Spoilers of Long Ago

I am behind.

It’s just something that I have learned to live with.  There are lots of shows and movies I haven’t seen and there are lots of books I haven’t read.  Currently, I’m reading some Chaucer and also a book published 36 years ago. (V.C. Andrews.  Hush.)  I am watching Twin Peaks, which aired between 1990 and 1991.

Spoilers are everywhere.

The other day, I pulled up the Twin Peaks wikipedia and in the first paragraph it told me who the murderer was.  I cringed.

An article about the strangest things to happen in V.C. Andrews books actually summed up the complete plot of the series I’m reading.

I logged out of my Yahoo e-mail, one of the top stories on the front page was about a character leaving a show that I am only one season behind on.

For the most part, I don’t mind spoilers.  I don’t go out of my way to avoid them unless I really, really care.  (That means, the few times I shriek when someone is talking about something and stick my fingers in my ears like spoiled four year old, I really, really care.)  Sometimes, I even seek spoilers out, though usually just little cheats like looking at how many episodes an actor features in or reading the description of a series book that’s a couple ahead of where I’m at.  I don’t need to know the specifics, I just need to ease some of the anxiety.

Still, sometimes it surprises me and it makes my life hell.  Knowing that this character is leaving the show is absolutely killing me.  I keep almost slipping it to Hubby.  Or, like the time Mom told me how How I Met Your Mother ended and I had to watch the last three seasons with Hubby knowing what was coming and he was completely furious that I would let him sit through it. Never mind that he let me sit through Lost.

Just now I read an article about a classic I mean to read someday.  Classics are weird, right, because you have an idea going in what they are about.  But now I feel like I’ve just read the whole thing.

I wish I had a time-turner.

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Tally Monday- August 29, 2016

Checked Out

1. Monster, vol 2
2. Monster, vol 3
3. Monster, vol 4 by Naoki Urasawa

Bought

1. Petals on the Wind by V.C. Andrews

Read

1. Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
2. And Sometimes Why by Rebecca Johnson

TBR 20

And I’ve figured it out!  I know why I keep getting “Candle in the Wind” stuck in my head!  It’s the V.C. Andrews book!  Every time I write down the title, I accidentally write “Petals in the Wind” and that gets the Elton John flowing.  I’m so relieved to finally know!

I’ve been very distracted this past week.  I’ve been very unsettled this past week.  I have wanted to do a lot of things but none of them enough to actually do them.  Like, I want to play video games and I want to watch TV and color and I want to read and I want t clean and I want to make the whole world bright and beautiful and wonderful.  BUT I’m tired and I end up just sitting on the couch, staring at whatever Hubby happens to put on, and playing Candy Crush Soda Saga.  I am killing it at Candy Crush Soda Saga and watching NCIS and game reviews.

You know how from the couch it always looks like obviously you are just lazy and you can totally get your life together?  How, even as you sit and grow eyes like a potato, you can see how TOMORROW you can work out and clean the house and read War and Peace?  Well, sometimes you can’t.  I don’t mean to sound dire, especially because I am in a pretty good mood, but sometimes trying to make things better only makes them worse.  What am I trying to say?  Where is the hope?  Somehow, there is hope in that.  If you know that it probably will never get done, what’s the hurry in doing it?

Labor Day weekend is full of little plans.  We’re getting a deck built and going to a family picnic but other than that I intend to spend a lot of time reading outside.  There is only so much summer left.

And Sometimes Why by Rebecca Johnson

I’m sure that this book ended up on my list because I came across it years ago while working the circulation desk and the title amused me.  Mostly because I know it’s been on my list for years and there is another book by the same name on my list.  It’s not the kind of book that I ever sought out.  Maybe I read a review in Vogue.  That’s when I would have subscribed and Johnson was a contributing editor and may have scored a little book review.  I’ve meant to get to it forever and have checked it out about 20 times without getting to it.  I got nervous when I saw the low ratings on Goodreads.  All you can do is dive it.

One morning, Miranda and her younger sister, Helen, argue over who gets the car.  Miranda tells her parents that she wants it to go to freshman orientation at college, a lie that she ends up following through with.  Helen wanted the car for a boy, what else, but what her family doesn’t know is that the boy is a man who Helen is going to break up with.  The two sisters are very different.  Miranda is darker, more intellectual, her father’s pet.  Helen is bright and sunny and living a secret adventure dating a guy who was in a band until it broke up and pretending to be older than she is.  When Helen is in an accident with her ex, who had been drinking, on his motorcycle,everybody begins to question everything that came before.

