Longing For…

I haven’t had a chance to feel lonely in a long time, and I find that I am aching for it. Is that odd? It’s one of those times where my life seems so overplanned, and I just feel tired and trapped and I don’t feel like seeing or talking to anybody. I want to curl up on the couch with a blanket or in my bed under the covers and do nothing but read. Or go someplace new–a vacation, a move. Or go back to school and spend all my time studying to be a scientist or a historian. I don’t know. I just feel in need of escape these days.

Austism

So, this weekend we drove down to Austin to stay with Todd and Jaime for the weekend. We were excited to see their new house and meet their chickens, and of course to just hang out with them. Mostly we ended up just reading and playing video games and watching tv and eating and drinking, and that’s about it. Which was pretty great! It felt like a really relaxing weekend, except for the part where we were supposed to be here in Dallas Saturday night watching Z and Marya’s doggies while they were at the Adolphus for their anniversary, which we thought we were supposed to be doing on Sunday night. Big oops. I felt really, really bad. I hate miscommunications!

Anyway, one of my very favorite things about Todd and Jaime’s house is, well, the chickens! They have a small coop in their backyard with five chickens (Edna, Lupe, Collie, Mildred and…er…that other one), and they are cute and lay tasty eggs and make pleasant clucking sounds and like to invade Todd’s garden when they’re let out of their cage and Todd isn’t watching them closely enough. It made me really want some chickens of my own, and really sad that it’s illegal to have them in Plano. Boo!

And that was our weekend! It was nice to get home and have time to lounge around a bit before bed. We decided to maybe rearrange the living room again, but we’re still toying with ideas at the moment. That’s basically it.

An Actual Conversation I Just Had:

Dude: Yes, hi. I’m coming from the north on the tollway; how do I get to your building?

Me: Just exit on Spring Valley and take a right; the building is right on the corner.

Dude: Where’s the parking garage?

Me: At either end of the building there’s an entrance to the parking garage.

Dude: What’s the room number?

Me: 1000 East.

Dude: Which floor?

Me: We’re on the tenth floor.

Dude: Okay, you’re on the first floor…

Me: We’re on the tenth floor…

Dude: Okay, tenth floor, suite 3000…

Me: We’re in Suite 1000.

Dude: Suite 3000…

Me: Suite ONE thousand.

Dude: Okay, first floor, suite 1000.

Me: No, TENTH floor, suite 1000 east.

Dude: Okay, thanks. *click*

five minutes later…

Dude: Where’s the parking garage?

Me: There’s an entrance on either side of the building. Just follow the signs for visitor parking…

Dude: But I didn’t see it! I’m going around again. Okay, so just go in where it says tenant parking?

Me: You actually need to go in where it says visitor parking. It’s right next to the entrance for tenant parking.

Dude: Okay, tenant parking…

Me: No, you need to go in the entrance for VISITOR parking. Then just follow the signs for the east tower.

Dude: Okay, visitor parking. Do I go to the east or west side?

Me: East. Follow the signs for the east tower.

Dude: Okay. And then I go to the first floor…

Me: TENTH floor, Suite ONE thousand. EAST tower.

ARGHHHHHH! Doesn’t it just drive you CRAZY when people ask you questions and then don’t actually listen to the answers?

Star Trek

Shannon and I FINALLY went to see the most recent Star Trek movie at the dollar (fifty) theatre last night. And we thought it was GREAT. This is the only Star Trek movie I’ve ever seen, and as much as I enjoyed it, I have absolutely no desire to go back and watch any of the old ones because there is NO ZACHARY QUINTO in them. And therefore I say no thank you.

Hottest Spock ever! Heh…

Cooking Adventures–Hurrah!

Last night Marya came over and we made fried macaroni. It turned out much better than it did last time we tried it! We also made more friend chocolate, because, WOW, it’s good! But let me tell you what is NOT good (except to dogs, cause they apparently love it). Fried figs. Ick.

Anyway, when I was digging around in our pantry for the vegetable oil, I found a Presto Multi-Cooker that I had totally forgotten about, and now I’m a little obsessed with it. You can use it as a fryer, a steamer, a crock pot, or just like you would a regular pot on the stove, only with no stove because it has its own heating element! I just think it’s kind of amazing! So I’ve spent the morning looking up interesting crock pot recipes to try because crock pots always make me think of Ramona Quimby (remember when Mrs. Quimby forgot to turn on the crock pot before they left the house and they got home and OMG the food was NOT COOKED?) and I have this really bad habit of wanting to do things or go places just because someone in a book did it. This is my latest thing like that.

