Same As It Ever Was [entries|friends|calendar] Stephe [ website | Stephe's Library Thing ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

January 5, 2010 [05 Jan 2010|11:55pm] [ mood | relaxed ] [ music | none ] According to Reliable News Sources, we got 26" of snow between Friday (New Year's Day) evening and Monday morning. I can believe it. It certainly feels like I've shoveled at least that much. There was a slight scrim of new snow on the driveway this morning with a few drifts here and there, and it didn't take me long to clear it. Hopefully, we'll have at least a few snow-free days before the next storm comes through. I didn't have to work at the book store today, and there are no subbing assignments on the horizon, so I spent the day being domestic. I got caught up with my laundry and washed a few dishes, and I took care of a bunch of small paperwork-oriented tasks that had been building up over the last few days. I also read my first book of the year, Alison Hawthorne Deming's poetry collection Rope (1/96). Next up will probably be more poetry, perhaps one of my Christmas books (although someday I should get back to work on reading Lowell's collected poems). I needed a quiet day at home like this. post comment

January 4, 2010 [04 Jan 2010|11:55pm] [ mood | exhausted ] [ music | none ] It's hard to tell how much snow we got last night, as the wind was howling and shaped the new coverage into drifts. Some of our driveway was clear down to the pavement; other parts were under two feet or more of snow. It took me an hour and a half of shoveling to clear it this morning. I wouldn't mind this constant shoveling, except that it never seems to stop snowing while I'm outside, which just leads to a sense of complete futility. I showed up at work this afternoon to find out that our clearance sale is now up to 50% off. Despite that, business was reasonably slow today. Still, we made our sales goal for the year yesterday, so every dollar we took in today was just gravy. I worked a closing shift, so it was after 9:00 PM when I got out. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to have snowed much during the day, and it was clear when I drove home, so maybe the worst of this particular storm cluster has passed. post comment

January 3, 2010 [03 Jan 2010|09:29pm] [ mood | weary ] [ music | none ] queenmomcat and I shoveled another three or four inches of light powder off the driveway this morning, and we'll probably have at least that much to clear again tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, and so forth. My back is killing me. On the other hand, I expect all of this exertion will help me lose a little weight in the short term. Keeping it off is another matter entirely. I'm doing well so far on not eating between meals (except for the occasional piece of fruit) and not eating out of boredom, and I haven't had any alcohol in the last few days, so good news at least on those resolutions. On the other hand, I haven't done any reading or writing lately. I have a book of poetry picked out for my next reading project (Rope by Alison Hawthorne Deming), and I may well start in on it before falling asleep tonight. Otherwise, things have been quiet around here. My energies have been generally split between snow removal and work at the book store, and between them I haven't had much time to do anything else of note. Maybe things will get better as the week progresses. At the very least, I'd like to get some writing done. 3 comments|post comment

January 2, 2010 [02 Jan 2010|11:55pm] [ mood | sore ] [ music | none ] Judging by what queenmomcat and I had to shovel off the sidewalk and our driveway, we got around 18" inches of snow last night, with drifts up to two feet. It took us two and a half hours, admittedly with two fifteen-minute breaks, to get everything cleared up, and there's more snow on the way. In fact, it was snowing when I drove home from work this evening, so I expect we'll be back out with our shovels and aching muscles tomorrow morning. Work itself was reasonably busy. The holiday rush is over, although we're still making reasonably good numbers because of our 40% off clearance sale. Honestly, I was surprised at how many people there were in the mall, especially given that the evening started with more heavy snow and periodic whiteout conditions. At least the snowfall had eased up somewhat by the time I left the mall to go home. Tomorrow, I anticipate having a quiet day at home. I may even read or watch a DVD. Assuming that my body isn't so stiff that I can't get out of bed in the morning. post comment

January 1, 2010 [01 Jan 2010|11:55pm] [ mood | determined ] [ music | none ] 2010 isn't off to the best of starts. Nothing really bad, at least as far as queenmomcat and I are concerned, but nothing really stellar either. I worked an eight-hour shift at the book store today, and for the most part it was dead. We had a few busy moments that allowed us to make a decent number of sales for the day, but there were long periods of nothing happening at all, probably because the weather was nasty for a good bit of the afternoon. We're getting a lot of lake-effect snow right now -- in fact, as I was driving home I found myself in near-whiteout conditions more than once. Anyways, time for New Year's resolutions. I'll make this quick: 1) Lose weight. I've needed to do this for years, so now I've decided to make it formal. 2) Stop drinking. This should help with the above. I did reasonably well with this for about the first half of last year, but then things fell apart again. Time to try again. 3) Read. 100 books is still my goal. 4) Write. Finishing a poetry manuscript is still my goal. And that's about it. 2 comments|post comment

