i bought the da vinci code at 5pm today (well, yesterday now, i suppose) on the way home from work. i just finished it. keep in mind i was at a dinner/dance from 6:30 to 11:30 or so...
need i say i couldn't put it down? that it was an excellent book?
i love to read :)
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!
if you have not heard it, go get "testimony" by dana glover. two songs - "rain" and "thinking over" - you may have heard. boy, can she can sing!
I just got He, She and It and Bourne Identity today - the first of my library recalls to arrive. Coming soon to start my reading list: The Winter Queen, The Wailing Wind, Pale Fire, Animal Dreams, Children of the Storm, Seabiscuit and (my non-fiction choices, which i'm trying to limit...) The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations, Collaborative Web Development and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. I think I'm just going to just go buy The Dante Club since it's checked out of all the libraries. Probably the same with The Da Vinci Code.
That should be enough to get me going.
first we were supposed to move on july 7th. then the 17th. then the 24th. now we're to the 30th. i just hope we get in before classes start. then again, at least they won't be moving while i'm in key west...
in my case, it's going on 3 months now...
so one of the people who went to my high school is sean watkins of nickel creek. i finally get a chance to say hello when he's in austin this last april and i can't manage intelligent conversation. gah.
i suppose it's because i went on the assumption that he wouldn't remember who i was right away, and that i'd spend most of the conversation trying to remind him who i was. when he remembered me off the bat, it threw me for a loop, i guess. there were so many things i should have said, that i wanted to say:
'*laugh* i had the hugest crush on you in high school.' (true, but no, he'd have thought i was stalking or something, and i'm not, so i'm glad that didn't make its way out of my mouth. that would have been even worse!)
'oh, i'm a musician too, when i'm not swing dancing. what do i play? hammered dulcimer right now. i sing too. oh, and i'm picking up the fiddle in a month or so as well. oh yeah, just got back from mountain view, arkansas and this great workshop in the ozarks. it was a ton of fun. yeah, i'm hoping to go to some of the bluegrass jams around the country. maybe merlefest next year. oh? you go there too?'
'say, when are you leaving town? we're headed to the kerby lane cafe if y'all want to join us for dinner.'
'oh, here's my email address, we should keep in touch...'
'next time you're in town it'd be fun to get together and jam.'
hah. did i say any of those things? no. it was full of awkward looks and awkward moments and conversation like: him: 'hey, yeah. i think i remember you. didn't you have long, curly hair?' me: 'yep, that's me. it straightened when i cut it. not really long enough to curl properly. it just sticks up.' (some non-intelligent brief conversation about the weather) him: 'so what are you doing here?" me: 'oh, i went to school at a&m, just finished my masters and i'm still hanging around here working.' him: 'cool, well, i should get going.' me: 'alright. see you later.'
not to mention that it took 15 minutes of shyness waiting to see if he'd show up after the concert. nick finally intercepted one of the tour people and asked just as sean came walking out anyway. i don't understand sometimes why i lapse back into high school habits when i'm faced with someone from high school. it's weird. i was shy during high school, therefore i am shy when talking to someone from high school. i'm *so* glad we don't do high school reunions. i wouldn't be able to function at one. (too busy trying to prove i'd changed or something, probably.)
guh. *facepalm* maybe now that you share my pain, i can stop kicking myself. *sigh*
no, you're not looking at the wrong time. i've been laying awake in bed since 4:45 or so and just couldn't stand tossing and turning any longer. ugh. i hate waking up because of a bad dream, then not being able to go back to sleep.
i'm *so* bored right now. i probably should bring the stuff for the cox scrapbook with me tomorrow - at least i could be working on it. there's not a whole lot going on at work at the moment, we're all just in a holding pattern, waiting until we can move to our new offices. erk! of course, official move day is the day after i leave for key west. i just hope they finish our offices early so that i can at least move my stuff up there before i leave...
i love my view...
