May 17, 2013

15 Thing Friday

1. I might not make 15 today because I’ve been sick all week and I just used the last of my energy to halfheartedly shove my vacuum around my house since my college BFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE is coming in this afternoon and there’s cat hair all over the damn place. Holy run-on sentence. Sorry. Stupid rude hairy cat.

2. Speaking of cats, 27 Cats Who Could Clearly Be Male Models.

Even if you think it’s dumb, it’s worth clicking on for all the shirtless dudes (FYI: there’s an exposed fanny if you are at work).

3. Some genius made a business card that is also a cheese grater. Please let me meet you someday. Please. I could really use one of those in my life.

4. A man died after having sex with a hornet’s nest. I just don’t even know what to think about this.

5. I’m supposed to move to a new office area soon. Actually, I was supposed to move back in February, but since the furniture hasn’t even been ordered, I’m still weeks and weeks from that happening. Anyway, people keeping popping in and asking me when I’m moving, why I haven’t moved, and what I’m still doing up here. It’s really starting to hurt my feelings. Why do they want me to leave? I’m so cool.

6. I cannot get this song out of my head. I don’t know what that says about me, but I can’t quit singing it.

7. 21 Most Swoonworthy Moments of Prince Harry’s Visit to America

He sure wears the hell out of a white button up.

8. And with that, I’m out.

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May 16, 2013

Not So Good Reads

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted on what I’ve been reading. So, here we go.

Fiction:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I could not stop reading this novel; it consumed me for an entire weekend. I made the stupid mistake of not reading anything about it before I picked it up (a friend recommended it and I just bought it and started reading), so I was very confused for probably the first 30 or 40 pages. Once I realized what was happening, I was hooked.

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula’s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can — will she?

The concept of multiple lives and that the feeling of Déjà Vu is actually the memory from some mistake or decision you’ve made in the past is an idea that I think is intriguing for most people. I constantly felt panic and anguish while watching her repeat errors of the past or narrowly miss death. Again. It was a haunting reminder that there really is a “a fine line between living and dying.” The fantastic development of the characters and the vivid imagery of her world gave me that incredible feeling of missing somebody and something when it was over. I’m pretty sure I was depressed for a solid two weeks when it was all said and done.

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

I really wanted to like this book, but I just never really got into it. The alternating narrators and time periods just didn’t work for me at all. The narrating characters changed within paragraphs and I spent way too much time just trying to figure out what year I was in. I also never really felt like there was an actual building of feelings between the two main characters. This book pretty much had all of the things in it that make me hate fiction. The only decent thing to come out of this novel was that I did not know anything about the Armenian Genocide and I ended up reading The Burning Tigris, which was an excellent.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.

After reading Gone Girl, I picked this one up hoping for some of the same twists, turns, and truly awful people. I was not disappointed. I’m not sure if I liked this book because it was quite disturbing and all of the characters were about as despicable as they could be. It definitely kept me me interested, but I was so glad when it was all said and done.

Nonfiction:

Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick

Unsurprisingly, it’s a historical account of the Battle of Bunker Hill (which I once got confused with the Battle of the Bulge in fifth grade and cried in public). I prefer to read historical narratives that are focused on singular events or very short periods of time because I feel like I don’t get so overwhelmed with ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING. It’s much easier for me to focus my ADHD when all 400 pages are dedicated to one thing. I think this story is well worth your time and I learned quite a bit from it.

Eiffel’s Tower: And the World’s Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count by Jill Jonnes

I was looking for something that would do for the Paris World’s Fair what Devil in the White City did for Chicago’s, but that was probably unfair. Maybe if I had gone in with lower expectations then I would have enjoyed it more, but the unnecessary length of the subtitle should have been a clue. The entire thing was kind of jarring. The author bounced around subjects frequently without any sort of meaningful transition as to why we were suddenly talking about Annie Oakley. There was plenty of interesting information, but I was just too frustrated with the writing to ever enjoy it.

Have you read anything fantastic lately? Preferably of the historical variety…

Blitz Diary: Life Under Fire in World War II by Carol Harris

After reading Life After Life, I really wanted more information on life in London during the Blitz (since Ursula spends several lives in the midst of that misery). This book completely satisfied that desire. The devastation was far more widespread than I ever realized. I cannot imagine how anyone survived that and how people today still manage to go on with their lives while living in war zones.

