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Archive for the ‘books’ Category

We took a night off yesterday so I’m going to post this gallery tomorrow for members:

Hiding My Nakedness

We’re beginning a new tradition of taking one night off of work and the dog a month. For us, to get away from work, we actually have to leave the house, the webcams, the computers and the big camera. We board the dog at a nice farm-y kennel, and we get a room. Last month wasn’t as fun as this month because last time we did work while we were away and had to pack to shoot, get up early, etc.  / just one of the nights was “off”.

This time we didn’t have to pack ANYTHING except cozy clothes so getting out of the house was a lot easier and no-stress. We got a room at the Suquamish casino and arrived right before dusk with everything looking spooky and beautiful outside of the big windows of the hotel. We put on our bathing suits right away to take advantage of the swimming pool and hot tub.

Delia lounging by the pool

It was SO NICE! One of the benefits of staying at a casino in Washington (where it’s not really a destination for anything BUT gambling, unlike Vegas) must be that everyone else is at the tables and slot machines while the pool is totally EMPTY. We had the place all to ourselves, allowing Delia to shoot this upskirt shot while I read Wizard’s First Rule (as soon as I finish it we’re going to start watching Legend of the Seeker which I’ve been DYING to see; I’ve caught little pieces of it here and there, but wanted to watch it from the beginning with the background of having read the book):

Flashing my fantasy-loving twat by the pool.

We swam and we soaked, totally loving the big sunken hot tub outside. It was perfect with the cold winter air and rain in the dark, watching the drops fall in the water up to our chins. The only thing that sucked was not being able to be naked. It felt criminal, really — so unnatural and weird. How can you be outside in hot water at night breathing in all of that mist and wear a constricting swimsuit without feeling like a law is being broken? I don’t know. But it was worth it. I did consider taking my suit off, but it would have sucked to have gotten the boot with our evening barely started and I know I would’ve been nervous, looking around trying to be ready to frantically pull the fucker back on if anybody approached.

We totally overate while we were gone. The best thing we got was at Tizley’s Europub in Poulsbo this afternoon: their warm mustard-y German potato salad was delicious as fuck, and perfect with our bratwurst.

We were more than ready to come home and get back to work after barely being gone 24 hours, but the fucking bridge opened (meaning it CLOSED to vehicle traffic) right as we were about to head back so we went to “the fish park” to wait it out. I’m pretty sure that’s what the sign said, just “the fish park”. We enjoyed our little low tide stroll:

Romantic carvings at The Fish Park

Winter sky at The Fish Park

We Love Bats and Bat Houses!

I’m looking forward to whatever we decide to do on our February night off . . . maybe something involving less food and some museums or something like that. Or, better yet, some place with a hot tub outside where we’re allowed to be naked.

I wish I had the time and focus to say I read 357 books in 2009, but the truth is I only actually FINISHED around 35 and I don’t think any of them were really “new” books. Here are my six+ favorites:

The New York Trilogy

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

Sheer fucking perfection. Sidewalking stories that spiral inward and out, mirroring slightly fractured selves all with the feeling of noir detective stories, but . . . not.

Stardust

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I know, I’m totally behind the times. And this is only the second of his books I’ve read (the other one being American Gods, parts of which I enjoyed immensely). Basically felt like the PERFECT grown-up bedtime book. I adored it. It’s the kind of book you recognize as something you’ve been longing for (in this case, a fairy tale) a long time and finally found. Note: I felt the same way about The New York Trilogy, but it answered a different longing.

The Abhorsen Trilogy

The Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen) by Garth Nix

Magic, adventure, strong female leads on journeys/missions.

I prefer Philip Pullman’s and Garth Nix’s heroines to Harry Potter. Nothing against J.K. Rowling – I admire her and of course ENJOYED her books and think they’re worth celebrating as a phenom/something we can all (mostly) love in common, but the Harry Potter series didn’t take me to the places His Dark Materials and The Abhorsen Trilogy have, or move me the way those did (and STILL do when I think of them). What I’m trying to say is that if Harry Potter is the be all, end all for you then maybe my book recs won’t work for you.

