CSI dust.

I don't want to talk about it right now; I'm too tired. Fortunately Ivan will probably log on and give you all the dirt, but tonight I'm going to sleep and tomorrow I'm going to wash the CSI dust off my car and inquire at Toyota about upgrading my alarm system and fixing my passenger lock. Toodles.

a sad moment in history

... despite the non-recommendationof moocow, i have sat through an entire showing of From Justin to Kelly. Now onto American Idol to make my humiliation complete. I blame my decline on currently non-prolific bloggers.

Books for Thought.

How do you feel about "popular authors"? I have mixed feelings, but here are my thoughts on certain authors:

Stephen King: I can't read him. He bores me. However, On Writing was very good, so I think if he stuck to humor and anecdotal writing he could be fabulous. Otherwise, I'm sticking to Firestarter, which I have in hardback that I bought from a thrift store.

Ann Rice: I liked some, like Violin, but I thought the vampire trilogy was overrated.

Dean Koontz: He either hits the mark or misses completely. Now that he's not publishing twice a year the novels have been much better, and as long as he skips out on the aliens, we're good. From the Corner of His Eye, Door to December, and Dragon Tears are wonderful.

James Patterson: ick. icky double ick.

Michael Connelly: not too terrible; though he sticks to cliches he writes decently, so his novels are easy to digest. I'll read if I'm in a pinch and need a book. Badly.

Barbara Michaels: I love her books. I know it's probably silly, but I think she writes well and you can't always see what's going to happen. The only novels of hers I don't like are the period novels ... but that's because I don't like period novels.

Mary Higgins Clark: I used to love her books, and I have everything she wrote up until the last 3 years (so all but the last 6 books, and I've read all of those sitting in Borders except for the last one). But she's one of those ones who is abusive of "formula writing." She uses the same outline for every story anymore; you know who did it, you know who the main character is going to fall in love with ... you know it all! so why bother reading it?

John Irving: he writes the most amazing plots. The most extrodinarily odd things become believable. Unfortunately, I hate his writing style. So though I've read almost all of his books, I'm generally disgusted when I finish. He's one of those "I'd love to hate him but I can't" authors.

Dan Brown: This one's hard. Though definitely not worth the hype, his books aren't entirely terrible. But here's the thing: People take these books far too seriously. The whole Christian right thinking that reading these books are going to send you to hell --- seriously, folks. It's fiction for a reason. Brown can think what he wants about what he writes, and so can everyone else, but the fact is that it's fiction. Get over it. It's not even very good fiction.

Nora Roberts: See James Patterson.

Danielle Steele: why?

I can't think of anymore "popular" authors. I don't read much of that "summer beach" reading like Marion Keyes, so I can't give my opinion on that, but if you drag someone else out here, I'll give honest opinion on them. And I'd like your opinions on these ones!

camping bliss.

the funniest thing that happened this weekend: we're walking on a nature trail and an older couple is walking the opposite way. i pull christen behind me so we're single file so they can get through, but instead of continuing on, the guy stops christen. "you must be the geek," he says. i start giggling, and christen has no idea what the old dude is talking about. i was wearing my green "i heart geeks!" shirt with a picture of millhouse in the middle. hehe. i was amused. christen was less than amused, but that's okay. i'm the only one who can really make him goofy. i think he's too serious with everyone else.

but camping was marvelous; friday was freezing and i couldn't sleep because i couldn't feel my hands. saturday was beautiful albeit a little chilly, and we went on a tour of the town, whose major intrigue was a superwalmart. we had forgotten that we threw the tent stakes away last trip to south carolina, so the first night was also a little "shaky," as we hoped that the tent wouldn't blow over on us while we slept. we went on nature trails and took a three-hour nap and slept fabulously saturday night when the temperature was about 15 degrees higher. we had no water, no electricity, and no showers for three days. so much fun! (of course, the first thing done on sunday when we got home was take a shower and do laundry. so much for the land of the living.)

this was the only picture taken this weekend. christen took it of me on one of the nature trails.

toodles!

if i've not returned in three days hence, know that i have frozen to death. if you wonder if it has been nice knowing you i tell you that it has. (how much, lucas, how much? ... sorry, i digress.) yesterday was a beautiful day and we decided to go camping in sebring, fl this weekend. i made reservations while in the carrollwood barnes & noble.

today it was 43 degrees.

we will be leaving anyhow to camp with no water or electricity in the dead center of the state. i'll let you know how it goes.

in other news, a customer brought me a book called the game of words by willard r. espy. and yesterday another customer brought my chocolates to taste (she is a chocolatier). every once in awhile i love my customers. the rest i want to strangle with rusty barbed wire.

toodles!

somedays...

i'm not as depressed as i thought.

i finished prozac nation today. sometimes it's good to know that there are others worse off than i. mostly i have anxiety attacks, brought on by lack of sleep and nerves. it's fun to breathe into a bag. they put me on xanax but it didn't help anything at all; prozac gave me headaches and paxil made me woozy like i was going to fall over if i forgot a pill. so i'm on nothing. i'm still pretty much fine, save for infrequent blow ups. prozac nation was a well written tale of what true depression is like, and it's not pretty.

also reading:

oddballs and eccentrics by karl shaw: i picked this up when i visited my mom this weekend. did you know that salvador dali shaved his armpits until they bled and wore perfume made of fish glue and cow dung? makes you think different when you see this, huh?

I've been given more responsibility at Today's Cacher now. The EIC says that all articles have to be run through me to okay before they go on the Web site, and the day before we go live I have to check every article again (like checking flats, woohoo!) to make sure everything is good. I'm excited to be doing more work because before I only saw about 15% of the content before it went to press, per se. now I'll get 100%.