Ridiculous, but…

Book Day!

I don’t know why, but I kind of like having my Goodreads reviews of all the books I read on here. I’m in this mode of having everything in one place, so…anyway, here’s the most recent batch:

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (3/5 stars):

When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D. J. can’t help admitting, maybe he’s right. When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn’t so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won’t even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league. When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D. J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.

This was pretty cute. I thought the writing felt a little too informal at times, at least for my liking. It’s pretty much written the way someone would speak, which means sometimes the grammar is awkward or wrong. The main character doesn’t TALK much, but BOY is she loquacious when she writes–if this were spoken out loud, I get the feeling you’d be out of breath practically the entire time! I liked all the characters in this book, but didn’t love any of them, and I found I didn’t much care where the story was going. I still read the whole thing in less than a day though, so I guess that says something about it! This is not by any means an AMAZING book, but it’s perfectly enjoyable, and I probably will read the two sequals at some point as well.

Touching Darkness (Midnighters #2) by Scott Westerfeld (4/5 stars):

The Midnighters of Bixby, Oklahoma, know that their town is full of secrets. These five teenagers are the only ones who know about the mysterious hour at midnight when the world freezes, except for them and the creatures that inhabit the darkness.

But they do not know why earlier generations of Midnighters all disappeared, or why they are now the only Midnighters in town. As they learn more about the secret hour’s twists and turns, they uncover terrifying mysteries woven into the very fabric of Bixby’s history, and a conspiracy that touches both the midnight hour and the world of daylight.

At the same time, the Midnighters’ own secrets start to emerge, including some that were never meant to come to light, changing the fragile dynamics among the five.

This time Jessica Day is not the only Midnighter in mortal danger, and if the group can’t find a way to come together, they could lose one of their own — forever.

A tale of betrayal, horrifying revelations, and powerful alliances, touching darkness is the second volume of the riveting Midnighters trilogy by acclaimed author Scott Westerfeld.

This is a pretty great series. In this book, we find more out about Bixby’s past and about why there are so few midnighters around (or maybe so many). And there are some pretty big changes that happen within the group. This volume was just as enjoyable as the first one, and I’m excited about reading the third. Way to go, Westerfeld!

The Prophet of Yonwood (Ember #3) by Jeanne DuPrau (3/5 stars):

It’s 50 years before the settlement of the city of Ember, and the world is in crisis. War looms on the horizon as 11-year-old Nickie and her aunt travel to the small town of Yonwood, North Carolina. There, one of the town’s respected citizens has had a terrible vision of fire and destruction. Her garbled words are taken as prophetic instruction on how to avoid the coming disaster. If only they can be interpreted correctly. . .
As the people of Yonwood scramble to make sense of the woman’s mysterious utterances, Nickie explores the oddities she finds around town her great-grandfather’s peculiar journals and papers, a reclusive neighbor who studies the heavens, a strange boy who is fascinated with snakes all while keeping an eye out for ways to help the world. Is this vision her chance? Or is it already too late to avoid a devastating war?
In this prequel to the acclaimed The City of Ember and The People of Sparks, Jeanne DuPrau investigates how, in a world that seems out of control, hope and comfort can be found in the strangest of places.

Not the best in the series, but still enjoyable. I felt like there were a lot of little plot elements that sort of got dropped or just didn’t really go anywhere interesting. This story doesn’t have as much to do with the City of Ember as you might think, but it still worked for me–it’s just more of a snap shot of a time during the childhood of one of Ember’s first residents. I guess you could say that the main theme is that sometimes you can do the wrong thing thinking that you are doing the RIGHT thing, and that sometimes it’s hard to tell; good and evil aren’t as black and white as we’d sometimes like them to be. It’s sort of done in a heavy handed way, but I still enjoyed the characters and the feel of the small town portrayed here. I imagine you won’t be missing anything if you just skip this one and move on to the fourth book, which apparently goes back to Lina and Doon, but I think this one’s still worth a read.

Blackthorn Winter by Kathryn Reiss (2/5 stars):

The last place fifteen-year-old Juliana wants to be is halfway around the world in Blackthorn, England, an idyllic seaside artists’ colony her mother has dragged her off to while her parents weather a trial separation. Juliana misses her father terribly and doesn’t understand why her mother needs to travel so far to resurrect her artistic self, which she claims to have lost in the marriage.