December 31, 2009 [31 Dec 2009|07:36pm] [ mood | mixed ] [ music | none ] First up, I hope you all have a good New Year's Eve followed by a great 2010. Second up, queenmomcat and I have a quiet evening planned at home. We may watch the 1982 version of Sweeney Todd -- which, if I recall correctly, is a film of a performance of the stage show -- and we may also end up going to bed before midnight. We'll see. Third and last up, here follows the remainder of my list of books read this year: *Nick Laird, On Purpose *Li-Young Lee, Behind My Eyes Jonathan Lethem, The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye *William Logan, Vain Empires L. H. Maynard and M. P. N. Sims, Black Cathedral John Meaney, Bone Song Christopher Moore, Fool Magdalen Nabb, Death of an Englishman Wendy Northcutt, The Darwin Awards Next Evolution †Laurie Notaro, Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood -----, We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive *Don Paterson, Orpheus: A Version of Rilke *Tom Paulin, The Road to Inver *Lucia Perillo, Inseminating the Elephant -----, I've Heard the Vultures Singing: Field Notes on Poetry, Illness, and Nature *†Marge Piercy, What Are Big Girls Made Of? *Robert Pinsky, Jersey Rain Joyce Porter, Dover One †Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents -----, The Last Hero -----, Unseen Academicals †Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Relic *Christina Pugh, Restoration Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day -----, Inherent Vice Robert Rankin, The Antipope -----, The Brentford Triangle -----, The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code -----, East of Ealing -----, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse *Maurice Riordan, A Word from the Loki Mary Roach, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars -----, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain William Shakespeare, Macbeth *Gary Snyder, Myths & Texts *-----, Turtle Island *Mark Strand, Darker S. Andrew Swann, Dragons of the Cuyahoga *Jonathan Thirkield, The Waker's Corridor †Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions †-----, Dead-Eye Dick †-----, Slapstick *Susan Wicks, The Clever Daughter *-----, Singing Underwater *Cynthia Zarin, The Watercourse 4 comments|post comment

December 30, 2009 [30 Dec 2009|08:57pm] [ mood | lazy ] [ music | none ] Day two of my year-end record keeping starts with a graph: As you can see, my monthly reading rate was all over the place this year. If I hope to ever have a year when I do meet my goal of reading 100 books, I have to be more consistent. Anyways, I finished 94 books in 2009, for a total of 18,119 pages. Follows here the first half of the list. As in past years, an * indicates a book of poetry and a † indicates a book read for a summer reading program. *Sandra Alcosser, Except by Nature *Fergus Allen, Who Goes There? *Simon Armitage, Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid *-----, The Universal Home Doctor *David Baker, Midwest Eclogue Allyson Beatrice, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? True Adventures in Cult Fandom Lewis Black, Me of Little Faith *Eavan Boland, In a Time of Violence *-----, The Lost Land Jess Borgeson, Adam Long, and Daniel Singer, The Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) *Charles Boyle, Paleface *John Canaday, The Invisible World John Dickson Carr, Below Suspicion -----, Death Turns the Tables *John Ciardi, The Birds of Pompeii Colin Cotterill, The Coroner's Lunch -----, Disco for the Departed -----, Thirty-Three Teeth Edmund Crispin, The Long Divorce -----, Love Lies Bleeding Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists *Alison Hawthorne Deming, The Monarchs Carter Dickson, The Punch and Judy Murders -----, She Died a Lady *Douglas Dunn, Dante's Drum-Kit Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot *Tom Gilroy, et al., The Haiku Year *Louise Glück, Averno *Timothy Green, American Fractal *Jane Griffiths, Icarus on Earth Martha Grimes, Dust *Philip Gross, I. D. *Donald Hall, The Museum of Clear Ideas Hazel Holt, The Cruelest Month -----, Mrs. Malory Investigates Tom Holt, Dead Funny -----, Divine Comedies -----, For Two Nights Only -----, Tall Stories *Richard Howard, Like Most Revelations *Daniel Huws, The Quarry *Denis Johnson, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly *†Galway Kinnell, A New Selected Poems *-----, Strong Is Your Hold *-----, When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur *Yusef Komuntakaa, Warhorses Part two of the list will be posted tomorrow, and then I'll turn my gaze forward with resolutions for the new year. 6 comments|post comment

