Z has been away since Tuesday (he's in Montenegro with the Baby) and alone I shall remain until the end of the month. That first day at work I was all mopey all 'what should I do with all this free time and this lack of demands and responsibilities' and my co-worker gave me a look of pure contempt and said "If the answer to that is not self-evident, then you don't deserve my help."

Truer words may never have been spoken so I came to my senses and flounced off into the arms of Two Weeks Of Singledom like it was made of sushi and cocktails. (Which it has been. Good times).

Since then I have been hugely enjoying this holiday from domesticity and celebrating it with irregular meals, irregular sleeping hours and all the trash tv watching I can stand. (There was a time in my life when middle of the night programmes on BBC2 were my viewing staple and lo, those times have returned).

Z is a stickler for trappings of civilisation ('people should sleep in a bed and eat at the table and verily verily we will live like these people') so I've been rebelling against his boring conformism by sleeping on the sofa and eating at the computer desk. Also if you had a mind to you could trace the history of my movements through the house by following the trail of cutlery, plates and cups that I thoughtfully leave on various surfaces where they remain until I run out of plates and cups and cutlery and gather them up and wash them and put them away neatly and the whole thing starts again.

It is one of the things that drives Z ballistic, but curiously has no effect on me. (On the other hand, if you want to see me embrace Frothing Rage in under 30 seconds then leave socks on the floor or put things away in the wrong drawer).

Anyway, the one thing I thought I would do most of during the week (answering emails and other Internet Use until my eyes fall out) I have done the least of thanks to a combination of factors:

1) Between the demands of Real Life Work and Real Life Socialising I've been too knackered to do anything but collapse amid cats

2) I got my hands on the new Margaret Atwood novel (post apocalyptic is my favourite kind) and I wasn't going to let anything come between me and that gripping baby until it was completely devoured

3) I awarded myself a No-Communication Holiday yesterday - switched off my mobile, read short stories, took long baths and cooked all the perishables in the house (roasted butternut squash with bacon and walnuts, mushroom risotto with parsley and parmesan, carrot soup and roasted peppers peeled and marinated with garlic and balsamic vinegear).

***************************

Anyway. Good reading links now.

My journal has been featured on Schmutzie's Five Star Fridays (thank you to whoever nominated it! surprised and much obliged) along with some ace writing. And since the only thing that comes more naturally to me than fretting about undeserved honours is voracious reading, I set to immediately.

Livejournal is so insular and involving, that it took me a long time to realise there was so many other blogs out there and I've been overloading my google reader ever since. ( My favourite recent discoveries: )

( Books I'm In, and Lovely Books by Other People )

My favourite book:



Three books I wish I had written:

*White Teeth

*The God Of Small Things

*Behind The Scenes At The Museum


Three books I knew I never could write myself, and that made me admire the craft of others:

*Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

*Both books in the Sarantine Mosaic


Three best non-fiction books I read this year:

Legs Up And Laughing

Persepolis

Life After Birth





What are yours?

Hello Internet! This is what I look like today:

and if you are bored/would like to please me you too ought to take a picture of yourself in your work loo/other handy reflective surface and post it in the comments here.

Today we had various BigWigs coming to visit the office where I work, including various members of the W.H.O. (my favourite was a lady from Bolivia who came in national dress and gave me the opportunity to exercise my pidgin Spanish) so this morning I was making an unusual effort with my appearance (which included, but was not limited to application of facecream and the brushing of the hair).

Cue:
[Z: You look very pretty. There, see, I do say it. If I was a bigwig I would decide to give your organisation moneys immediately. Also, to sex you.
N: Then I could sue you for sexual harassment, and sell my story to the papers, and get a book deal, and get myself invited to the next Celebrity Big Brother]

And speaking of books, I read one which struck me as marvellous - In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Durant. I'm not a big fan of the historical novel, generally speaking - it's quite a hard genre to carry off in a way that holds my interest without getting bogged down in too much period detail but still using language which strikes me as period-appropriate. Also, as a bonus, to sprinkle the thing with sex. Sarah Durant's novel not only manages to do that, but it also includes the sack of Rome, and a narrator who is a dwarf. Lushly written, it absorbed me from the first and kept me going with its intrigue and suspense and rise and fall of its plucky courtesan.

And before that, here are some of the other things I have been up to:

1) Making an effort to be nicer to my relatives.

2) Going to my course seminars, so that I could expand my braine.