My office and its view
The desk - it's huge (wall to wall, kid you not!)
looks like i'm now the first repeat speaker for the brazos valley macromedia users' group. i don't know whether they just liked me the last time i spoke, or if i'm just a glutton for punishment for agreeing to speak again if they needed me. either way, the day before i leave for key west, i'm speaking. aie. guess i'd better start working on my topic!
otherwise, this looks like it's going to be a slow week - perfectly fine with me. i've a fiddle lesson tonight, and some online stuff toward the end of the week, but that's it.
alright, i'm now appealing to the masses. what books do you recommend? ive read about five books since i finished my master's degree - all good. so i propose a swap. here's what i've read recently and recommend:
> harry potter and the order of the phoenix - j.k. rowling (done in 24 hours! )
> in this mountain - jan karon
> girl with the pearl earring - tracy chevalier
> the red tent - anita diamant
> the blind assassin - margaret atwood
> any of the amelia peabody series by elizabeth peters (gasp! i've not read the most recent one, children of the storm - that will be rectified immediately. though looking at it, i don't feel too bad. it was only published april of this year. still, i've always had the newest one preordered since i started reading the series in 2000ish)
things i've read in the past and still highly recommend:
> the temple bombing - melissa fay greene (civil rights in atlanta in the 60's. a book written like a documentary. talks about how the jews played into the situtation as well, which is fascinating to me since you usually only hear about the african-american struggle.)
> northanger abbey - jane austen (a lesser-read work of hers, but so...ironic. she pokes fun at the very style of novel that she's writing. i think it's my favorite of hers.)
> the woman in white - william wilkie collins (still one of my favorite mystery-type novels to this day. the writer definitely keeps you guessing until the end.)
alright. your turn. what books should i be reading?
afterthought:
those queued up for my reading pleasure: (alright, so i saw a couple of them in andrea's blog...): the nanny/melissa nathan and the dante club/matthew pearl, the winter queen/boris akunin, pale fire/vladimir nabokov
i am the uno champion of the evening! it was all over when i issued the age-old family card challenge - "are you ready to lose?" ;)
i was out of the gate at 5-0, nick rallied back for a final score of 5 games to my 8.
that's what happens when you grow up in a family of card sharks...
finally finished - all the backlog stuff is entered into movable type.
i really can't believe i've been blogging since june 1999. i didn't even know what blogging was. then again, was 'blog' even a word back then? amazing - i might have been ahead of the times!
this weekend will probably be slow. thank goodness. probably finishing up curtains for nick's place with his mom, working on some scrapbooking or sewing projects for myself, maybe hanging the sconces and "candlelier" that i got for the patio... i do know that i'll find something to do.
the words from a song i wish i could sing to the undergraduate program office. they had pictures taken of all the incoming freshmen at the conference yesterday. it's not been even 24 hours, i just got in (short story - headache), and i already have a voice mail asking for them. sheesh people! calm down. you have 158 pictures. it's going to take me at least half an hour to get them printed!
quick note: you'll notice that i'm adding some of the stuff that was static - entries from long before i knew what blogging was, yet i was doing it anyway. i don't know what time i posted, but i do know the date, so everything's going in as 12am. no, not everything was published at 12am. just so you know.
as i haul my dulcimer up three flights of stairs, i am once again reminded why i wanted to take up the fiddle: it's portable. not like the dulcimer which, on end, reaches nearly to my shoulder and is twice as wide as i am. doorways are interesting with that thing on your shoulder. and then there's the stand...
the jam session tonight was fun. about half the people were out of town, so there were just four of us, but we had a banjo, fiddle, guitar and dulcimer. we rotated picking songs, so at least i was able to pick a few that i knew. the rest of the time i played "the part of the rapt audience." i do it so well. ;)
hm. my cordless phone is now annoying. it clicks when it's sitting in the charger. just started doing that too. anyone out there an expert? do i need a new battery or something? not as if i get or make many phone calls from home. that's what my cell phone is for. heck, i don't think i'd have a land line except that i have to have one to have dsl.
somehow i'm listening to norah jones again. for some reason it just instantly quiets me. i feel like i should be somewhere in california in a meditteranean house with wood floors that's right on the beach, at sunset, out on the balcony with a wrought iron railing overlooking the ocean, feet propped up as i watch the sun sink behind the horizon. maybe someday i'll get there.
until then, i dream.
