I'm just a cock-eyed pessimist

Today is off to a bad start. The alarm clock wasn't working last night; it had the same time displayed for alarm and current time, and when I tried to change the time strange things like 1G:21 were showing up. So shadowdaddy set his phone to be my alarm. Thus started the chain of ill fortune:

1. I woke up at 6, 6:30, and 7, worried because I couldn't tell what time it is. This did bad things to what should have been the glorious, restful, last hour and a half of beautiful sleep.
2. I woke up at 7:28 and noticed the clock was working, then reset the alarm for 7:50 as I was now dead tired.
3. The phone went off at 7:30 as planned, except now I didn't want it to go off.
4. The phone went off again at 7:33, as I apparently found its "snooze" control.
5. I woke up at 8:10, because my alarm clock is, really and truly, not working.

While I was downing my breakfast (now 20 minutes behind a compressed schedule), I stopped a minute to make a new LJ community: nanoreadmo. It's for that project I kiped from bookclectic, to "read that novel you've been meaning to." Then I dashed out the door, saw my bus coming around the corner, and ...

6. Completely fell head over heel while running for the bus.

I start my day late, bruised, scraped, and ... well, just thank God I didn't rip out the seat of my pants. That would have been perfect! Now I'm going to wash the dirt off of my hands. Nothing I can do about my hip hurting. I guess in another forty years it would have been broken, so I should be grateful. And to think I wore these shoes because they're more comfortable!

Pie! The New York Times has a fantastic article on pie crust today, which reached the conclusion that duck fat makes the best pie crust! They've also got a load of pie recipes (linked to from the article, but Nutmeg-Maple Cream Pie, drool!) There's also an article on stuffing/dressing, which not only explains the difference ... but has some very nice recipes (rice and nut stuffing, always looking for a good one for my squash!). Ooh, and they have some side dishes (Wilted Chard With Pickled Red Onions?) I could get very interested in.

And I've got my Martha Stewart Living courtesy of sallysimpleton. Thank you!

Must ... finish ... planning ... menu!

Today, the middle of the month, I am nowhere near the middle of Remembrance of Things Past. I am only at page 90. I admit, I am carrying a second book around with me, a book by Connie Willis. Part of the problem is that Proust is a solid brick on my shoulder; the other problem is that I don't like digesting just a page or two at a time when I'm commuting. I guess there's a third problem, which is that when I'm tired I don't want to think when I read.

On the other hand, I am finding reading this book a considerable pleasure. I had been rather absently reading Trudi Canavan's The Magician's Guild, where every character seems like a cardboard cut-out with different colored hair and clothing stuck on it. To fall into Proust's world, where the first chapter was like watching the giant Christmas tree in the Nutcracker opening up in front of me, has been an all-but physical delight.

Today our narrator has been talking about the church at Combray, and his relatives. (I have no idea if there will ever be a plot, but, whatever.) In this chapter he has met his uncle's "fancy lady," a secret which he is supposed to keep from his parents. He says, "I imagined, like everyone else, that the brains of other peope were lifeless and submissive rceptacles wtih no power of specific reaction to anything that might be introduced into them; and I had not the least doubt that when I deposited in the minds of my parents the news of the acquaintance I had made at my uncle's I should at the same time transmit to them the kindly judgment I myself had based on the introduction." As you would guess, he is wrong.

I think at this rate I might get through this portion of the work some time around the middle of January, and even though it is longer than the "month," I am going to keep trying. Good books add too much to your life to not more firmly pursue their reading.