December 29, 2009 [29 Dec 2009|10:57pm] [ mood | compulsive ] [ music | none ] It's that time again: the time when I list the various things I watched and read during the year. Tonight's entry -- and the entries for the next two nights -- are more for my own record keeping than anything else, so you might want to skip them if you come here for something interesting. About the only things I did today were load some more stuff onto queenmomcat's Mp3 player, finish reading Tom Holt's novel Grailblazers -- which means I am now done with the omnibus For Two Nights Only (94/18,119) -- and work a quietish four-hour shift at the book store. Anyways, on to the record keeping. In 2009, I watched the following movies for the first time, all on DVD: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Cat People Coraline The Devil's Backbone A Dirty Shame The Happiness of the Katakuris Howl's Moving Castle The Lathe of Heaven Marebito Naqoyqatsi The Night of the Hunter Powaqqatsi Six-String Samurai Spider Forest Spirited Away Sunset Boulevard A Tale of Two Sisters Tideland Winged Migration I also watched the following not-really-movies on DVD: Black Books (second series) David Byrne: Live at Union Chapel Doctor Who: City of Death Doctor Who: The Green Death Doctor Who: Robot Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang French & Saunders: Back with a Vengeance Futurama (season two) Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs Invader Zim (complete series) I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan Nixon in China (Houston Grand Opera production) Penn & Teller: Off the Deep End Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour Robot Chicken (season three) The Simpsons (season five) Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle Tony Robinson's Cunning Night Out And I attended the following live shows (an * indicates I saw it by myself; all others were attended with queenmomcat): Benjamin Britten, Owen Wingrave (Chicago Opera Theater) *Antonín Dvořák, Scherzo capriccioso, Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 7 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) -----, Symphony No. 9 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) Charles Gounod, Faust (Lyric Opera of Chicago) *Joseph Haydn, Sinfonia concertante in B-flat Major/Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 9 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) Leoš Janáček, Káťa Kabanová (Lyric Opera of Chicago) *----- Sinfonietta/Karol Szymanowski, Violin Concerto No. 1/Igor Stravinsky, Pulcinella (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) Franz Lehár, The Merry Widow (Lyric Opera of Chicago) Pietro Mascagni, Cavalleria rusticana/Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pagliacci (Lyric Opera of Chicago) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Lyric Opera of Chicago) -----, La Clemeza di Tito (Chicago Opera Theater) Giacomo Puccini, Madama Butterfly (Lyric Opera of Chicago) -----, Turandot (New York Metroplitan Opera simulcast) *Henry Purcell (arranged and expanded by Steven Stucky), Funeral Music for Queen Mary/Benjamin Britten, Les illuminations/Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 15 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 5 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) *Igor Stravinksy, Dumbarton Oaks/James Primosch, Songs for Adam/Felix Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, "Scottish" (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) *-----, Symphony in Three Movements, Four Studies for Orchestra/Elliott Carter, Réflexions/Edgard Varèse, Ionisation, Amériques (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (Lyric Opera of Chicago) Tune in tomorrow for part one of my books read this year, complete with graph! 2 comments|post comment

December 28, 2009 [28 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | chipper ] [ music | Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley/Go Bo Diddley ] The thought struck me this evening that a comparison of the ways in which queenmomcat and I spent today could be read as a Strong Feminist Statement. queenmomcat went off to work as the primary wage-earner in the household. On her way to her job, she stopped by our bank and made some changes to our checking account, based on her own research of the options available to us. I, on the other hand, stayed home and did dishes and laundry, and when queenmomcat came home from work I cooked her (and me) a nice, hot dinner. So, complete reversal of traditional gender roles. The thing is, this isn't some grand statement by the two of us; it's just the way of life life we've found works best. Which I suppose is a statement in its own right. As you might guess from the above, I had a very quiet day today. In addition to my domestic tasks, I loaded some more stuff onto queenmomcat's new Mp3 player and read some more Tom Holt. (I hope to finish one more book before the end of the year, and it's going to be either the Holt I'm working on or one of the books of poetry I got for Christmas.) I feel vaguely productive, which is a good thing. I could get used to this. 4 comments|post comment