...people ask you to do something you already did. a while ago. like last week? shouldn't they check before they ask?
music
jam session tonight. i'm such a sucker for music. i've said it before that music is my life. i would be happy if i could make my living being a musician and doing web sites. (if only i didn't have stage fright...)
currently in my cd players:
> work: yo-yo ma / bobby mcferrin - hush
> car: krystal - me & my piano (cycling through cd's i haven't heard in a while...), natasha's ghost - shimmer
ah, my excitement for the afternoon... i went outside to watch the rain pour down, and i saw a snake three stories down. no big deal. i watched it eat a frog. eh, so? i watched it slither toward the rocks near the sidewalk...and then i called the apartment manager. it proceded to go across the sidewalk and hide in the rocks on the other side.
the maintenance guy showed up soon after and proceeded to kill it. thank goodness! (though i did have to lend them my butcher knife - they were trying to kill it with an itty bitty pocket knife while it was pinned with a hoe and stick.) turns out it was probably a water moccasin (aka a cottonmouth) - i'm *really* glad it's gone. i think it was the same snake i walked by a few weeks ago while it was hanging out on the sidewalk. almost didn't see it too...
got an email update from my cousin and her husband today - they'll be back in the states soon! found out they both keep blogs, so i can keep up with them now. :)
displacedamerican.blog-city.com
and other things in life
i decided to start a real journal. question is, how do i put this stuff in it. maybe i'll just keep two journals. hm...
i'm such a sewing addict now - i spent all weekend relearning how to sew by making curtains for nick's apartment with his mom. last night i made two envelope pillow cases for the throw pillows in my living room (they were ickie). next? quilting? like i need another hobby!
oh yeah, and now i'm addicted to ebay. sad, but true. and it all started because i was looking for cams for my (1970's singer golden touch & sew model 750) sewing machine. heh. but i did find those dauber duos that i've been looking all over for. and they were a decent price...
tonight: scrapbooking (which i've been doing all day for work)
tomorrow: work then a jam session (yay!)
friday: dunno. maybe more scrapbooking?
in the cd/mp3 players:
-home: jesse cook (earlier), art garfunkel - everything waits to be noticed (now)
-car: (need to take new cds down there) vertical horizon - everything you want, dave matthews - busted stuff
more on the music front
oh yeah, and the second fiddle lesson went well. i can nearly get through red wing without messing up now. up to speed? hah. maybe in a few months. at least my teacher was really really happy with my intonation still. let's hope it doesn't stay like it is forever. i *know* i'm hitting wrong notes here and there.
you rarely hear me complain about the heat, but this past thursday my air conditioning went out in my apartment. you think it's hot outside? you should have been inside! yikes! i checked the temp of the water in the fish tank and it was 90 degrees on sunday. poor fishies. i hope they're not half-boiled to death...
otherwise, i spent the weekend at nick's learning how to sew. his mom and i spent most of saturday and sunday making curtains and other sundries for nick's new place. it's really neat, actually - built in the 30's with hardwood floors, a garage and office/music/play room downstairs, lots of windows...
i've decided aside from a meteorologist, in a former life i must have been an interior decorator.
amazing how easy it was to set up a business. i did it today over my lunch hour. getting a dba took all of about 15 minutes, and that included the time it took to fill out the form. i even had enough time to stop by the bank and open a business account. once i get insurance, i'm all set! (what kind of business? if you haven't already heard, visit crimsonkite.com)
last night's fiddle lesson went well. i'm actually managing real notes without too many screeches or squawks. the e string is a different story, but with practice, i'll get it. i think my ear is better than i thought - or at least it's really close. i was able to play the same note as my instructor. she was actually pretty impressed. that made me happy. guess my dad's talent has rubbed off on me afterall.
tonight's the last night of the small business class series. we'll be talking about recordkeeping. how exciting. :) actually, sometimes i think i might have been able to go into accounting. for a little while.
i'm glad this is a short week, though the bad thing is that it makes me less inclined to want to work. on the other hand, i'm doing exciting (uh, yeah) things like splitting up the last of the server logs, which is kind of tedious. better than waiting for another 6 months for nothing to be done, though. shhh. don't tell the grad assistant who's been trying to write some program to do this. it would have been faster for him to just do it by hand. like me.
