose) but warm as can be, which is good as it's 39°(F) outside and I am in dire need of clothes that ward of the chill - in part because we're off to apartment shop today. We have three properties we're looking at in Earlsfield and a similar number in Tooting - no idea which will be the winners, and we're only even checking out Earlsfield for the very first time. I don't really want to move out of our neighborhood as we're very content here (and near wechsler, and transport, and grocery stores, and the river), but I can't see how we can stay. And in my next place, I will have a garden, and when you come to visit me in the spring, you will say, "Oh, how lovely."

Which reminds me - I need to, very much, remember to wash the RED DYE out of my hair, lest the estate agents think I was scalped before I left the house. After all, that's what _they_ want to do.

I'm curious - what do you think? Should Congress have passed the bailout or not passed it? Is it a good thing for the world economy? Is it just guaranteeing the demise of America as a superpower - er, either the passing of the bill or the non-passing?

Is it just staving off the inevitable?

What do you think?

In other news, I want new tea balls (I like the 1 1/2 inch size ball only, and they're hard to find), and I had to rebook Uffizi tickets (the first place was going to have us there in the morning after I'd specifically requested the afternoon). I'm a bit worried that there's something to do for the trip that I've forgotten (combo ticket for Colosseum and Palatine Hill?) I also stayed up late finishing my latest Charlaine Harris mystery (A Bone to Pick), and I did correctly guess the murderer! It was a fun book to read. Now I'm going to crack down on the Proust (I'm at page 255 of Time Regained, in the middle of a long and unflattering discussion of aging) - I have just more than a hundred pages to go and I want to have this finished by the end of the month. Oddly, I think I just might be done by Friday ...

I think my reading has been slow, doubtlessly thanks to getting caught up in The Atrocity Archives, a Charlaine Harris book (Shakespeare's Champion), and Saratoga Swimmer. That said, I'm at page 142 of Finding Time Again, in which the narrator is discussing the way bombing raids make people unafraid of acting in keeping with their desires as they are no longer concerned about their reputations. That, I think, has not changed much over time.

I'm a bit worn out today but back at work, and my little fever of last night appears to have burnt itself right up.

This week: dinner with wechsler tonight, possibly again tomorrow (or maybe I'll get my hair done), Matthew Bourne's Portrait of Dorian Grey on Wednesday, then tonyawinter arrives Thursday for a week long visit. I'm excited!

I've got a bacon and egg bagel in my tummy and lovely classical music playing in my headphones.

I'm doing some simple and relaxing cut-and-paste work on the computer.

I see all of this blue sky and fluffy clouds overhad that may mean rain but which I'm just going to see as blue sky - from my desk, the view is mostly up, and blue. I'm going to see lots of friends this weekend, and I'm looking forward to seeing more in the near and near enough future. And I have two juicy novels to read, one mystery (Charlaine Harris), one fantasy (Peter Stroud, I think, "Eye of the Golem").

It's Friday, huh? And a three day weekend ahead. I'm looking forward to it - my view is nothing but blue skies!

Got in at 6 PM. Fun day mostly, good trip, good company. Am tired now and don't want to write - need to put away clothes, try to finish Shakespeare's Trollop, do some laundry, and catch up on missed sleep. Yay travelling!

I've got a new Charlaine Harris book to read - Grave Surprise. She has really been a treat for me since I read that first book of hers that my brother gave me. The sad thing is, I bet I'm going to want to stay up all night and read the whole thing ...

I'm afraid I've been very remiss with Marcel. Sookie Stackhouse crowded him right out of my bag for most of this week. Now that I've finished Club Dead, I'm back to The Prisoner and the Fugitive. It's funny, I mocked the fact that he was at a dinner party for about two or three hundred pages of one of his novels, but now that I've been listening to him go on about jealousy for 89 pages (indeed, I am at page 89), I am eager to have him leave the house and have some dinner somewhere.

I am reminded that I ought to get a book order in before J goes to the US. I've been caught up in the other planning that I need to do and all I've really managed to order is a new bag. Anyone who's seen the threadbare one I've been toting around for the last, er, eight years would agree I need a replacement. I really like that with LL Bean you can custom pick the colors you want - for the handles, the pocket, the body, and the bottom. I wanted to just replace my old one with one from the same company (Lands End) but they're only offering black with khaki handle, which is not really my style. I bet you didn't even have to click the link to figure out what colors mine is, but here's a picture in case you're curious.( Cut for brevity. )

The bionic heart measuring device is now removed. I'm sure that between the drinking last night and the melatonin my heart rate was pretty slow! I sure felt relaxed, other than when Josela and I were being bitchy. That said, I should still go downstairs and sign up for the gym.