This whole story takes place during the time that Helen is in a coma.  Her father is hopeful while her mother cannot help but feel like it is best to let go.  Miranda begins to come out of her shell.  The television star whose car was hit by the motorcycle finds his success slipping away.

This is the kind of book that I love.  Alternating viewpoints.  A bunch of story lines that all tie together by the end.  I love that”it’s a small world” feeling about the book.  I’ve seen a lot of people talking about not liking the characters but I did like them.  I believed them, sometimes because I knew people like them and sometimes because I’ve seen characters like them and sometimes because I could see myself in them.  What I liked was seeing the honest, selfish thoughts that spring up with every disaster.  Helen is the sun at the center of the story who pulls everyone else into orbit.

Listy #24- Podcasts

I am a big fan of Podcasts.  I have a hard time maintaining a balance in my listening life because as much as I love audiobooks and the one-up they give me on my TBR, I also love Podcasts and want to listen to five million of them.  Two of my favorite Podcasts have closed up shop this year (Bookragious and Books on the Nightstand) but that hasn’t left me short in the least.

I listen around the house.  I listen in my office sometimes.  I listen in between every book.

Podcasts I Subscribe To

1. The Writer’s Almanac
2. Books: NPR
3. Philosophize This!
4. Freakonomics Radio
5. Welcome to Nightvale
6. Alice isn’t Dead
7. Dear Book Nerd
8. Book Riot
9. The New Yorker: Fiction
10. The Readers
11. The Moth
12. Adventures with Words
13. Serial
14. The Splendid Table
15. All the Books!
16. Literary Disco
17. Get Booked
18. 99% Invisible
19. Lore
20. The Allusionist
21. So Many Damn Books
22. The Mortified Podcast
23. Thrilling Adventure Hour
24. On Being with Krista Tippett
25. The Fat Feminist Witch
26. Eliza Starting at 16

Since starting my new job in December, I haven’t has as much listening time available and there are some podcasts on that list that I’ve actually never listened to.  I have stock piles to get to and I wish I could be listening right now!

Any good suggestions for me?  What are you listening to?

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

Oh my goodness.  I am almost done.  It’s been a little over two years since I finished a series and I’m starting to get a little antsy.  I need some final resolutions.  I need to know what happens.  I need to get sucked into a new series.

Because that’s the strange thing about a long series, isn’t it?  By the end you want the end.  It’s not that I don’t love the characters anymore or anything like that, but I am ready to move on and I am ready for them to move on.

You know how previously I talked about Harris’s clever introduction of things over time?  How at first you are doubtful but eventually you’re like, “Werepanthers?  Why the hell not?”  Well, I’ve realized that it’s kind of the same with Sookie.  She’s changing.  She’s becoming more accepting of the things that happen to her.  Even as she breaks down after a horrendous experience, she knows that she should be used to it and it bothers her.  The things that set her off sometimes seem so little when compared to the big picture and she finds that just as disturbing as the reader.

Things aren’t going well.  That could just about sum up the whole series.  Somebody fire bombs Merlotte’s.  Sandra Pelt shows up, still trying to avenge her sister’s death.  Amelia’s protective spells need to be renewed.  Someone attempts to kidnap Sookie and she finally finds out why Eric is hiding something from her.  There is always so much going on in Bon Temps and we’re getting close enough to the end for every book to feel like a struggle for survival.

Sookie’s life is becoming more duplicitous.  While she is trying to help Sam save the bar and planning a baby shower for Tara, she’s also trying to remain out of Sandra’s grasp and kill Eric’s boss.  When she heads into battle, she leaves a list of things she’s already completed for the baby shower.  Sookie is strong but I imagine that even she knows that the breaking point is near.

How ready am I for the next book?  Well, I’m already listening to it.  I think that the series has lost a lot of its steam but I’m going to see it through.

Tally Monday- August 22, 2016

Checked Out

1. Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

Bought

1. Wolf’s Blood by Jane Linskold
2. Phantoms by Dean Koontz
3. Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
4. Emperor of Ansalon by Douglas Niles
5. The Black Wing by Mary Kirchoff
6. Lord Toede by Jeff Grubb
7. The Dark Queen by Michael Williams
8. The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore
9. Streams of Silver by R.A. Salvatore
10. The Halfling’s Gem by R.A. Salvatore

Read

1. Naoki’s Urasawa’s Monster, vol. 1
2. The Nightingales are Drunk by Hafez

TBR: 20

I have never been known to pass up a used book sale, or even a used book store.  And I am a woman of tradition.  Last weekend was the county fair and I have a number of traditions concerning it.  First, I must drive past the carnival rides before they are set up.  This started when I was a little girl and the fair was the highlight of my summer and I could barely wait to be set loose with my cousins and OMG I WAS FINALLY BIG ENOUGH TO RIDE THE GRAVATRON!  Second, I must go to the car show and hang out with my family.  Third, I must get a pile of Cajun food from Bayou Billy’s.  Finally, I must buy a stupid amount of books from the library book sale.