December 27, 2009 [27 Dec 2009|09:39pm] [ mood | sleepy ] [ music | none ] I was supposed to work a three-hour shift at the book store this afternoon, but apparently sales are back down to pre-holiday levels because I was called and told I didn't need to come in. This is just as well, as I had only shoveled the sidewalk and a small part of the driveway when the call came in, and having my shift canceled meant that I had time to finish the job and have some lunch at a decent hour. I spent a large part of today transferring music to queenmomcat's new Mp3 player. It's a slowish process, but I (and she) consider it one of my Christmas presents to her. She's getting a mix of Celtic and Big Band music, with space being left to load on some audio books and radio plays. Hopefully, by the time we next go up to Chicago (which is in about two weeks), I'll have loaded up enough material to keep her entertained during the entire trip. Beyond shoveling and playing about with music technology, the only othe rmajor thing I did today was finish reading Jane Griffiths's Icarus on Earth (93/17,448) Tomorrow will probably be much the same. Looks like the post-Christmas lull is here. post comment

December 26, 2009 [26 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | mellow ] [ music | Hector Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust ] I was pleasantly surprised today: only two people came in to the book store try to return things during my shift, and only one of those people whined when their return was denied. This is far better than I was expecting. We'll see what the next week is like. We were busy, too, at least during the early part of the day. Our sales beat those of Christmas Eve, which is a bit unusual. It looks like we're on track to beat our year's sales goal even though we're closing a month before the fiscal year ends for the store. We may be going out, but at least we're going out on top. Customer traffic slowed down somewhat during the evening as a snow storm moved into the area, and that mall ended up closing an hour earlier than originally planned. Fine by me, as I prefer getting home and having dinner before 10:30 PM. At least this time around the precipitation was actually light, fluffy snow instead of some ugly mix of snow and rain that would have left the roads icy. So, once again I find myself posting an entry all about work. What can I say: I put in a seven-hour shift and didn't do much else today (except figure out how to put music on queenmomcat's new Mp3 player). Tomorrow, at least, I expect I'll be able to write about shoveling snow. 1 comment|post comment

December 25, 2009 [25 Dec 2009|11:03pm] [ mood | joyful ] [ music | none ] I have warm feet tonight, courtesy of one of my Christmas presents: a pair of hand-knitted, felted clogs/slippers. That's one present I knew I was getting, since the presence of my feet was required for the felting process, but the lack of surprise has no effect on their warming qualities. My toes are happy. queenmomcat and I had a low-key Christmas this year, as we usually do. I ended up sleeping in quite late this morning (proof positive, if any were needed, that I'm no longer a child), which means the opening of presents was put off for a while, but they say anticipation makes things sweeter, so I'm not apologizing. I got a lot of books this year, some music, socks, and my clogs for myself, and several nice gifts to share with queenmomcat, including a pair of kitchen knives which are so good they deserve their own knife block (well, that and the knife block we have is already full). The weather was warm enough today that the ice of the last few days almost completely melted, so we were able to take a nice afternoon walk without sliding all over the place. In the evening, we had our Christmas dinner of roast duck, creamed onions, and mashed potatoes, and then we sat down and watched a DVD together. And tomorrow I go back to work out at the mall and the wonderful Christmas spell will be broken. Oh well. post comment

December 24, 2009 [24 Dec 2009|09:45pm] [ mood | beneficent ] [ music | none ] 'Tis the night before Christmas, and the Christmas cactus, fully abloom, is set out on the dining room table, surrounded by presents. queenmomcat is watching various versions of A Christmas Carol to get herself in the holiday mood, and I'm unwinding after a long day at the book store. True, I only worked for five hours, but they were five very, very busy hours. Thankfully, the number of frenzied last-minute shoppers was at a minimum, and I didn't witness any meltdowns or bad behavior, which is a plus. Also, my manager gave me a cherry cheesecake, which is the sort of Christmas bonus I can get behind. I know my friends list here is varied enough that not everyone is celebrating Christmas, but for those of you who do, I wish you a Merry Christmas. For those of you who don't, I wish you a pleasant Friday. In all cases, I hope you find yourselves happy and healthy and generally doing well, and if you aren't, I hope things get better soon. And now I'm off to bed. The sooner I get to sleep, the sooner Santa will arrive. post comment