And, if you can't tell, today at work is SLOW. Slow slow slow. I would bitch about why but it would just raise my blood pressure - suffice it to say I'll have to work twice as hard next week to make up for having nothing to do today, and there's nothing I can do to get the stuff I need to me so I can work on it now. Bleah. Oh well, at least it's Friday and I have a nice weekend to look forward to.

I have made biscuits and "red eye gravy" (ham base with a bit of coffee in it), along with (surprise) ham and (because I could) soft boiled eggs. I had my egg in my black cat egg cup, and with the top of the egg sawed off, it looked like I was eating BRANEZ! It was funny and wrong and I should have taken a picture of it so that you could all have a laugh.

I finished reading Living Dead in Dallas yesterday and it was GREAT. Charlaine Harris rules! I'm actually deliberately waiting to start book #3 so I can ... hold off the enjoyment.

It does seem that today is rather another lazy Sunday in the making, but what with the sun outside, I'm determined to go out, only I want to take a nap first. I have to go to Goodge Street to pick up a case of enchilada sauce from a friend of mine, and I'm feeling inclined toward a walk in a park. Perhaps we'll join jhg at the Ritzy ... I'd enjoy a movie today, and since Still Life appears rather painfully sold out, Be Kind, Rewind might be a good replacement ....

Thanks in part to better health and increased workload, I'm feeling kind of chipper today. No more cold means no more bizarre, "God, I'm worthless feelings!" at the end of the day. That said, my body has all of the tone of a side of Kobe beef, and I'm well due to head back to the YMCA for some Pilates.

Part of the reason I'm stoked is because I finally got hotel reservations sorted for the five of us that are going to Barcelona Gothic Weekend at the end of April, so no more being turned down at one hotel after another. Hotel Chinese Cat, here we come!

I'm also excessively please because I actually got back to Putney before the W. H. Smith closed at 6 PM and was able to pick up the Charlaine Harris book I've been wanting to read since December. I ordered it in November from an Amazon seller, but somehow failed to notice they wrote me back and said it was gone. So there was a very, very long wait (and Christmas present shopping) before I realized it just wasn't going to happen. Meanwhile, books three and four of this series were giving me sad little looks from their spots on the shelves. Happily, they will soon be free, and I'll likely buy the other four books in this series. Living Dead in Dallas, I can't wait (especially after finishing another book of hers in a record 24 hour period last Sunday).

Meanwhile, poor Marcel is not keeping up. The Prisoner at this point seems like a very creepy tale of obsessive love. He needs to own her, to possess her, to know her every thought, and yet he admits that if the mystery were gone, he would be indifferent. This morning I read a long passage about him watching Albertine sleep, and it was just ... icky. I think if I were to recommend a less onerous path through this book, I'd say to skip Young Girls in Flower and this novel and work on the other four (or so) books instead. I'm only on page 64, so I clearly just haven't engaged yet. It's hard when he's competing against vampire detectives and snide little pun filled literary mysteries.

Off to dinner in a bit, as soon as I wash a few dishes ...

Well, I had a good time this weekend in Madrid with spikeylady. I've never really done so much drinking whilst on vacation, but she and I really plunged into the whole Madrileno tapas bar crawl thing. A city full of bars with delicious ciders and yummy eats was really just too hard to turn my back on (and sangria and port and manzanilla and what all did I drink?). I swear I'd go back next weekend if I had enough energy to manage!

Personal high: at the Meson de la Guitarra, the guys (that are always there as far as I know, locals who play music in the back room) were sitting around in the middle, one guitar, one singer and clapper (palmas), another guy occasionally clapping or hitting the table. I joined in with some clapping, and afterwards they complimented me (either "ole" or "vale," I can't remember, but two of them smiled and nodded). I was so happy! I was there, I was able to do it, I crossed the cultural divide, I was able to participate in music that I find so beautiful that it flattens me, and yet, when I've seen it performed live, it's always felt impossible for me to ever be a part of it. And Friday, I was a part, maybe for the only time ever. It was great.

I have brought home some 6 bottles of Asturian cider, port, sherry, Cuban rum, and some honey rum. This is in addition to jamon iberico, olives, and boxes of marzipan sweets for the office. (To be clear: they are only getting the marzipan, the rest is for us.) Oh, drool! And yet, with all of this food, all I can think of right now is finishing my Charlain Harris novel. Once Brideshead Revisited was done, I lunged into this one and in less than 24 hours it is almost completed. Back to the Proust tomorrow ... and work. Ah well! One can't be on vacation forever, at least, not until you retire, and I need to get this travelling bug out of me while my knees can still handle all of the walking.