My Reading Obsession

I had to buy it!  And I can’t put it down, because it’s just hilarious.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.  Basically a retelling of the story Pride and Prejudice, which we all know is my favorite, during an outbreak which has turned the dead into flesh eating monsters.  Elizabeth and sisters have been trained in all types of mortal combat to survive the plague, and she has this to deal with in addition to Darcy’s supposed vanity.

Imagine please if instead of just having her feelings hurt and prejudice decided when Darcy offends her, Elizabeth instead just slit his throat!  Good thing several zombies chose that moment to attack or that might have been the end of their love in this case.

My son Jude, who wouldn’ t read a Jane Austin if I paid him, picks up this book every time I put it down.  Love it!  Because Austen’s words are still sporadically unchanged, and at other times, just mildly reworked.  The beginning line is fabulous.  In the original, we have; IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.  Now we have; It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.  Lovely.  Just lovely.

I can’t resist this, and I just hope they make it into a movie.  And not a Scary Movie IVX, either.  Just on the face, straight up, Elizabeth Bennet fighting zombies and Fitzwilliam Darcy.  Who do I see in the role?  Hmmmmm…  that’s a good question!  I’ll think about it.

But now back to it.  I think it’s going to be a late night.

Okay, so I’ve been writing a book.  Yeah, yeah, I know. Okay, but I’ve been reading a couple books about publishing and writing books, which has cut into my normal reading.  In addition, I’m re-reading a self-help for housekeeping book.  So nothing fun to report.

This housekeeping book is called Sink Reflections and I’ve been using the system for many years. I really think it works.  I found it online, where there is a website, flylady.com, or net or org or something that you can do it from. I did well and then bought the book to do more. The thing is, it’s sort of a religion for these people and I dont’ take it that far. All these people write in testimonializing ‘Flylady’ the leader of the ‘cult’ .  I mean, I’m glad they love it, but I’m not really religious, and I found it sacrilegious a few times.  She has you make this ‘control journal’ which is great, but one woman compared it to the scriptures and the flylady to God for giving it to them. That’s a bit far for me.  So I stopped getting the emails because I couldn’t take the right-wing Christian weirdness and just wanted to clean!  I do recommend it for anyone with a clutter problem, but you sort of have to skip sections.

Now how was that for a reading suggestion?  I’ll probably get sued!

My nephew Bronson is visiting from Oregon.  I’ve  basically been reading children’s books to him. It’s fun because he used to totally hate reading, but suddenly, when he’s started to be able to read some himself he’s in to it.

Once I was going through some pictures and found one of me when I was about four, with my feet up on my little child’s table, reading a book. I asked my mom about it–the pictures must have been good, right?  She said that actually, when I was a little kid she only had a few books, and so I memorized them pretty well.  It was to the point that I knew when to turn the pages and everything. So, showoff that I am, when anyone would come over, I’d climb up to my little table and ‘read’ the books.  People would be amazed!  I was too young to read, but I was turning the pages at the right time, and looking at the right page, so it had to be true! My favorite was The Little Red Hen.  But I couldn’t say duck, I could only say ‘dut’.  So I would say, “Not I, said the dut.”  My mom and I, to this day always say dut. No one knows what the heck we are talking about!

Well, Bronson doesn’t have anything memorized, but he can read some words, so he’ll chime in occaisionally.

Channi and I went to see Kelly Clarkson tonight. It was in a ball park, and as soon as she came on, it started pouring rain.  It was sort of awesome. She was wet too and kept on belting them out, and after a few minutes, there was a full rainbow which started to the right of the stage, and went on to the other side.  We loved it. Man that girl can really sing.  She sounded better in concert that she does on albums. I know she’s sort of a guilty pleasure, but it was a really fun concert. We had taken big raincoats, but our pants got pretty wet.  So afterwards we went to IHOP for hot chocolate, coffee, and comfort food to warm us up.  What a fun night with Chantel!  I don’t know if it’s because she’s leaving soon, but I really loving having time with her. I said after the concert (and after we were warmed up!) that if it hadn’t rained it wouldn’t have been as memorable, and she had to agree.  It was really, really fun.

I seem to have lost some. As the people who read my blog know (all 5 of them) my site was hacked awhile back. All my blogs are gone. It’s a bit depressing.  I constantly start to refer to old blogs and then realize there is nothing actually there to refer to. I feel like redoing some of it, but can’t remember and know the second time isn’t always the best, you know?  Anyway, I’ll try to get back into this with a bit more energy.  Energy!

Still reading The Best Short Stories of 2008.  One of the amazing features of short stories is the way that the authors either pull you completely into a character with only a few words or sentences, or the way they leave that personality out, leaving you guessing about what is or will happen until just the last minute.  It’s fun to read a bunch of stories in a row and experience different techniques and voices.  Very fun.

I especially like, ‘From the Desk of Daniel Varsky’.  A woman is ‘loaned’ some furniture from a Chilean poet, who she later finds out is ‘dissapeared’ in Chile during some political mess.  So she has this desk and a few other surviving items.  She really liked this person, and so the items are special to her, but the fact that she knows he was tortured and killed, his poetry lost, his future gone, colors it.  She finds herself regretting still having it but unable to get rid of it.  I love this so much.  In America we’ve become such a huge consumer society, always needing more things.  The fact of the matter is we don’t, but we have ties to everything around us.  Sometimes we just like the thing, like this stupid little carved sheep I have on my desk that I bought in a little town on an island near Seattle.  Sometimes it holds memories for us, good and bad.  Sometimes the item was given to us and we feel bound to hold on to it whether we like it or not, even if we don’t need it to remember that person by.  I feel reminded of all of this when I read this story and want to have around me only the things I use and love.

Anyone interested in some fun facts on how much we do consume can visit www.thestoryofstuff.com.  Sort of fun site.