Decembr 23, 2009 [23 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | curious ] [ music | none ] The back of the latest issue of Poetry has a quote on it from an article inside by one Carmine Starnino. The quote reads: Aesthetic change is an elite activity, done out of professional boredom. Poets who say different, who claim to heed the wishes of the common reader out of populist duty, are lazy bastards. I assume the essay inside, which I have not yet read, develops this theme at some length, and perhaps even with some nuance. I expect, however, that I will agree with a lot of what the author says based on this one quote, a statement it kind of pains me to make. (I kind of part ways on the issue of lazy bastardy.) I don't like to think of myself as an elitist, but as far as poetry is concerned, I guess I am. I Know that much of what I write is difficult to understand, at least gauged by the reactions of friends and family (especially queenmomcat). I've tried writing "easier" poetry, but it bores me and never seems to come out quite right. Oh well. As far as history is concerned, I'm exactly the opposite: I feel more comfortable writing "popular" history (encyclopedia entries, op-ed pieces) than "academic" history (book reviews, professional articles). Strange, that. To change gears: today was a quite, domestic sort of day. I did laundry and dishes, unpacked from the weekend, and generally lay about the house like a lump. I started reading another book of poetry (Icarus on Earth by Jane Griffiths), which is enjoyable but going slowly. At least I'm consistent there: I prefer to read difficult poetry as well as write it. 5 comments|post comment

December 22, 2009 [22 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | jittery ] [ music | none ] I'm still vibrating somewhat from my day, eight hours of which was spent in the book store. Almost all of that eight-hour period was spent at the cash register ringing people up. I don't know how many books I sold, but the store did over $7,000 dollars in sales today, which I would think was a record except that someone told me they did over $10,000 on Saturday while I was living the good life in Chicago. Also, about half of the shelves in the store are empty, and the shelves that have books on them are always just one step away from complete chaos. I suspect that we'll be spending the days after Christmas cleaning, consolidating, and alphabetizing, assuming we have the time to do so. And the inclination: with the store closing, the drive towards creating and maintaining perfect displays is noticeably lessened. I'm actually not looking forward to the day after Christmas. Traditionally, that's when people start returning or exchanging unwanted presents. Since we're closing, we can't do any returns or exchanges for items bought during our clearance sale (i.e., from November 22nd on), and items purchased before then will generally fall outside of our return period (two weeks, unless the customer has a gift receipt, which gives them 60 days). We even have signs all over the store saying that there are no returns or exchanges, and we've been stamping each receipt with a bright red "All Sales Final" stamp. But even with all of this, I've had two people try to return books over the last two weeks, and I'm not the only one. I foresee special snowflakes galore on the day after Christmas, and I'm not referring to the weather. On the plus side, I came home to find that queenmomcat had made macaroni and cheese for dinner. Not the healthiest dish in the world, I grant you, but just what I needed at the end of today. She included some pepper jack cheese as well, so it was spicy as well as warm and comforting. A good dinner all the way around 1 comment|post comment

December 21, 2009 [21 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | drained ] [ music | none ] Back home. Snow on the ground. Looks like we'll be a) having a white Christmas and b) driving slowly on icy roads for the next few days. I'll be working late at the book store tomorrow, so I need to pay particular attention to the latter. Today started out quietly with a lie-in (courtesy of me not having my CPAP) and then checking out of the hotel at the last possible moment. We left our bags at the hotel and walked around the city for a while, landing at Borders book (of course). We didn't buy as much was we could have -- what with Christmas coming up in a few days -- but we nabbed some light reading material. Next was finding a place for lunch and coffee and sitting about for a few hours, which was easy enough to do. I read one of my new books -- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe (92/17,384) -- and queenmomcat read another (a novel by Tom Holt). After some time sitting about, nursing our caffeinated beverages, we went back to the hotel and then headed off for the train station. The station and the train back home were both packed, presumably with folks getting an early start on Christmas travel. In any case, we made it back home in one piece, and despite some difficulties surrounding dinner (you try getting a pizza after 9:00 PM on a Monday around here and see how far you get), we're now all settled in back at home and ready for bed and a long (very long) winter night. post comment

December 20, 2009 [20 Dec 2009|09:11pm] [ mood | amused ] [ music | none ] I think the Lyric Opera is trying to capture some of the Broadway musical crowd. At least, that seems to me to be the most likely explanation for why they decided to stage Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow in English instead of the original German. In any case, the audience they ended up with didn't seem to be the usual opera crowd, although that isn't necessarily a bad thing. As for the opera itself, there were some technical problems that distracted from the performance. Once or twice there seemed to be some confusion as to where curtains and screens should fall, and the sound quality suffered some major setbacks. Someone made the decision to have the actors be miked during the spoken sections, and the sound quality was not good for those of us up in the balconies (there was a delay between when the words were words spoken on stage and when they came out of the speakers). During the sung sections, the singers often had trouble projecting their voices over the orchestra and, in some cases, each other. Still, it was a pleasant bit of fluff, and enjoyable enough. I just think the Lyric did a better job with Die Fledermaus. Other than the opera, queenmomcat and I had a very quiet day. I didn't sleep all too well last night, so I ended up staying in bed for most of the morning. Weekend trips like this remind me of how great an impact my CPAP has on my sleep patterns. Maybe next time I'll bring it instead of my laptop. 3 comments|post comment