The Road to Damietta

The Road to Damietta by Scott O’Dell

Historical fiction by the guy we all love for writing Island of the Blue Dolphins. Here’s what I said about it on GoodReads:

Outstanding; I’m so glad I ran across this book that I’d never HEARD of before and wouldn’t have bought if it weren’t for vaguely recalling how hard Island of the Blue Dolphins rocked. I’m not someone who’s into reading about saints or the crusades or Italy or any of that; it’s just a frank, well-researched story of a girl’s infatuation that doesn’t resemble any other cliched overtold version of same. Pulls in so many provocative issues (but in a simply-told, objective way) but most of all is ju…more Outstanding; I’m so glad I ran across this book that I’d never HEARD of before and wouldn’t have bought if it weren’t for vaguely recalling how hard Island of the Blue Dolphins rocked. I’m not someone who’s into reading about saints or the crusades or Italy or any of that; it’s just a frank, well-researched story of a girl’s infatuation that doesn’t resemble any other cliched overtold version of same. Pulls in so many provocative issues (but in a simply-told, objective way) but most of all is just a perfectly told STORY, or story blanketing other stories.

I’m so glad I didn’t know anything about this book or expect anything or see any of it coming. Just beautifully done in a well balanced, simply-stated way (but still very sensually told). I really appreciated this one; it read totally differently from anything else I’ve had my nose in lately.

Especially interesting to read as an alternative YA “romance”/adventure to Twilight, et al. ESPECIALLY considering the criticisms of the religious “agenda” of those books, this is a pretty healthy alternative.

Note: if you’re afraid of reading anything to DO with religion assuming it will be religious itself, you don’t have to worry with this one. Unless you’re one of those people who breaks out in hives at the mere mention of Jesus.

The Motel Life

The Motel Life: A Novel by Willy Vlautin

A book about brothers, it felt close to me. Not because I recognized myself in them in literal ways, but . . . something(s) else. Maybe that part of me that gets sick and fucking tired of most books being about (or written by) people living on the East Coast (specifically the NORTHeast) or in London or fucking California. Maybe it’s just a class thing, I don’t know, but it’s one of the few books I read this year with characters who seemed like people I would actually meet in real life (I suppose after listing so much fantasy you’re like, “DUH, because the other shit you read takes place in the land of fey!”). Again, here’s what I posted on Good Reads:

I couldn’t help hearing most people’s voices in this book sounding like Moe’s voice on The Simpsons. Moe is my fave Simpson character, so maybe that partially explains my love for this beautiful, sad fucking book. The other part of the explanation is just that it’s a pretty special book. I was afraid going into it that it would be unbearably depressing, but it wasn’t. Depressing, yes . . . but just squeaks by as BARELY bearable. I did find myself with tears dripping down my face a few times, but…more I couldn’t help hearing most people’s voices in this book sounding like Moe’s voice on The Simpsons. Moe is my fave Simpson character, so maybe that partially explains my love for this beautiful, sad fucking book. The other part of the explanation is just that it’s a pretty special book. I was afraid going into it that it would be unbearably depressing, but it wasn’t. Depressing, yes . . . but just squeaks by as BARELY bearable. I did find myself with tears dripping down my face a few times, but they were gritty and slow and tiredly sweet, not headache-inducing wailers.

It felt very American, very WESTERN American and like it could have taken place any time between 1930 and the present (even though there are real events that place it in one specific time period).

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

I know!! Another book for kids!! And I totally should’ve read it when I was in fourth grade or whatever, but didn’t, and I’m GLAD because it was so awesome to read new as an adult. And hey, aren’t you glad something written by a woman made my favorites list? Phew! Me too . . .

*****

I mostly just read for pleasure these days, so sorry I don’t have nonfiction in my list. It’s just not relaxing for me to read about things that matter, and I have enough “mattering” in my life for now. Mostly I just want to lose myself in someone else’s story and not feel like I have to DO something about it or commit a bunch of facts to memory. But wait, I actually *did* read some nonfiction . . . it was light stuff, though, that couldn’t come close to edging out my faves.

You can see what I’m reading (and have already read) by visiting my GoodReads profile or checking the badge in my right sidebar (over there >>> to the right and down). My ratings are pretty much meaningless (aren’t those star systems ALWAYS meaningless??) and I’m not good at “reviewing” books, but I enjoy that site a lot and like to see what other people are reading.

The past week was filled with concentrated efforts on the mundane things in life, namely preparing and filing our very-late taxes, making a long trek to suburban mall-land for Delia’s laser hair removal appointment (which didn’t happen because they mysteriously stopped doing laser and, also mysteriously, disappeared Delia’s appointment right off their computer) and shoot-shopping, cleaning house in a big way for our landlords to visit, and just trying to stay on top of our usual load of tasks to keep things going.

