one thing leads to another.
It's a weird world; one day, you're huddled miserably on the bathroom tile, and the next you're the recipient of spontaneous compliments. Pretty lovely, hmm?
One year ago: Celebrity babies.
Two years ago: A bunch of book recommendations. I still highly recommend all the Roman books. And I'm reading the latest Michael Connelly, yay!
Three years ago: A day about the town.
Today's news question:Under what conditions does Bandai, a Japanese toy company, give a bonus of $10,000 to one of its employees?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
Darin would like me to mention that The Opposite of Sex is, of course, death. Welcome to the two main basic human drives, at least according to Dr. Freud.
Just in case you didn't get that from the movie by that name.
Today has been a difficult day. Sophia has been in high-maintenance mode all day, which gets to be exhausting after a while. ("How would you like to deal with a really high maintenance baby?" I hear you ask. I would not. Thanks.) She'll only sleep when she's in my lap, she doesn't like the bouncy chair, putting her in the baby gym makes her scream. You know, the whole nine yards. Up until this point I've managed to write about three e-mails.
She's asleep right now. I type quickly.
Another book I managed to read this weekend -- this is the most reading I've done for some time, folks; mostly because Sophia was doing things like taking four hour naps -- was Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Jessie of Blueberry Hill had recommended her --
(You want embarrassing? Pull a chair up over here. I had exchanged e-mail with Jessie on several occasions. Then Emily of Mildew told me about the Palo Alto-based journal Blueberry Hill and so I went to check it out. And I really liked it, so I sent mail to the author of such, who turned out to be...Jessie! Shoot me, kill me now. Well, can I help it if she doesn't put her URL in her signature?)
-- saying she was better than JK Rowling. I had never heard of Diana Wynne Jones before -- I don't know whether she was after my time (my time as a small Di, that is) or what, but I can't get enough well-written fantasy, so off I went.
I enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle, though I'm not sure I'd say it was better than Harry Potter. For one thing, I wanted to slap Howl, which perhaps I am supposed to want to do, but still. I very much enjoyed the fantasy land, in which the eldest of three daughters knows it's her lot in life never to achieve anything, because that's what always happens to the eldest of three when they go out to seek their adventure. Wynne Jones doesn't always hit you over the head when something magical's happening -- it's up to you to go, Hey, wait a minute, didn't something happen back here...?
I enjoyed it. I'll be looking for others. Regrettably, I don't know what order they go in!
I found Tim Pratt through Karen Meisner, and I saw he recommends Lisa Goldstein's work pretty highly. I have never heard of Lisa Goldstein before, but the summaries of her work (I went and looked on Amazon) seem pretty interesting.
However, I mustn't get crazy -- I already have a few books on reserve for me at the library, and at the rate I'm reading it'll be a while before I can get to anything new.
Forum: Make a referral of to something you've really enjoyed recently.
Forum: What's changed since you were a child?
I did another mile today. I have been sore the rest of the day. I can see that this is a long road ahead of me, but I guess I have to take it step by step. Oy, I can't believe I made that pun.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@nobody-knows-anything.com