Catching Up on Down Time

Right now Mike is watching some UFC fighting. There is a man with his chest hair shaved into the shape of an arrow punching the crap out of another man. One could call it a Hairrow. Ha. I kill me.  Here's a picture:

Is this what men think is cool? Does this guy think the Hairrow (I kind of want to copyright that word) will make him seem tougher? Does he think it will get him laid? I mean, I'm sure he's a decent person, and he basically was kicking the other guy's butt, but still.  Boys are weird.

Meanwhile, while my husband watches the gladiators punch, kick and choke each other in a blood-stained arena, I figured I'd stop by to say that I have made absolutely no progress and I have basically resigned myself to not finishing my book club book. Book club is on Sunday and I'm only 25 pages into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig. 

I'll admit that I started the book with a bit of a bad attitude.  I just wasn't in the mood for it, and it seemed like it was going to be an effort to read. It's summer, and I'm pretty stressed out about work and some other personal things happening in my life. I didn't feel like reading a great philosophical memoir. 

I will try to read some more of it before Sunday, and I'll look up some stuff for conversation, but I just don't have the energy for this right now.


Usually I love what our group chooses to read, and I love how we pick things. Normally, everyone brings suggestions about what they want to read, and we vote. The past few reads have been more difficult, intellectual books. Normally, this is something I like. Especially when its with a group of people I like and respect so much. I get so much out of our discussions.

But it's summer! I need a beach read. I need to get lost. I think that's why I enjoyed the 50 Shades of Grey books - there was nothing to think about, just a place to get lost. An escape. A fantasy so far removed from work and stress. I need that. Having said that, I am having a difficult time coming up with fun, light books to suggest that would also allow us to have a good discussion.  Anyone who happens upon this blog in the next day or so, please give me some suggestions!

As a matter of housekeeping, I'm going to finally delete that post-it on my desktop that has the list of all the books I've read since last October. It's clear I'm never going to get around to writing reviews of all of them. And even if I ever did, too much time has passed and I won't remember anything more than general impressions and feelings anyway. So I've decided to just make some notations on here and on Goodreads, and move on. Every time I open my computer, that list judges and mocks me.

So Book Club will be the highlight of my weekend. I've got to work tomorrow - that's three weekends in a row. It's exhausting and overwhelming, and I'm so tired lately. BUT, there are some fun things on the horizon too.  First, I'm going to Las Vegas with all the girls at work next weekend. Our boss has a house there, and his wife has invited us all for a weekend of fun and sun. I am really looking forward to a weekend by a pool. Second, my husband and I are planning on taking a road trip to Colorado in a couple weekends to my family reunion. I haven't seen a lot of those people in YEARS. I am super excited about this trip! 

So, just to wrap up a random and mostly non-bookish post, here is the list of books on my virtual post-it note, that I am going to purge from my desktop. Tell me if you've read any of these:

1. P.S. I love You - 2011 (not as good as the movie)

2. Dirty Secret - 2011 (A memoir about hoarding? Yes please.)

3. Amaryllis in Blueberry - 2011 (Not that good. Apparently I should have read The Poisonwood Bible instead.)

4. The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - 2011 (cute story told through letters.)

5. Sex with the Queen - 2011 (Not as interesting as Sex with Kings - and not just because I prefer dudes)

6. Sex with Kings - 2011 (Very interesting book about the politics involved in being the King's mistress)

7. The Bell Jar - 2011 (I really enjoyed this, and not just because of my morbid interest in Sylvia Plath's suicide. It's the best thing I've ever read about a descent into mental illness. Most interesting is how I totally identified with the protagonist, feeling what she felt - confusion as to why others couldn't understand what it was like to be her. Ok, I apparently still have a lot to say about this. Maybe I'll write an actual post.)

8. You Don't Look Like Anyone I know - 2011 (GREAT memoir about a woman with a condition that makes her unable to recognize people's faces - like the kind where she didn't recognize her mother or her husband. Fascinating.)

9. The Help - 2011 (Brilliant. Fun. Good movie too.)

10. Wicked - 2011 (It could be because I listened to this on audio (the reader was very difficult to listen to), but I was bored to tears. It took me a LONG time to get through this one. (Do you like the parentheses within the parentheses?))

11. Lolita - 2011 (This, I think I enjoyed more because it was on audio and read by Jeremy Irons. Fun fact: Jeremy Irons is the voice of Scar in The Lion King. So then I pictured Scar reading Lolita to me, and it was awesome. Jeremy Irons's voice is perfect for Humbert Humbert.) 

12. The Family Fang - 2011 (FANTASTIC! Read this immediately if you haven't. I won this from my participation in #FridayReads on Twitter, and it's the best gift I got last year.)

13. One Hundred Years of Solitude - 2012 (I liked this much more AFTER I discussed it win my Book Club.)

14. The Tudors - 2012 (I always like reading books about The Tudors, and I appreciated how this author was careful not to treat the Tudor family like they are gods. He's right in saying that too often history casts them as great leaders (mostly Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) - they were both selfish tyrants, and they both got their country into a boatload of debt. But my appreciation for this waned as I read through the book - he gets a little to aggressively anti-Tudor, and I didn't appreciate that. It's a non-fiction book, and I appreciate a point of view, but not an agenda.)

15. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - 2012 (I loved the themes of forgetting and forgiving throughout this book. Word images brilliant enough to rival the photographs described.)

16. Norwegian Wood - 2012 (REALLY liked this book club pick. Must. Read. More. Murakami.)

17. Her Husband - 2012 (It was kind of dumb of me to read a book about Ted Hughes when all I am really interested in is the tidbits about Sylvia Plath. Therefore I blame myself for the fact that I found this book very boring. 

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