Last night it started raining. HARD. Our first big rain of the season. In no time at all we heard drips in our bathroom; there’s a vent in the ceiling where water always leaks when the wood is dry/not swelled up. Usually it doesn’t leak much and stops once the wood around the opening swells back up to seal the cracks, but it was still raining like a son-of-a-bitch AND leaking like a sieve this morning when we woke to our alarm set early (for us, or most people on a Saturday morning). Delia climbed up into the attic to fix it and did some other stuff so by the time the owners got here all was remedied. I know, most renters would think of this as perfect timing, for the owners to see a problem and get someone else to come over and fix it, but for us? Working at home? With porn and webcams and stuff? I do not want the interruptions and invasion of privacy. It is bad enough knowing they have friends that they send to drive by the house to spy on its condition. Of course, if I were a landlord, I’d do the same thing, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy being on the receiving end of it. As it is, they want to make some (understandable, and nice for us) fixes to some things, but I feel totally stressed out about the idea of strangers being in our space when we totally cannot afford the intrusion, especially since it’s impossible for me to use that time to relax. Jesus, I’m about to give myself a panic attack right now just thinking about some handyman coming over on his own schedule, doing shit piece by piece, never knowing when he’ll arrive or leave, not being able to schedule shoots or shows . . . yes, I feel very pessimistic about it.

Anyway, the rest of today I tried to stay awake and just enjoyed our fresher, tidier house. I finished a couple of books (the Lauren Bacall autobiography and the first Trixie Belden book), stared vacantly at nothing and stayed warm. We also watched television (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Dollhouse, Jeopardy) and stretched in our very dimly lit parlor listening to new age music with the stars shining bright outside (yes, it finally it stopped raining). I keep getting many-days-long headaches because my shoulders are so bunched up and my neck so stiff.

So. Our shows that we *were* going to do Friday and today are happening tomorrow (Sunday) and Monday. Members: you should go here for our schedule & group shows, and here for our spycams and members-only chat session.

I took the last pill in my birth control pack on Tuesday so I’m not sure why my period hasn’t started yet, but it won’t be a big shock if it happens around showtime.

My birthday last week was filled with ding dongs and dildos and a deep sigh of gratitude that a few people treated me to a trip to the salon tomorrow to go back to being a blonde.

I sort of stretched out my own personal celebration, doing shows on my birthday proper, then attempting to watch an engrossing movie, selecting Changeling which was sort of a big fat mistake. YES, it was engrossing. In a horrible, harrowing, gut-wrenching way. And even though I knew I was being totally emotionally manipulated by the film industry, I couldn’t just TURN IT OFF the way I did with Titanic (you heard me — I shut that melodramatic motherfucker off and refused to watch it past halfway).

Changeling pretty much ruined our plan to go see The Reader the last night it was playing in town. Instead we opted for something a little more uplifting to balance out the trauma of Changeling: we moved the Playstation (a birthday present from years back) into the bedroom and played a snowboarding video game (SSX3) for hours. And ate ding dongs. Well, *I* ate ding dongs. Delia didn’t.

And then I threw the rest of the ding dongs away. Because a) my birthday was OVER, and b) I have a goal to lose 15 pounds by June 1st (or less if I’m satisfied/feel good before I get there; since I’ve already lost four since I made the goal, I only have 11 to go). I definitely don’t want to lose TOO much of this action:

I continued celebrating a couple days ago when I noticed our friend had a two-for-one print sale going on and since I hadn’t bought any of her art yet, I treated myself! It was affordable and made me happy.

But what I *really* wanted to do for my birthday was spend some more time reading Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy which is SO FUCKING AWESOME I set it aside because I seriously couldn’t stand for it to end knowing there would be a big gaping emptiness without having more of it to look forward to. So today? I went to the used bookstore and picked up the only two Auster paperbacks they had on the shelf (Oracle Night and The Brooklyn Follies). Now I can finish The NY Trilogy and still feel like there’s a reason to live.

I also looked for the second and third books in the Abhorsen series, but they only had Sabriel (which I finished months ago and want to hurry up and continue before I forget everything). I grabbed a couple other titles (ex. Codex) plus some appealing books in the “free box” (ex. The Tommyknockers) and guiltily made my way home with a satisfying stack of stories to chew on. Sometimes I leave the books I buy in the car or somewhere Delia won’t see them right away because I feel so bad about spending the money on them when I don’t even read most of them right away (if ever) and I refuse to GET RID of any of them unless they really suck total ass, so they’ll all be living with us forever.

The thing is, I need to have CHOICES. Because there are some moments on the toilet where I’m after a very specific kind of book to lull myself into a comfortable shit. Or the weather demands a certain genre. Or I’m emotionally craving a story that delivers total escapism. And fuck . . . when it only costs $25 to buy a big armful of pleasure, how wrong can it be? Plehhhhhhhszhoooooooor . . . is in the booooooooooks.