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May 15, 2013

WTF Wednesday

It’s the end of the semester and people are acting crazy. We aren’t all out to get you. Please take your paranoid overly-educated bottom back into your office and shut the door. I’ll see you in August.

The end of the semester means happy times for me because I get to park way closer and the pizza isn’t always sold out in the University Center. I can cope with crazies much more easily when I’m hopped up on a couple slices of thin crust triple cheese.

I was watching the last Fast and the Furious (Fast and Furious? The Fast and Furious 5? I don’t remember what they called it) and I got really confused because didn’t Han die in Tokyo Drift? WTF? Don’t judge, I really need to understand what’s going on here.

WTF is this new movie Gravity?? I almost had a panic attack when it previewed before Gatsby. Seriously terrifying.

Game of Thrones is really worrying me. There are just too many happy cute things and there’s no way they can last. I’m really worried about Ygritte and Jon Snow.

That scene reminds me so much of my first few months in college. Leaving the village can be hard.

And I can’t even talk about that business with Brienne. I was screaming and jumping up and down in terror. And WTF is the deal with all this male virgins being rockstars in the sack? I mean yeah he “did stuff with his tongue,” but these people don’t shower!!!!!!!!!!! Of course, when compared what the virginal Joffrey does to the ladies, I guess Jon Snow must look pretty good considering Ygritte made it out of there alive.

And Daenerys, WTF is taking so long??? She’s like the slowest conqueror ever.

We also found out this week that instead of the legislature possibly actually increasing our funding a little bit this year, they are going to take hundreds of millions of dollars back instead. The thing that made me saddest after that terrible news was that I said “Winter is coming” and nobody got the reference. It’s lonely out here on Cool Person Island.

I’m so depressed.

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May 14, 2013

Great Crapsby

Even though it has been days, I’m still in mourning over how craptastic The Great Gatsby was. It just felt so disjointed and tedious. It was 2.5 hours of really awful rich people being really awful rich people. And pearls. Awful people with pearls. I don’t even know what to say other than Carey Mulligan was gorgeous and Tobey Maguire was annoying. JUST SHUT UP TOBEY. And poor Leo, he always has to die doesn’t he?

The movie was kind of like drowning in glitter. It’s pretty at first, but then it just hurts. At least the music was great.

Other than that, things were pretty uneventful around here. On Saturday, I went to the pool and managed to get through about 1/8 of Clash of Kings. Considering that book has over 1,000 pages and my lily white skin hasn’t seen the sun in many moons, I was pretty pleased with my progress. I was only able to survive in the actual sun for about 15 minutes before I got scared and dragged my chair into the shade. I’m just impressed I actually went outside for more than 10 minutes (since I usually prefer to hibernate in my dark and cold apartment).

The high point of my weekend came when I discovered that my TiVo had randomly decided to record “Death Becomes Her” for me. I’ve never in my entire life been so pleased with disobedience. I LOVE that movie. Also, this scene really hit too close to home:

I think I’ve been scared out of my frosting eating ways (for the record, I use a utensil and I own napkins).

I wanted to go to the pool again on Sunday (be outside and talk to strangers two days in a row!!), but it was raining (thank you Jesus for the precious precipitation). So, I was trapped inside with the furry beasts, one of whom cannot go to the bathroom when it’s raining because her delicate little paws cannot touch wetness.

That always makes for a good time. In further animal news, we had a big development on Sunday:

They are sharing a piece of furniture. Unbelievable. Scout is still being a rude ass and she is mainly expressing that by waking me up whenever she feels like it (for the record, it was about 6 am, my apartment faces the rising sun so please don’t let the large amount of light fool you. I don’t want to wake up at 6 am).

I had to move Bardot to her bed in the living room last night because she was snoring so loudly. I thought there was a monster napping under my bed. Normally, I can just give her a little shove and it stops, but last night she was sawing down an entire forest.

Despite all of those super exciting things, I did manage to exercise this weekend. On Saturday, I went back to Barre Class at my Pilates studio. I wasn’t really interested in doing that again, but the only Pilates class was at 8 am and since I have no reason to be awake at 8 am on a Saturday, I was happy to attend something a little bit later in the day. I’m still pretty terrible at it, but at least this time there were at least three of us who didn’t have ballerina bodies. I sometimes feel like a Sasquatch there because everyone is about five feet tall and 90 pounds on a fat day.