Now, this year was a little different.  It’s ridiculously common for me to have a wedding to go to during the county fair.  Something about the third weekend in August just screams wedding.  Not this year.  This year I went on Friendcation.  I love Friendcation and my favorite part of this whole summer has been spending time in Lake Huron with my nearest and dearest friends, floating in tubes and swimming and throwing a Frisbee.  I had one of those great moments when everything felt right and happy and it was much needed and very good.  That means I missed a lot of the county fair, like the car show and the Cajun food.

I did not miss the book sale.  Obviously.

So, what happened was this.  Last week, Hubby announced that Acquisitions Incorporated has their own YouTube show now.  Acquisitions Inc. is basically a D&D game.  And you know that you are a GD nerd when your husband turns on a YouTube video of a D&D game and you get super excited and have to watch it while you play Knights of Pen and Paper, a game about a D&D game.  Anyway, I keep hearing about how running a D&D campaign can really help your writing and I’ve been jonsing for D&D.  Hubby has too, and he’s started making notes for a campaign.  The problem with me is that I am a COMPLETEIST.  I do not “just watch the important X-Files episodes,” I watch them all.  And I do not just throw together a campaign, apparently.  I have to research the geography and mythology and history but I don’t actually want to research.

So, when I spotted a few Forgotten Realms books and a few Dragonlance books, I bought them.  Shamelessly.  Without guilt.  For a quarter a piece.  If I must do research, may it at least be in novel form.

Not much reading last week.  I started And Sometimes Why by Rebecca Johnson, a book that has been on my list for years and years and which I have checked out too many times to count and never got around to reading.  I like it but I seem to be having a hard time settling down with it.  I have a surprisingly hard time reading when I’m not feeling well, something that has been occurring a lot lately.  It’s easier to not concentrate on squiggly lines on a page.  But reading is my favorite thing to do and I want to do more of it again.

Well, y’all, I hope you have a good week and I hope that I have more to report next week.  Happy reading!

Listy #23- Songs Stuck in My Head

I decided to try an experiment last month.  I was going to spend July diligently recording songs that were stuck in my head.  Why?  No real reason.  I was just curious what rolled around in there during an average month.  Needless to say, I did not keep up with this list but I thought that I would present you with the unfinished list with a couple of additions from this month.

Songs Stuck in MY Head in July (Mostly)

1. “Calling on You” Stryper
2. “The 59th Street Bridge Song/ Feeling Groovy” Harper’s Bazaar
3. “Luka”Suzanne Vega
4. “Candle in the Wind” Elton John
5. “Starseed” Our Lady Peace
6. “Under Pressure” David Bowie and Queen
7. “Only Living Boy in New York” Paul Simon
8. “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” Sting
9. “Eye in the Sky” by The Alan Parsons Project
10. “All About the Bass” Meghan Trainor
11. Then there was this song from the 70’s that I just had a blip stuck in my head and it was like an “ooo oo oooo” part and I asked everyone I could think of about it and they thought it was a Journey song but it totally was not because I listened to the song they thought it was and it wasn’t that.
12. “If I Could Change the World” Eric Clapton
13. “All of My Love” Led Zeppelin
14. “Alcohol” Barenaked Ladies
15. “Sailing for Adventure” The Muppets
16. “Scrooge” The Muppets

You guys, I am seriously the biggest loser. lol.  Look at that list!  Seriously, though, “Scrooge” was in my head all morning.  From A Muppet Christmas Carol.  In August.

One thing that I discovered while I was trying to track this is that I get songs stuck in my head for a good long time and that just seeing the title of a song that was previously stuck in my head will lodge it right back in place.  A lot of these songs just kind of popped up.  I can’t tell you the last time I heard “Candle in the Wind” and I don’t even like that song.  I’m sure I missed some.  There was definitely some Van Halen in there.

One thing:  Situations have me thinking of my dad a lot lately and missing him very much.  I wish he was here and it kind of breaks my hear.  “Only Living Boy in New York” and “All of My Love” are songs that remind me of him and have been playing in my head accordingly.  The Paul Simon is funny.  I don’t think he liked Paul Simon and he definitely didn’t like New York, but something about that song can reduce me to fucking tears every single time.