Soon after they arrive in the tiny village of Blackthorn, the artists’ colony is set on its heels by the murder of one of its own. Juliana feels compelled to solve the crime, but she is shocked and frightened when it seems that clues in the matter are hitting a little too close to home. Can she figure out who the murderer is before anyone else–herself included–gets hurt?

Fairly typical murder mystery where it seems that EVERYBODY has a motive, but the person who actually did it is “the last person you’d expect”. Only I DID suspect, and pretty early on.

The main character, Juliana, really got on my nerves; I couldn’t sympathize with her much, and I felt like sometimes she was a little too inconsistent–it seemed like she reacted in certain ways just to move the plot along and not in ways that felt natural. And her past and the answer to the gaps in her memory were wrapped up sort of too ridiculously neatly and it just wasn’t very believable. Honestly, I didn’t care about her past and the gaps in her memory in the first place because the character just wasn’t real enough for me to feel any interest in her whatsoever.

One more thing–it drives me CRAZY in mysteries when the killer has to go on and on and ON about how and why they committed the murder as they’re attempting to kill someone else. I just can’t imagine anyone behaving like that in real life, and I always saw it as a really weak way to justify the author’s plot.

This turned out to be a little too flat and trite for me is all.

From Dead to Worse (Southern Vampire #8) by Charlaine Harris (4/5 stars):

After the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the man-made explosion at the vampire summit, everyone – human and otherwise -is stressed, including Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse, who is trying to cope with the fact that her boyfriend Quinn has gone missing.

It’s clear that things are changing whether the weres and vamps of her corner of Louisiana like it or not. And Sookie -Friend to the Pack and blood-bonded to Eric Northman, leader of the local vampire community – is caught up in the changes.

In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, death, and once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood finished flowing, her world will be forever altered.

This was kinda odd. It felt more like four books than one–situation, resolution, situation, resolution, situation, resolution…usually it seems like her situations and resolutions are much more intertwined, but in this one they all felt like episodes completely separate from one another. Which was okay, I guess, just unusual. Things I liked about it: the end of the whole Debbie Pelt SAGA, no boyfriends around (I haven’t loved ANY of them so far), Sookie’s relationship with Jason takes an interesting turn, and Sookie meets TWO fascinating relatives she didn’t know she had. And lots of Sam. I really like Sam. I’m sad that there’s only one more book out at the moment cause things are pretty interesting in Sookie’s world right now!

Hell Week (Maggie Quinn: Girl Vs. Evil #2) by Rosemary Clement-Moore (4/5 stars):

Maggie Quinn has battled an ancient demon, faced down psychotic cheerleaders, and saved her best friend from certain death, but nothing can match this. Formal sorority recruitment, otherwise known as rush.

And after facing hellfire, infiltrating sorority rush should be easy. But when she finds a group of girls who are after way more than “sisterhood,” all her instincts say there’s something rotten on Greek Row. And when Hell Week rolls around, there may be no turning back.

Snarky college freshman Maggie Quinn infiltrates the sorority rush for the school newspaper and gets in waaaaay over her head. Another fun book in the Maggie Quinn: Girl Vs. Evil series. Although I didn’t like it quite as much as I did Prom Dates From Hell, I still really enjoyed it. Maggie remains sarcastic, her parents remain hilarious, Gran remains tough, and I like that her relationships with Justin and Lisa don’t feel surfacy and clichéd. I’m starting on the third book in this series right away.

Highway to Hell (Maggie Quinn: Girl Vs. Evil #3) by Rosemary Clement-Moore (4/5 stars):

Maggie Quinn was expecting to find plenty of trouble with Lisa over Spring Break. Give a girl a bikini, a beachfront hotel, and an absent boyfriend, and it’s as good as a road map to the dark side. But Maggie doesn’t have to go looking for trouble. Trouble has started looking for her. One dead cow and a punctured gas tank later, she and Lisa are stuck in
Dulcina, Texas—a town so small that it has an owner. And lately life in this small town hasn’t been all that peaceful. An eerie predator is stalking the ranchland.

Everyone in town has a theory, but not even Maggie’s psychic mojo can provide any answers. And the longer the girls are stranded, the more obvious it becomes that something is seriously wrong. Only no one—not even Maggie’s closest ally—wants to admit that they could have been forced on a detour down the highway to hell.