Maybe tomorrow after I endure the torture of getting my hair colored, I’ll continue celebrating my birthday with some Paul Auster and a sweet mug of Russian Caravan tea.

As a feminist and a sex positive person I probably should DESPISE Twilight, but I don’t. I read the book (and only the first one so far) because it takes place near here and I saw the movie because the previews made it look way better than the book . . . I felt compelled by curiosity, local interest, a desire to know more about a pop culture phenom, and because I TOTALLY WANTED TO.

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The book? Meh. It was entertaining, mildly annoying from a local’s perspective, and mind-boggling since I wouldn’t have STOOD for so many pages of overt chastity when I was a tween reader myself in the eighties. A sign of the conservative times, I guess; I am DAMN glad I grew up with Judy Blume’s Ralph-named penises and totally taboo rape scenes in Flowers in the Attic.

The movie? LOVED IT. I mean, I seriously fucking LOVED it. The previews drew me in because it looked dark and funny (there wasn’t a trace of self-aware humor in the book, so that was an improvement already) and I wanted to see the flying scenes. It was just an all-around great movie-theater movie — pretty, entertaining, moody . . . familiar.

Here’s the deal about Twilight: no matter how loathsome it may be from a political point of view, that movie (and the book for other people) delivers exactly what a lot of young women crave and feel romantically. It’s extremely exciting and beautiful and “sexy” in a vague, inexplicit, totally hysterically emotional way. Beautiful boy looks at beautiful girl and they are CONNECTED, locked together . . . anticipating . . . SOMETHING totally INTENSE!!!!

You can criticize that all you want, but when you do, you’re trashing the (natural) fantasies of lots and lots of young woman. When I watched that movie I really didn’t care what the implications were, I cared that it DELIVERED visions of something deeply desired by girls. After you finally kiss? Something very exciting happens, kind of like exploding into a flying spell into the sky!! Yeah, it’s fucking stupid, but that overwrought anticipation of something that gobbles you up entirely and transcends the mundane is part of most young women’s hormonal pre-teen/teenage experience. What’s next isn’t sex, it’s MAGIC!!

I had orgasms and the anticipation of sex on the brain a lot as a young woman and I *probably* wouldn’t have liked that movie as much then as I do now (my generation’s Twilight was Legend, which I thought was a enchanting for two minutes then a total fucking bore except for when Tim Curry as the devilish dark beasty was going to do whatever dirty things he was going to do to Mia Sara), but I still had to celebrate it for being pure fore-fore-foreplay and girly fantasy with pretty menacing shadows.

In general I’m becoming less and less tolerant of myself and other people making fun of what women want or theorizing that the politically incorrect, unempowering things women want are *entirely* constructed for us artificially. There is nothing fake about girls wanting to fly around on the back of a strong beautiful sparkly vampire boy’s back or to be a vampire and run-really-really-fast/fly themselves (I haven’t read the rest of the books so I don’t know if she eventually gets there or not, but clearly there are OTHER female characters who do).

I don’t know why it should make people cringe that girls want to immerse themselves in the fantasy of being in tragic love with such a creature or that the public version of this particular popular story is g-rated (except for the violence, of course — this IS America, after all). Personally? I watch a lot of porn but there were scenes in this movie that were five billion times more agonizingly erotic than anything XXX rated ever could hope to be. It was a brilliant fucking tease, and there’s nothing hotter than having no release. I don’t give a fuck about the stammering heroine and her shortcomings; she’s a blank slate and nobody else cares much about her either because it’s a fucking FANTASY. Do girls really need a fucking role model in every single fantasy they have or are they entitled to be thrilled and entertained and suspend contact with reality just like everyone else? I also *almost* don’t care about the scariness of fantasizing about a creepy stalker boyfriend who sneaks into your room at night and stares at you while you sleep; yes, it’s totally gross and weird and dangerous. But a lot of us have had that same exact unrealistic fantasy and it made us feel good (in more ways than one). That? It’s human nature. And I’m sick of women being shamed and cautioned into censoring their own fantasies because we’re apparently too stupid to distinguish between fantasy and reality. IT’S A STORY ABOUT VAMPIRES. Can we tell reality and consequences to fuck off for a little while?