December 19, 2009 [19 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | happy ] [ music | none ] Well, I got to do a lot more walking about Chicago in the rain (and snow) today. Trips up here just seem to coincide with wet weather this fall and early winter. At least this time I had good company and enjoyable activities in between the slogging. queenmomcat and I met rockbirthedme at the train station this morning, and we spent the next several hours enjoying each other's company. First stop was lunch -- some warm Cajun food for a cold day -- and then it was on to the Art Institute to check out the new Modern Wing. The new wing itself as an architectural entity is interesting and, on the whole, successful, although the contents were much more of a mixed bag. I like to think that I can appreciate and "get" most modern art, but there was a lot of pretentiousness going on and now a few items that brought forth giggles rather than awe. Thankfully, queenmomcat and rockbirthedme had much the same set of reactions, so we were able to be snarky together. After a certain amount of time being cultured, we all trundled off to one of the northerly neighborhoods in the city to pick up a cookbook written by one of queenmomcat's cousins. By this point the snow was getting pesky, and we had a bit of a walk, but it was nice to see a new neighborhood, and the cookbook, at least according to queenmomcat was worth the trip. (I haven't had a look at it yet.) I dropped rockbirthedme back off at the train station after this, and then went back to the hotel to meet up with queenmomcat and rest my aching legs for a little while. (My knees are complaining, and my calves are sore, but that's to be expected.) We didn't go far from the hotel for dinner, which is probably a good thing. And now I need to get rested up for the opera tomorrow. 1 comment|post comment

December 18, 2009 [18 Dec 2009|11:55pm] [ mood | good ] [ music | none ] I distinctly remember writing in this journal that I had had enough of Chicago in the rain. Apparently the individual or individuals responsible for such things do not read my journal, as it was definitely raining as we walked about the near north side of the city this afternoon. Someone needs to get their eyes on the ball here. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last few times I/we have been up here in inclement weather: more of a drizzle, less of a downpour. Still annoying, though. So, we took the train from home up to the Big City this morning, arriving at the hotel just a little too early to check in. We left our luggage, had some lunch, and sent a bit of time at a used book store near where we're staying, where I was very good and only picked out two books. In fact, one of those I picked out is a Christmas present for queenmomcat, so I really only got one book. For me, this counts as virtuous. After checking into the hotel, we crashed for a little while and generally relaxed. (Both of us have had busy weeks, so unwinding is at the top of our respective "to do" lists.) I finished reading The Museum of Clear Ideas (91/17,218) and am now contemplating reading another book of poetry. For dinner, we ended up going to a Thai restaurant that I hadn't enjoyed during our first visit because I was coming down sick at the time, but this second trip went far better. Mmmmmm, ginger and mushrooms . . . Tomorrow, we will be joined by rockbirthedme for the afternoon, and much has been planned. Stay tuned. post comment

December 17, 2009 [17 Dec 2009|11:11pm] [ mood | exhausted ] [ music | none ] Guh. And what's more, buh. As mentioned in here, I worked Monday and Tuesday nights at the book store, and I saw the sales figures for last night, so I know that every day this week has been busier than the last. Today included. We're doing a Christmas Eve level of sales, and Christmas is still more than a week away. I'm blaming the general squirreliness of the store for the difficulties I had closing tonight, up to and including my forgetting to clock out before I shut down the computers for the night. I'm also blaming it for my current difficulty focusing on my laptop and desire to crawl into bed for a week. At least the earlier part of my day was calm. I started reading Donald Hall's The Museum of Clear Ideas this afternoon between doing dishes and packing for the weekend, and I'm enjoying it so far, even though the first part of the book consists of a long poem mainly about baseball, a sport I find relatively uninteresting. I also dithered around the house for a while, doing assorted unimportant things. It was pleasant and peaceful and totally did not prepare me for the evening. Tomorrow, queenmomcat and I head off to Chicago for an opera (and other stuff) weekend. We both need the break. I plan to bring my laptop with me, so we should be in touch with the world online if something comes up that requires our attention. post comment

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