Books Galore!

First 10 books for this summer! Ambitious? Yes. But hopefully worth it. Just gotta make it through Ulysses.

Summer Joy

Reading List for the Summer

1. Ulysses, James Joyce
x2. Sylvie and Bruno, Lewis Carroll
x3. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
x4. Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett
x5. Ruins, Orson Scott Card
x6. Looking for Alaska, John Green
7. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
x8. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman
9. Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
10. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
x11. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
12. Inferno, Dan Brown
x13. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
x14. Push, Sapphire
15. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
x16. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
17. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
x18. Dark Lord of Derkholm, Diana Wynne Jones
x19. Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
x20. The Hobbit, Tolkein

Female Authors

As I look for books to read this summer I realized I have read far fewer books by female authors than I have by male authors and while the male authors are brilliant our roughly 50:50 ratio in the population means there are an equal number of brilliant female authors that I have not read. And that's not ok. So I found this list that seems promising and has an entertaining introduction. Clearly it is not a comprehensive list but if you would like to jump in and explore some female authors with me this seems like a good place to start. (I do NOT recommend starting with the Wharton book. She is an acquired taste). 

I say all of this because I firmly believe that feminism was not a movement in the fifties it is an ongoing struggle that is put on every person alive and in particular every woman is responsible for driving it forward. And as a disclaimer, a feminist does not seek to push all men down but seeks to bolster all women up. 

And men can be feminists too. :)

Once in a blue moon...

I think I just accidentally mooned an old man.

I was outside cleaning out my car so I was kneeling in the back and digging around under my seats to get the colony of taco bell wrappers that had taken up residence there. Unbeknownst to me the old man, who spends every evening sitting on a rock by the sidewalk in front of my apartment complex, had taken up his seat on said rock and was watching me clean out my car.

Which is fine. My car was directly in front of his rock and he was just sitting there, he may have been there the entire time. Little bearded septuagenarians might blend in well with rocks I don't know. But I do know that I was cleaning my car out in a skirt.

Which may or may not have been crawling up.

And I was wearing some of my more "divulging" underwear.

Which may or may not have been crawling up.

So free show on Belmont Ave everyone. Sorry you missed it.

Kids make you like things you didn't want to: Dora the Explorer

Since my sister has had children I've realized that you can't control people. I imagine when you birth your own progeny you have to realize this too but that's not happening anytime soon. Most of us realize on some level that we can't control other people but then there's children and we think "Well this child is under my care and protection and very impressionable so I do have some measure of control over them." And then you get to know them and realize that they're going to do whatever they damn well please and you have to deal with it. At least that's what happened with my nieces: Thing 1 and Thing 2.

I have always had a fierce and burning scorn for Dora the Explorer.

Wth is on the tip of Boot's tail?

She doesn't speak Spanish very well and the show, in my opinion, is condescending. And then lo and behold Thing 1 went and got SUPER into Dora the Explorer. She watched Dora on YouTube and Netflix and acted out the scenarios from the shows and loved Dora things and Boot things and anything Dora. And Thing 2 got older and jumped on board with her big sis. And I of course have this urge to hang out with these people and want them to love me (because the only approval worth having is the approval of children) so of course I got stuck watching Dora too. And I had to play the games and reenact the shows and do all that stuff because I'm a good sport and have a desperate need for these kids to think I'm cool.

During all of this I still scorned Dora, but I had to stop making fun of her because the Things loved her so much. And sometimes when I was riding down the river in a couch boat for the fifteenth time I found myself getting caught up in the game and willing to play along. And other times when watching the latest Dora on loan from the library I would catch myself answering Dora when she asked her stupid questions. But it's for the kids right?

Wrong. It didn't stop there. Not only did I play the games but I became the characters. I can be a kick-ass backpack or map. And I sat in that couch-boat on the river longer than the girls did. I got way way way to into watching the shows. In a creepy way. I shouted the right answer to Dora and made everyone else in the house yell it with me (she just stares at you waiting if you don't). And nobody screams "SWIPER NO SWIPING" louder than me when that little bastard is moving in on Dora's stuff. He even has the nerve to steal from Boots. Boots! Who did Boots ever hurt? Swiper is hardcore. And now I get legitimately excited when I find Dora stuff. Buy all the Dora toys! They need their own backpacks! Maps! The Dora picnic basket! Dora has a cousin? Awesome! Bring on Diego! The coolest I've ever been in the eyes of my nieces was working at an animal rehab center "just like Diego." And you know what? I was just like Diego. And I was awesome.