This one took me a little more time to get through than the first two in this series, but possibly in a good way? Highway to Hell has a very different setting than its predecessors–Maggie and Lisa are on Spring Break and end up stranded in the small ranch-town of Dulcina, Texas when they hit a dead cow in the road (doing some major damage to Maggie’s Jeep) on their way to South Padre. Naturally, Maggie senses something fishy going on and aims to find out what it is. There are some interesting characters in Dulcina, and we also get to meet Justin’s best friend (and priest-in-training) Henry and hear a little more about Justin’s mysterious past (although it turns out not to be all THAT exciting, in my opinion). This one felt a little less fluffy than the first two (in large part because of the setting, I think), which I actually really enjoyed, and I found this the most interesting of the demons Maggie’s faced. All in all, another great book in the series! I very much hope there will be more.

Warehouse 13

So, Shannon and I have recently started watching Warehouse 13 on SyFy (yes, the new name is RETARDED). And you know? It’s pretty fun! It’s reminiscent of Bones, partly because of the music and the way it’s filmed, but also partly because actor Eddie McClintock looks quite a bit like David Boreanaz (and their characters seem to have some similarities as well). And it’s also reminiscent of The X-Files and Indiana Jones. Which, you know, I like all of those.

The set up is, Peter Latimer and Myka Bering are Secret Service agents who receive a transfer (against their will) to the mysterious Warehouse 13. Their new boss is Artie Neilson, (who to me looks like the poor man’s Harold Ramis) a wacky scientist type in charge of the warehouse, who tells them that their job is now to track down all the freaky stuff out there that threatens national security and bring it back to the warehouse to be boxed up and stored in order to keep the world safe. And they have at their disposal a number of weird steampunk-like contraptions made by people like Thomas Edison and Nikola Telsa back in the day.

Myka has this look on her face quite often. She is NOT HAPPY about this transfer AT ALL. But she decides to stick with her partner. Peter seems to think of it as a fun adventure and dives right in, cracking jokes and goofing off. And Artie blusters and bumbles and tries to remain in control.

It’s not the best show EVER or anything like that, but it’s ridiculous and fun, and I’m excited about watching the rest of the episodes and seeing where they go with it.

Leggings!

I decided to wear my leggings to work in support of Erin wearing hers to work the other day. You can’t really tell in the picture, but I call these my 80s Rock Star Pants because they look like (fake) snake skin. Ha! As soon as I walked in my supervisor said, “I love your leggings! Those are so cute!” So. Apparently it is perfectly fine for me to wear them to my office as well! In case you were wondering.

The dress is one from Mark that Erin gave me awhile back. I wear it all the time and love it like mad. It’s something I would have never EVER thought to buy for myself (I don’t generally do black and white OR bold patterns), but somehow it still works for me! So thanks, Erin!

Also, I think it’s really funny that I just posted on my (ex) fashion blog about how not to expect me to ever really have fashion related posts on this one because I’m so lazy, and here I am like two days later putting up a fashion post. Guess I’m just a wild card like that. Ba-cha!

Today I Feel Like Celebrating Robots

So, in their honor:

Kraftwerk – “The Robots”

Röyksopp (Featuring Robin) – “The Girl and the Robot”

Björk – “All is Full of Love”

Daft Punk – “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”

And of course:

Flight of the Conchords – “The Humans Are Dead”

Julian Plenti is…Skyscraper

Julian Plenti is NOT Skyscraper, but Paul Banks, from Interpol, which just happens to be one of my all-time favorite bands. So naturally I was very excited to find out from Z awhile back that he was releasing a solo album. This week, it finally came out and I got it immediately with some cash that I still had left in my Amie Street account. Sadly, I could not actually download or listen to it at work, so I did the next best thing: told Z it was out and then had him describe all the songs to me as HE listened to it. By the end of the album, I had a pretty darn good impression of it! Anyway, yesterday morning I FINALLY had it on my iPod and ready to play, and have since listened to it…ohhhh, maybe five times through? And on each listen I like it more and more. It’s different from what Banks does with Interpol…quieter sometimes, poppier, happier, prettier. Sometimes it’s a little uneven, and, as Z complained on his first listen, the songs are kind of on the short side. But there are worse things than getting to the end of an album and wishing there were more, right? This is certainly not the best album of all time; even so, Banks has definitely made one of the better albums I’ve heard so far this year. His is one of my favorite voices in all of musicdom (ha!), right up there with Morrissey and Peter Murphy and Julie Andrews (again, ha!), and I’m so glad to find that he still sounds just as good here, singing solo, as he does with my beloved Interpol. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I must admit to being pleasantly surprised (although perhaps I shouldn’t have been). Bravo, Mr. Banks! You’ve given me Plenti more to love about you (har-dee-har)!