Friday, June 15, 2007

Where I've been.

Tired. Achy. Busy.

(I also have so many draft entries that I think I've officially created more drafts than actual published entries. Perhaps today I'll finally go back and start, you know, posting some of those. Because they're almost done, and most just need some sort of conclusion. Since I talk about some of my favorite things in the world, they do go on for some time. I talk about The Plague and how it won't kill us if we just respond correctly, and quickly. By the way--that guy with the XDR-TB is a jerk. Not because of his XDR-TB but because he openly disregarded instructions from the CDC. If the CDC tells you to stay put until they know more about your XDR-TB, then you freakin' stay put until you hear differently! Dude knew he was doing something he shouldn't be doing when he flew to Canada because he suspected that he was on the US No Fly list. As far as I'm concerned, I think he should be happy that he didn't get put into jail for what did, like that poor Russian guy in Arizona a few months ago, who also has XDR-TB and was JAILED for going out in public without his face mask on. The fact that more tests showed that Speaker's strain of XDR-TB is not highly contagious doesn't excuse what he did AT ALL. Had he just listened to the CDC and waited for those test results to come in, then the whole mess could probably have been avoided. But Speaker's an annoying fat-head who thought he knew more about TB than the CDC. Also: The CDC is not perfect and the only person we have to blame for that is Bush, who consistently cuts funding to everything important to us because of his goddamned war.)

I need to work on writing shorter parentheticals.

Devin and I both finished the six Harry Potter books in eight days (so that was a while ago, and I wrote a draft entry about it). Since Devin asks me every other day when the new book comes out, I made a sign, and posted it in our kitchen, that says, "The next Harry Potter book is STILL coming out on July 21st." I smacked him when he started complaining about having to wait that long because I've been waiting two years for this book (eight if you consider how long I've been reading the entire series).

He also made me promise to get him his OWN COPY. Which I think is a spectacular waste of money but he's adamant that he will NOT wait for me to finish my copy (even though I'll read it in one day, as I've done with all of the other HP books, but that's not good enough for Devin).

After finishing up Harry, I watched Season 3 of "Battlestar Galactica." I highly recommend watching this show if you're not watching it already. You need to start at the beginning, though. (Seasons 1 and 2 are available to rent, like most TV shows are nowadays, which is a wonderful use of DVD technology. Season 3 comes out sometime in August.)

The final season doesn't start until February of next year, so I let Devin complain about the long wait because it wouldn't exactly be fair for me to start griping when I'm smacking him around for complaining about having to wait for the last HP book. Although eleven months between seasons really is an insanely long amount of time to wait for a show. They're showing a two-hour episode in November but it's a prequel to stuff that was already dealt with during Season 2 (if I say any more, I would veer into spoiler territory).

We celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary earlier this week (the 11th) by going out to dinner and then seeing "Ocean's 13." Which we both liked it, but not enough to see it again on the big screen. And as much as I love Ellen Barkin, there needed to be more women in the movie. Maybe just ONE more woman. But it was funny, and fluffy and certainly not a waste of money.

My arthritis was kicking my ass for the past few weeks. The weather's been going a bit crazy and all of that change made my knees swell on a daily basis. Although now that the weather has finally settled on hot, my joints are no longer achy balls of pain. I've been able to go back to doing Yoga and Pilates (even though I hate Pilates because it is brutal). And Devin is thrilled because I'm no longer lying around the house with my knees propped up and ice-packs strapped to them.

Otherwise it's been a lot of summer TV. I'm addicted to "Hell's Kitchen" and "Top Chef," even though I hate cooking and eat very bland foods when I'm sick, so I also have an aversion to anything spicy. But "Hell's Kitchen" cracks me up and "Top Chef" teaches me all sorts of things about cooking. (Even though I never put any of that knowledge to good use.) I also love seeing the "Top Chef" people go absolutely nuts during their Quick Fire challenges.

And, of course, I watch "So You Think You Can Dance?" because DAMN, the top twenty dancers this year are phenomenal. This week was the first night of competition for the top twenty and it was spectacular. Usually the first week isn't particularly good because you have dancers who are dancing in styles that they have never danced before, and many of them have never done any partner work, either (for those unfamiliar with the show, the top twenty are partnered off into ten couples and they continue to dance as couples for many weeks).

