The Sunday Salon - Le Weird Weekend

An earthquake in Oklahoma? Setting the clocks back in November? My 31st birthday in four days? Overall, just weird. It's been a weird (but good) week and weekend.

Baby G is staying with family and I've had almost 24 hours of time to do whatever I want. We had a freak Internet outage yesterday, so while I'd planned to knock out scads of grading for my online classes, I ended up playing SIMS2 for several hours. Not that playing SIMS isn't wonderful, but it was most certainly not in the productive plan. On the productive side, I did laundry, changed sheets, cleaned (I can almost close my closet door now), and my mom took me shopping for some pre-birthday birthday gifts: two pairs of ballet flats I can wear for work or play (one pewter, one bronze).

On the reading front, I'm still chugging along with Bad Marie, and I'm wondering how bad things are going to get for Marie! She's pretty clueless about life in general and responsibility, but there are also some pretty crazy external happenings working on Marie. It's gonna be a big ole train wreck, I'm sure, I just don't know what the carnage will involve yet.

In my previous post, I asked you lovely bloggy readers what type of books you depend on to bust your slumps. Natasha from 1330V mentioned graphic novels. I used to count graphic novels among my favorite go-to reading, but graphic novel and comics reading has really fallen by the wayside for me in the last few years. I suspect it's a side effect of having devoted SO much time to them in graduate school, but I also expect it's because they don't travel so well.

Many of the graphic novels on my shelves at home are CHUNKsters, fo' sho'. Watch for a post on my graphic novel TBR to post tomorrow. Easily-stuck-in-purse or not, I think I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to tackle my unread graphic novels in coming months (and early next year).

For now, I'm off to let shower water run over my head in hopes of killing this bitchin' headache I woke up with. Is it sinus pressure? Is it tension? Who the heck knows, so I took meds for both. Exciting Sunday, eh?

The Sunday Salon - Le Weird Weekend

An earthquake in Oklahoma? Setting the clocks back in November? My 31st birthday in four days? Overall, just weird. It's been a weird (but good) week and weekend.

Baby G is staying with family and I've had almost 24 hours of time to do whatever I want. We had a freak Internet outage yesterday, so while I'd planned to knock out scads of grading for my online classes, I ended up playing SIMS2 for several hours. Not that playing SIMS isn't wonderful, but it was most certainly not in the productive plan. On the productive side, I did laundry, changed sheets, cleaned (I can almost close my closet door now), and my mom took me shopping for some pre-birthday birthday gifts: two pairs of ballet flats I can wear for work or play (one pewter, one bronze).

On the reading front, I'm still chugging along with Bad Marie, and I'm wondering how bad things are going to get for Marie! She's pretty clueless about life in general and responsibility, but there are also some pretty crazy external happenings working on Marie. It's gonna be a big ole train wreck, I'm sure, I just don't know what the carnage will involve yet.

In my previous post, I asked you lovely bloggy readers what type of books you depend on to bust your slumps. Natasha from 1330V mentioned graphic novels. I used to count graphic novels among my favorite go-to reading, but graphic novel and comics reading has really fallen by the wayside for me in the last few years. I suspect it's a side effect of having devoted SO much time to them in graduate school, but I also expect it's because they don't travel so well.

Many of the graphic novels on my shelves at home are CHUNKsters, fo' sho'. Watch for a post on my graphic novel TBR to post tomorrow. Easily-stuck-in-purse or not, I think I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to tackle my unread graphic novels in coming months (and early next year).

For now, I'm off to let shower water run over my head in hopes of killing this bitchin' headache I woke up with. Is it sinus pressure? Is it tension? Who the heck knows, so I took meds for both. Exciting Sunday, eh?

Forget Everything I Said

I'm busy, my brain is fried, I'm slumping. FORGET ALL THAT. A magical thing happened last night. I worked a late night (was at work until 8pm and then commuted the hour home). I scarfed down some fast food on the way out to the sticks and when I arrived G was in bed, so I jumped in the shower, skipped my mindless TV viewing, and climbed into bed. I had to get up at 5am today, so I wasn't dallying too much.

When I actually got into bed I couldn't fall asleep (weird) so I opened my Nook app on my iPhone. I found myself in the midst of a little guilt storm that I haven't given ANY attention to my personal Tournament of Books reading challenge lately, so I popped open the first TOB book on my phone: Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky.

And this is where the magic happened. It clicked! The writing style in this book is very stripped down and straightforward. Marie is bad. She's been in prison, she drinks whiskey while she babysits, she's a mess with absolutely no ambition. And I totally want to read about her! The writing style in the early pages is humorously flippant about Marie's ambitionlessness (ha!). The style mixed with the subject matter is really jivin' for me, so I hope this is the official end to my most recent reading slump.

I'm not far into the book, but it's also very short (167 pages on my phone), and it sort of reminds me of my experience reading Sherry and Narcotics by Nina-Marie Gardner earlier in the year. I was in a bit of a slump at that point too and the alcoholic protagonist in that novel pulled me right on out of my reading funk with her train wreck of a life.Yay! It's a weird thing to "yay" for and an odd topic to de-slump me, but I'll take it.

Have you experienced a slump lately? Is there any "type" of book that usually pulls you out of a slump? Share, folks!

Forget Everything I Said

I'm busy, my brain is fried, I'm slumping. FORGET ALL THAT. A magical thing happened last night. I worked a late night (was at work until 8pm and then commuted the hour home). I scarfed down some fast food on the way out to the sticks and when I arrived G was in bed, so I jumped in the shower, skipped my mindless TV viewing, and climbed into bed. I had to get up at 5am today, so I wasn't dallying too much.

When I actually got into bed I couldn't fall asleep (weird) so I opened my Nook app on my iPhone. I found myself in the midst of a little guilt storm that I haven't given ANY attention to my personal Tournament of Books reading challenge lately, so I popped open the first TOB book on my phone: Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky.

And this is where the magic happened. It clicked! The writing style in this book is very stripped down and straightforward. Marie is bad. She's been in prison, she drinks whiskey while she babysits, she's a mess with absolutely no ambition. And I totally want to read about her! The writing style in the early pages is humorously flippant about Marie's ambitionlessness (ha!). The style mixed with the subject matter is really jivin' for me, so I hope this is the official end to my most recent reading slump.

I'm not far into the book, but it's also very short (167 pages on my phone), and it sort of reminds me of my experience reading Sherry and Narcotics by Nina-Marie Gardner earlier in the year. I was in a bit of a slump at that point too and the alcoholic protagonist in that novel pulled me right on out of my reading funk with her train wreck of a life.Yay! It's a weird thing to "yay" for and an odd topic to de-slump me, but I'll take it.

Have you experienced a slump lately? Is there any "type" of book that usually pulls you out of a slump? Share, folks!