Sunday, July 30, 2006

shopping spree

yeah, i spent half the day shopping for books. what's your point? it takes time to find the best deals. here's the haul:

cold snap - thom jones
stern men - elizabeth gilbert
female trouble - antonya nelson
american nomads - steve erickson
seek - denis johnson
september 11, 2001: american writers respond - (various, including denis johnson)
the name of the world - denis johnson
indelible acts - a.l. kennedy
original bliss - a.l. kennedy
limbo, and other places i have lived - lily tuck
yonder stands your orphan - barry hannah
the invisible circus - jennifer egan
the mysteries of pittsburgh - michael chabon
cowboys are my weakness - pam houston
waltzing the cat - pam houston
cowgirls - ronnie farley
rodeo queens - joan burbick
paradise - toni morrison

grand total: just under $50. including shipping! i bought from betterworldbooks, which donates profits to literacy programs. check 'em out.

librarything

this morning i discovered librarything. so there went the first six hours of today. i've been meaning to catalog my books for quite some time-- did the CDs last year, and i've managed to keep them current, but the books seemed so daunting, and i couldn't decide how detailed i wanted to get... but now here's this easy tool, so i took the plunge. it's fun and fantastic and i highly recommend it, but... it's going to end up costing me a LOT of money. (which is a very bad thing at this precise moment in my life, since i have none.) it's made me realize how many books i've lost/sold/given away/loaned out and never saw again, that i really want back! for instance, where the HAIL is my copy of 'letters to a young poet,' which had a sweet inscription from my long lost friend steven? did my kerouac wander off alone? what happened to edward abbey? what did i do with that a.l. kennedy book that has that quote i was looking for last month? i could go on and on... then there's the problem of all the books that have come out since i forced myself to stop buying all but the tip-top most important (to me, duh) new releases (mccarthy & garcia marquez is it). turns out i'm two behind on jeanette winterson... sigh... recommendations for cheap book sources online will be highly appreciated. (other than the obvious amazon & half.com etc.) time to cyber-wander through powells & the strand...

Sunday, July 23, 2006

i love bacon!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

-"!?!?!?!"-

tom freakin' waits is going on tour. in the southeast. how am i supposed to get any sleep armed with this information???

Thursday, July 06, 2006

back in virginny

yeah, i'm home. time to clean the cobwebs.

rhinebeck was lovely, though i could've done without the incessant rain. as nice as it was to be away, i was desperate to get home after the first couple weeks. favors for C kept me through the third week, then there was a week of pure laziness, then the boys came through on their way to montreal, and then, finally packed and ready, the damn train tracks washed out, but finally, here i am. it's been a week, and still i haven't returned to work yet, since i inexplicably have just enough cash left not to, but it's on the horizon. meanwhile, a month and a half of mail takes a while to get through. then there's cleaning, errand running... it's amazing how long you can stretch all that out if you really want to procrastinate. the next trip, planned for late july, has been pushed back to mid august. what the hell will i do with myself til then?

first night back, i got a visit from my once-a-year biker boy, immediately wrecking the prolonged work i'd done to get my sleep schedule back on track. now i'm on my 36-hour-day kick, which always leads to random bursts of energy at inconvenient times. yesterday's burst resulted in a decision to finally get my passport. i promised myself years ago i wouldn't leave the continent til i finished my degree, so i haven't needed one, but the laws, they are a changing... a return to the caribbean is definitely in my future, so i'm "allowed" now. funny thing i found out about myself, though-- there are certain details of my life that i simply can't remember, which threw me for a loop. i'm sure it's a function of age and lifestyle, but i don't like it. i've always had a great memory, and what will i do if, when i get old, i can't sit around the nursing home thinking back on all the fun i had? i spent two hours ripping my apartment to shreds trying to find out when i got divorced-- not a date i necessarily would remember, as i didn't go to a hearing or however that works, but a significant event nonetheless. makes me sad that i couldn't just call/email B and ask him... but let's not go down the sad road today.

i found a ton of entertaining stuff i forgot i had while searching for that info-- an envelope full of receipts from my cross country trip... a silly paper my friends and i put out in high school... box after box of correspondence from all over the world-- all of which made me happy to remember, but also pointed out how isolated i've become. and, as relaxing as rhinebeck was, it sure was a snooze, too. time to go do some research on my next destination so as not to repeat that blunder.