The few dancers who struggled with new dance styles, and were put into the bottom three couples by popular vote, managed to save themselves (except for two contemporary dancers) based on their solo routine. Which sucked for the two contemporary dancers who went home because their solo routines weren't even as good as their auditions, so they were sent home by the judges. (Again, if you are unfamiliar with the show, America votes for their favorite couples, the bottom three couples then have to perform solo routines for the judges, and the judges send one boy, and one girl home. This goes on for a few weeks until most of the dancers have been sent home.)

Although I'm getting tired of the judge's fascination with break-dancing. They kept one guy who pulled out the same damn break-dancing tricks that he's been doing since the first round of auditions and the judges are still heaping praise on him. They must not realize that there are a whole lot of guys in this country who can spin around on their freakin' heads. (I remember guys break-dancing during breaks between classes while I was in junior high. They'd bring out pallets of cardboard--old refrigerator boxes and the like, and would practice spinning around on their heads, and a bunch of other common break-dancing tricks.)

And I'm not saying that break-dancing well is easy. It's hard as hell but if this particular break-dancer (there are a few of them in the top twenty) ends up having to perform a solo routine again, he'd better do more than freakin' spinning around on his head. Even the other break-dancers in the competition realize that there has to be substance to their routines to balance out the tricks.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

My bizarro week.

Last week, I was lamenting the end of Gilmore and my lost Harry Potter paperback books.

Well, of course Gilmore is still gone, but at least I found the books. Last Thursday, I started reading Sorcerer's Stone and, since I was pretty sick, I stayed home on Friday and had myself a nice four-day weekend.

I was planning to take my time reading the six HP books. I have until July 21st, so I wasn't at all worried. In-between reading, I was planning on finishing the second season of Battlestar Galactica (they did Season 2 in two parts--part 2.0 and part 2.5, which is weird).

Since Devin has a disc-golf tournament every Friday (and one every Tuesday, and a monthly one on Saturday mornings), I figured that I should spend my Devin-free time reading HP because he would probably want to watch Battlestar with me (when I went ahead and watched episodes while he was in bed, he was a bit peeved that he missed the chance to re-watch them).

Which is when things started to get odd.

Devin got home from the tournament, and I was already half-way through Chamber of Secrets (I've read Sorcerer's so many times that I have the damn thing memorized). We talk about how the tournament went, and I'm telling him that I'm ready to stop reading for a while and watch some Battlestar.

And Devin picks up Sorcerer's Stone. I have been trying to get Devin to read the Harry Potter books since the moment I met him. Which is no surprise because I think every literate person in the world should read Harry Potter, and have told that to anybody who will listen to me.

Devin has never showed any interest in Harry Potter. Even the movies bored him silly (well, except for Prisoner and Goblet but that makes sense because those two were far better than the first two, which were directed by Christopher Columbus, who freakin' cut out some of my favorite "RENT" songs from the damn movie to get a PG-13 rating, the rat bastard). I had given up on trying to interest Devin in Harry Potter a long time ago. He goes with me to the movies and tries not to look too embarrassed because I'm wearing my "Quidditch" shirt and am squealing over the movie like a teenage girl.

I love my husband but he is just not a reader. Since graduating from high school, he's read more books in the five years that he's been with me, than he ever did during school (not including assigned reading, of course, since he always read the books he was assigned to read but never read for fun, and would, in fact, argue that there isn't any "fun" reading).

When we moved in together, he had less than ten books, almost all of which were assigned books from high school and junior college, and (of course) The Book of Mormon. After we moved into our second apartment, which was twice the size of the little cottage that we were living in before (referred to as "The Stoops," since we all spent most of our time sitting on our stoops, talking with our friends, who also happened to be our neighbors, the cottages were built after the first World War for war widows and their children), I was able to move in a whole lot of my books.

It took Devin a while to notice that his meager book collection wasn't visible in any of the bookcases. They were hidden behind my Nora Roberts books (which is truly bizarre because most women hide their romance novels). He tried to argue that, since he only had a few books, I shouldn't be hiding them behind my books, and especially not behind a bunch of romance novels.

He said something about how he didn't even remember what books he owned, so I pulled out all of my Nora Roberts just so he could see his books.

"When was the last time you read one of those books?" I asked him.

"Ummm... I read Choke by the Fight Club guy (Chuck Palahniuk) after you gave it to me."

"That was almost two years ago, Devin. And I just finished reading a Nora Roberts trilogy, so that trumps your book collection."

We eventually decided that if Devin started to read for fun--even if it was only one book a year--then his collection would not be kept hidden behind my romance novels. Since he liked the first "Bourne" movie, and a close friend of ours kept telling him that he should read the books, Devin started reading Robert Ludlum.