3) Getting fitted for a bra, and discovering that like all the other women in the world I have apparently been wearing the wrong bra size my whole life. There was me thinking I was 36C but the somewhat-stern-looking lady who groped me pronounced it to be 34D and that the bit about the bra straps digging into the flesh of my back was all for the good cause of hoisting my rack as near to my face as possible. I did break down and buy matching underwear she reccomended (I'm really not very good at being assertive when faced by stern-looking people who call me madam) and will wear it at some point I'm sure when I feel like having my bosoms hoisted in their lacy, lacy prisons.

For someone who loves reading and stockpiles books and shoes in the house in quantities that make my husband cry, I was a pretty late starter at the whole reading-independently business (as I explained to my mother whenever she asked, "but why should I learn to read when you read to me so well?"). I did love books though, and would be happily subdued for hours by an adult telling me stories (and I really wasn't picky, they could have been the same stories over and over again) until I memorised entire books of Russian poetry and could recite them back, verse for verse.

And despite my passionate attachment to the written word, it took me a pretty long time in school to pick up reading on my own. I was both unmotivated and distracted, and it took a while for the connections between sounds and letter shapes to click. I remember also the vivid void between the halting way that reading sounded when I was reading new material outloud with the way words would fly from me when recited from memory.

But I got better at it, and have been reading voraciously ever since to the extent that a)unless my house contains a constant store of at least five books I haven't read but am interested by, then I don't feel safe b)when moving house, moving books takes three times as long as all our other posessions put together.

To me, good writing is like good sex - a transcendental experience, which absorbs me to the exclusion of all else while happening and tingles pleasantly when remembered, afterwards. Finding a book I love from the beginning is not easy, but when it happens the resulting orgasm of the mind with smaller undertones of damn, I wish I'd written that makes me radiate pleasure like a stroked cat and treasure the writer as a treat which can be savoured again, and again.

Of the books I've read recently the one I've loved best is Little Children by Tom Perrotta- (I also enjoyed the film, but the book is sublime), and its rich and subtle portrayal of essentially, different kinds of losers. The storyline is simple - an interveawing of various suburban lives and the poignancy of characters who all in some way feel that they are living the wrong life. The author treats his characters with equal measure of sympathy and ridicule, the narrative does not shy away from the grotesque, the morality errs on the side of greyness and it's all endlessly, endlessly bittersweet.

But what I love best about the book is that it has provided me with some of my favourite sentences in the world:

( and if you want to read the book and don't want to know what they are, skip this bit )

What's been your favourite thing you've read recently?

My darling friends list, as I continue in my attempts to turn you all into Serbians, I bring you translated extracts from my Yug history books (frankly works of comic genius). Please bear in mind that these opi are meant for 12 year olds.

"In parallel with the development of the capitalist industry, there also developed the bourgeouis class, which became the leading power in the struggle against feudalism, and for a new capitalist society and bourgeouis state".

"The essences of life in [workers quarters in cities] are: penury, hunger, illnesses, lewdness and criminality of every kind."

"Based on Marx's "The Capital" consider why the dvision of labour in manufacture affected technological discoveries".

And tha's just chapter 1.

Had a thoroughly nice time in Liverpool with Jasna. The trains were a nightmare of course - Yes, why wouldn't people decide to do major works on the rails during Bank Holiday weekend when people are likely to travel- but I was well equipped with books.

Finished Hunting Unicorns which made me giggle, and A round-heeled woman which delighted me and made me misty-eyed once I had repressed mental images of my grandmother having sex. Read a few poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, which are always a joy.

From Love is not all

It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.

( And then, there was the North )

While attempting to plan my journey to Liverpool today I discoverd various things of interest - namely massive works on both the rails and the roads, making the journey by train a paltry five hours minumum. I am sure you can imagine how much the news of this thrilled me.

Nonetheless I shall very bravely persevere thither and hopefully arrive sometime before Muggers Happy Hour and depart on Monday with my person and my belongings intact.

Today I celebrated the arrival of my salary and my replaced debit/visa card by shopping for stuff on Amazon (Season 1 of Farscape, Dirty Pretty Things DVD and a couple of books which looked interesting).

I have also very bravely been attempting to look over the books I already have and (*insert gasp of pain here*) donate the ones I cherish the least to the local charity shops (*breaks down in sobs*).

And while engaged in this painful albeit necessary purging process I have discovered some of my old treasures, which are the racier tomes of bodice-ripper romances (which among other things have long fed my addiction to things which are so bad they are brilliant). They may be an acquired taste but I assure you, well-worth the read if only for the back covers alone.

Some novels I know will provide me hours of entertainment from the title alone (case in point: Honky-Tonk Cinderalla from the How to Marry a Monarch series - in which the waitress-from-a-trailer Luanne Evans captures the heart of the Prince of Carpathia).