If anyone wants to post relevant links like feminist critiques of Twilight, etc. feel free. I honestly have clicked off of just about all of them without giving them the time they probably deserve simply because I’m not in the mood for dissecting it, but I totally understand if other people are (and that my “arguments” are ill-informed and based totally on suspicions and raw emotion). One of the good ones I clicked off of made interesting observations regarding the popularity of abstinence-only sex “education” and Twilight. I don’t know why I’m just not in the mood to care a whole lot this time around (I was certainly pissed enough about The Girl with a Pearl Earring that I almost walked out of the theatre) unless it’s as I said above; that girls deserve to have their desires spoken to and to enjoy their daydreamy fantasies regardless of how unrealistic and bizarre and dangerous they might be. So yeah — *I’m* not very interested in getting into a discussion about it in comments, but I totally understand why others might be so more info and other people’s perspectives and discussions are still welcome.

In first grade I was addicted to this story:

Every chance I got to go to the library and request that they set my friend and I up to listen to this, I WOULD. I remember it as an audio tape with a little paperback book hung in one of those baggies with plastic handles they had for mixed media, but now that my memory is jogged by this youtube video I wonder if it wasn’t a filmstrip because everything about this seems so familiar, but it’s probably just the narration and images, not the motion:

Anyway, I loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it and listened to it OVER and OVER again. I’ve always loved stories that take place at night, were dark, involved sleeping, criminals, loners, outsiders . . . dark escapism that’s sweetly menacing. It’s weird to look back on it now and see more adult elements in it and to read this New York Times review of the book and the author and the challenge of creating both art for children and erotica for adults. I’m glad I was exposed to The Three Robbers in the seventies in public school because I’ll bet that book would never see the light of day without a public lynching of the guy if it were to come out today. Nowadays you must either be 100% child-and-work-safe or resign yourself to being considered a 100% evil boundary-rapist. Take your pick. The only way people can fly under the radar is to be unsuccessful or too artistic for the general population to acknowledge you, and I’m sure this reissue of his out-of-print books is one of those things that will only be noticed by existing fans like myself.

I wish I had a magical blunderbuss to blow that bullshit right out of people’s assheads. But for now I’m going to add The Three Robbers to my wishlist so I can read it to my nephew(s — another’s on the way). WITH SOUND EFFECTS!

One of the reasons I love reading Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer books is the food porn. Big boned babes and greasy spoons abound. Example from The Big Kill:

. . . .I went down the corridor to where a bunch of typewriters were banging out a madhouse symphony and asked one of the stenos where I could find Ellen Scobie. She told me that she had gone out to lunch at noon . . . . It took me about ten minutes to make the four blocks and there was Ellen in the back looking more luscious than the oversize T-bone steak she was gnawing on.

I’ve always wanted to shoot gluttonously sensual softcore porn, but never want to compromise my enjoyment of a good guilt-laden meal to do it. Pictures like these do inspire me, though (click images for sources):

The weirdest thing just happened to me; I wanted to read poetry.

I finished breakfast and wanted something else, which is normal, but rare that I know exactly what it is. Today I realized POEMS were exactly what I wanted. Or just one good poem. That is fucking bizarre, let me tell you. In all of my thirty-five years I’ve never thought to myself, “a poem would really hit the spot right now”. NEVER.

We have tons of books in our house, but only a few (less than five, plus a whole bunch of bibles which kind of count, but not for what I wanted today) containing poetry. We have some Rumi, which I’ve gone to before so I guess “never” was a little bit of an exaggeration, but would have been accurate if I’d qualified the poetry I wanted as contemporary.

It’s not that I’ve never read poetry and enjoyed it, but I was usually forced into it or stumbled there accidentally. I’ve just never been like, “I NEED POEMS NOW! MUST FIND ME THE POEMS!”

Huh.

Note: I still have zero desire to read poetry online or via any electronic device, unless maybe it’s listening to an .mp3 or audio book. Skinny paperbacks are preferable. Going to keep an eye out next time I’m at a bookstore. Recs are welcome.

I detest most social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) so it’s rare that I’ll excitedly ask for friends to join one of them, but I *love* GoodReads. It’s focused, list-oriented, and all about books. I want to see what my friends and fans are reading, so definitely friend me there and/or post a link in comments to your Good Reads profile.

*****

Annoying ad I just saw in sidebar: BELLY FAT IS NASTY.

Sigh.

*****

Do you know how often we buy a groceries at the store to put in the food bank donation bin and forget to do so? Too often (and yet not often enough). That’s why we have twice as many cans of Hunt’s Spaghetti Sauce with sausage (flavoring) at home than we actually need. And no, we don’t just try to buy the poor people crap, THAT IS JUST REALLY GOOD SPAGHETTI SAUCE! If you don’t think so, you’re just a snob living too high on the hog. It’s both cheap AND delicious! You’re missing out if you don’t know what I’m talking about. I cannot walk by sale cans of that shit without snatching up a basketload.