Which was actually rather funny because he became completely obsessed with Robert Ludlum's books and was excited to hear that a "new" book of his was coming out. And I got to explain to him that Ludlum was dead and that his "new" books were being written by ghost writers (using Ludlum's rough drafts, outlines, and anything else that he left behind).

After plowing through most of Ludlum's books, Devin read The DaVinci Code (since all literate Westerners feel obliged to read that book at some point--and it's actually pretty good).

Last Friday, while Devin was looking at Sorcerer's Stone, I told him that I was ready for a break from Harry Potter and why don't we watch some Battlestar together?

"Nah. Since you did something for me--started watching Battlestar--I'll do something that you like."

"Are you actually going to read Harry Potter?" Over two years ago, I had shoved the dark blue, mass-market version of Sorcerer's at Devin and he didn't even finish the first chapter.

"Yup." And then he took the book to his game room and, sure enough, started reading it.

I decide to watch an episode of Battlestar and, when it's over, I go in to check on Devin.

"This is great. Are you almost done with the second one?"

"Ummm... no. I'm about half-way done."

"Well, you'd better hurry up and finish it because I'm already half-way through this one."

"What about Battlestar? Are you going to watch any of it with me?"

"No. I'm going to read Harry Potter."

And so he did. He was also very serious about me finishing Chamber before he finished Sorcerer's.

And that was how our holiday weekend went. I plowed through Chamber less than an hour before Devin finished Sorcerer's. I plowed through Prisoner of Azkaban while Devin read Chamber of Secrets.

I damn near didn't finish Prisoner before Devin finished Chamber. That was definitely a close one.

Then I threw a bit of a hissy fit. Goblet of Fire is easily my favorite Harry Potter book. I told Devin that this madness of me plowing through the books just so he could read them after me had to stop. I refused to plow through Goblet. I've read the first three so many times that reading them again was pretty much unnecessary, I read them because I love them, not because I had forgotten anything that had happened in them (even the small, minute details).

But I flat-out refused to do that with Goblet, and Devin was not pleased with that decision. It was Monday morning, and he'd stayed up until the very wee hours of the morning to finish Prisoner and was ready to read Goblet. I was about half-way through it, so Devin decided to go play some disc golf with some friends and instructed me to finish the book while he was gone.

Which is when we started fighting. Over Harry Potter. It was WEIRD. Once again, I told him that I love Goblet and was not going to rush through it. Fine, he said, then I'll just read your hardcover copy.

"NO YOU WON'T. Do not even THINK of touching that book."

"Have you gone insane? What the hell is your problem?"

"No one touches my hardcover Harry Potter books. Especially Goblet of Fire. I've read that book so many times that the spine has completely separated, right at the part where Harry gets the golden egg. It will fall completely apart if you try to read it. Leave. It. Alone."

"You broke your favorite Harry Potter book?"

"I didn't BREAK IT. I just loved it too much."

"Fine. Whatever. I'm going to go play disc golf with Mike."

"You do that. Have fun."

So, Devin stormed off and I re-immersed myself into Goblet, filled with happiness because I didn't have to rush through it just so Devin could start reading it.

When Devin came home a few hours later, he was carrying a Target bag.

"You didn't..."

Before I can finish the sentence, Devin interrupts me, "Yup. Bought my own copy. Now we can both read it."

"Devin! We now own three copies of Goblet of Fire! That's crazy."

"No. YOU are crazy. But don't worry, Mike told me that I can borrow his copies of Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. Even though he thinks you're crazy as well."

"What about watching Battlestar together?" I didn't bother fighting over my alleged lack of sanity because... they were both a bit right. 99.9% of the time, I am thrilled to lend a book from my library to a friend, since I firmly believe that books should be shared.

Except for a few very special books. All of my beloved autographed-by-the-author books, my antique books and, of course, my HP hardcovers.

"You can watch Battlestar if you want but I'm going to read Goblet of Fire."

Devin is now half-way through Order of the Phoenix and he cannot stop talking about all of the stuff that was left out of the "Harry Potter" movies. Which means that he never listened to any of my lectures on that very subject but that's okay. At least now he understands.

His goal is to finish Order of the Phoenix today (I'm not sure why, other than the fact that he is now addicted to the series and is obsessed with finding out what happens next). He wants to read Half-Blood Prince over the weekend, and has already told me that we should put a second Deathly Hallows on order for him.

Never in a million years did I expect Devin to plow through five Harry Potter books in less than a week. But I am THRILLED. When he's not reading, he's asking me questions about the books and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

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