Apparently, The author, Karen Templeton's gift is "masterfully making royalty and happily-ever-after-ending believable without dodging painful emotional terrain" and enriching her entirely convincing storylines with a "trademark balance of convincing romance, well-developed characters and a healthy dose of humor"

The only downside as far as I'm concerned is that after gripping cover art, and the wonderful titles and blurbs, not to mention the reviews the books themselves almost seem an anti-climax.

( Read more... )

Heh. My mother is coming next Wednesday so that she can help support me now that I'm depressed. (Well, she hasn't said that this is her plan but others have spilled the beans.)

A notion as endearing as it is hopelessly misguided.

At least I managed to talk her out of moving back to the UK on a semi-permanent basis in order to "make things easier for me".

On a happy note I finally finished The Hiding Place . It's a wonderful book, if sad.

1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph:

A horse, he came to understand, was missing. When any individual manifests behaviour of a violent kind it is worth asking what is being activated in the chart. If you knew of what your mind is capable, you would never cease to partake of its wonders-and its powers. In the Tarot, as in magic, the four emblems stand for the world itself and for human nature, as well as the act of creation (both the creation of specific things , and the continuous creation of evolution). With so many cultural creatures surrounding us it is indeed time to carry a few familiar dichotimies to thier grave.

#1 The Last light of the Sun Guy Gavriel Kay
#2 The dark of the Soul: Psychopathology in the Horoscope Liz Greene
#3 Conversations with God Neale Donald Walsch
#4 Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom- A Book of Tarot Rachel Pollack
#5 The ape and the sushi master Frans de Waal

I'm hungering to spend my paycheck on books- any suggestions?

What are your book reccomendations and why?

I'm a paid member now. I can upload pretty pictures and make polls. And there is all these new pretty buttons and options to play with.

Yes, I am a sucker.

Went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yesterday- it is an excellent excellent film, as was The Calcium Kid - I love British comedy and I feel very superior about it.

Although I worship at the altar of Frasier on the whole I tend to much prefer British comedy to the Transatlantic offerings because I think Brit comedy is more intelligent, it makes you work harder and it is on the whole more subtle and witty.

Plus it has ugly people living in dingy housing- now that's what I call quality television. ;)

I've also read some excellent books lately:

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, elegant and simple and haunting, reminescent of her other *an alternative visin of future book* The Handmaid's Tale .

Currently reading Under the Skin by Michael Faber- creepy, disturbing, macabre and for me steadily more engrossing- it's a very dark piece but I tend to quite like that.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind- another rather dark offering but I thought it was very original and a twisted masterpiece.

The Troublesome Offspirng of Cardinal Guzman by Louis De Bernieres- I loved this book, as I did Captain Correlli's Mandolin even though the Mandolin is a much lighter read and I heartily reccomend both. The Troublesome Offspring is quite dark because essentially it's about a religious crusade and some of the awful consequences thereof.

Finished The Deep and Other Stories by Mary Swan (which I have dubaiyan to thank for), and I've loved every syllable. I think it is more of a girly book, because it's all about various feelings and relationships but I am a girl and I quite like all that, on top of which her prose reads like poetry.

Next on my reading list is Pride and Prejudice and something not too dense by Dostoyevski (I was in rebellion from having classical literature thrust on me as a child so I channelled my energies into reading comics instead, my best use for the Brothers Karamazov has been as a doorstop) but I feel I should at least read something since people keep going on about what a wonderful psychologist he is.

Courtesy of nanji and her need to foster some of her posessions I am looking forward to Dangerous Liasons especially as it has been a long time since I've read French.

And there's a spider that seems to have set up camp at my computer. He keeps running across the screen or happily getting on with arachnoid pursuits from on top of the monitor. He is very small (only about the size of my thumbnail) and he is missing one front leg. I've named him Joseph.

At the moment he is engaged in elaborate web eingeneering works between the top of the monitor and the blinds on the window.

Although initially our relationship got off to a rocky start (he ran across my hand and I screamed) I am now feeling increasing warmth towards him (I am quite benevolent towards creepy-crawlies, it's only things with naked tails that scare me)

I am so knackered I might as well be on sedatives.

I had a fun weekend in Bristol. Hung out with mate, talked quite a bit, got rather drunk although managed to watch most of Angels In America part 1 despite intermittent periods of falling asleep.

And today, it dawned lovely and we had a stroll through town and coffee at some dodgy place near the station and all in all it was very relaxing and laid back and managed to spend all that time without feeling stressed or thinking and this was a state of internal bliss.

Started reading Patrick Suskind's Perfume and love it so far. Very elegantly written book, beautifully crafted.