It started to pour

8

Happy Birthday

Summer Bookery

Right on schedule, the beginning of the summer reading list. It's good to record books one has read in the summer. This shall be updated as books get read.

Bad to the Bone by Jeri Smith-Ready
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared by Mike Rose
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez by Richard Rodriguez
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris
Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
Thank You for All Things by Sandra King
Everything Beautiful by Simmone Howell
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Ill Wind by Rachel Caine
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
The Boy Orator by Tracy Daugherty
It Takes a Worried Man by Tracy Daugherty
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Axeman's Jazz by Tracy Daugherty
They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Heat Stroke by Rachel Caine
The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson
The Academic Writer: A Brief Guide by Lisa Ede
Readings for OSU Writers (no editor listed)
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night

I have one more final left on Thursday. Tracy was kind enough to provide us with the questions in advance. Today I did fantastic things. I went to school and sat in the quad and read a book I actually wanted to read rather than one I had to. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I haven't read much of her work before. Quite impressed. Thought-provoking book. I then went to Jarrod's thesis defense. I had never been in Hovland before, so it was quite the experience. I learned about mystical poetry. I asked a question, though I had tons. There just wasn't enough time. But really, when and where is there enough time for all my questions? He passed (yay!). Had dinner with Dennis and his daughter. She is marvelous. I was happy to meet her finally. Also, beer and sammiches are good for one's health. Then I went to Safeway and bought olives at the olive island of most certain d00m! It's been a pleasant day filled with little requiring effort and most everything as it should be in the world.

Everything just feels likes rain

"And as we all know from experiments conducted during the Korean War,Diane, sleep deprivation is a one-way ticket to temporary psychosis." -Agent Dale Cooper

I went to bed at 5 last night after writing, printing, and becoming angrified at my 50 poems for class. The collection is entitled Tea with Baba Yaga. I got three hours of sleep, woke to find David Carradine was dead (godfuckingdamnit), and went to school for my last four undergraduate classes. After writing and turning in 20 pages and taking one scheduled final, I'll be done with my BA. I'll be so happy to be done. Mother is having a celebratory BBQ after finals week, and all manner of merriness shall be had. She's using the BBQ as an excuse to get me to bring her the last two books in the Twilight Saga. Ha. She too has found how awful they are and how addictive.

I took a 2-hour nap after coming home from school and eating some chicken. There was a glorious storm this afternoon. Winds. Pouring, drenching rain. Thunder. Lightning. The evil Genocide Awareness Project people were out in the quad. A very Catholic student with whom I have classes, with her Lifeguard (Right to Life) shirt on, scowled at me when I joked that with all those fences, there was a good chance of them either packing up early or getting struck by lightning in an ironic display of god's awesome power. I stood in Moreland (Lesswater!) watching the storm feeling quite happy and content. My weather had returned! The lights flickered throughout Post World War II Novels. We sympathized and become frustrated with Gogol. In the Namesake. No qualms were had about the original Gogol. And I clutched my coat happily. Nabokov is right about beauty and pity. The first time I read "The Overcoat," I was in 7th grade, and I almost couldn't believe it. It took a long time to read because I was translating it from Russian to English. I'd only had a year and a half of Russian, so everything unfolded slowly--the plans for the coat, the choices to be made, the party in honor of the coat (how out of place he was!), and the crushing thievery. I could barely believe it when Akaky was left in the snow, and still felt sad and disturbed as his ghost haunted St. Petersberg; I felt almost displaced myself. And even though a lot of it was probably horribly translated, the story itself was still the kind that made you shake your head and lean back in your chair and exclaim "Jesus, Gogol..."

My eyes are all puffy and swollen. Itchy. I got eye drops, but to little or no avail. I'm racing Benadryl. It wants me to sleep. The OWL queue wants me to work. It doesn't matter that these things cannot possibly want.