And now that I've learned to love these things what do you think these twerps did? Got into Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell! I have major issues with Tinkerbell.

What else does Dora have in her backpack?!?!?

Vehicular Events

Today I was in my second unfortunate vehicular event.

The first event was driving my bro in-law's car while following him (driving his friend's truck) with his two children in the car. I got distracted by a giant Hindu statue in someone's front yard and rear-ended him. With his own car. And his children. I cannot express how horrified I was. Luckily there was minimal damage that no one made me pay for and no one was injured. But horrifying nonetheless.

The second event was just as mundane. I was driving to work and there was a lot of traffic and I was busting out some of my sweet jams "HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THE WOLF CRY TO THE BLUE CORN MOON! OR ASKED THE GRINNING-OW!" And then someone rear ended me. It was VERY surprising and my head smacked into the head "rest." We pulled into the a parking lot and the kid jumped out of his car: "OMG I'm so sorry! Are you ok?! How's your car? I swear I wasn't even texting or anything!" So after I reassured him. I went through this huge process of getting my purse out of the car, which took like a million steps for some reason, I kept almost getting it out and then got distracted by him saying something and would leave it in the front seat. And shut the door! Wtf? Makes no sense. And that whole process somehow broke my watch. Logic? No. So I finally got my info out, and he discovered that he didn't have his insurance card.

Kid: "So you really need the insurance info?"
Me: "Well yeah it's a good idea, just to have all our bases covered."
Kid: "Really because I wasn't even going to bother telling my Dad, I'm not going to like come after your insurance or anything."
Me: "Oh I believe you...But I still need your insurance."
Kid: Visibly crestfallen. "Ok I'll call my dad..."

 I had him call his dad and meanwhile I called MY dad to make sure I was doing this right and eventually he got a hold of his dad and handed me the phone.

Me: "Hi."
Bill: "I'm so sorry my son rear-ended you."
Me: Lets that joke go..."Oh these things happen."
Bill: "Do you want a couple hundred bucks for the damage? I work in an auto shop you can bring it by and I'll give you an oil change, lube job, anything you want."
Me: Lets lube job joke slide by... "Well I'm not worried about any damage, it seems pretty minimal but I do want to make sure I get all the info."
Bill: "Ok here's the policy number, the insurance company, and here's my number, and the shop I work at and my name and my wife's name."
Me: "...alrighty then...well thank you."

So my car is fine. Well, it wasn't damaged. It has other issues. And I feel bad for the kid. But my back was already messed up this week and now I've got this super awesome burning sensation on my neck and upper back and the ibuprofen I took made me sick at work and didn't alleviate any pain. I spent all evening at work going back and forth between feeling fine but achy and sick and about to burst into tears. No logic.

9 Things That are Annoying

These things bug me.

1. This really bugs me about multiple choice questions:

"Super fancy school question."

a.) Possible answer.
b.) Another possible answer.
c.) None of the above.
d.) All of the above.

How? How will the answer ever be d? And you're the one testing me? Either you or your testing bank should be seriously, seriously ashamed of yourself.

2. "ur" and "u."

Now I don't have a problem with abbreviations and acronyms as a whole. But first of all, "ur" cannot possibly be a replacement. It doesn't sound like "your" or "you're." And it doesn't differentiate between the two forms at all so you're just writing letters.

Secondly yes "u" sounds like "you" (and it saves you all of two letters). But if you capitalize it you no longer have a pronoun, you have the symbol for Uranium. Which is probably not what you were talking about. If it was what you were talking about then I'm sorry and we should chat because U is really interesting and I want to learn more about it (see what I did there? Just used it correctly. Ha-ha-SUCK IT).

3. I really like the Numa-Numa song. And it's not super popular anymore. Makes me sad.

4. I don't understand why Fox News still exists. I can only conclude that there are people even dumber than Fox News watching Fox News and this makes me very, very sad.

These are the people who use "ur."

5. Words with Friends is not the same as Scrabble and it's not as good as Scrabble and it doesn't follow proper word-game rules. Which are the rules of Scrabble. Or use the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary which is the correct word-game dictionary. And yet on Facebook everyone plays Words with Friends. Dumb.

And for some reason people stopped playing it with me because I either beat them or insisted on playing until I beat them. Because I guess that was "really annoying." Jerks.

6. When my back doesn't pop for no good reason. Even though I'm doing exactly the same thing that made it pop last time.

7. People who call me instead of texting me. There's a very small group of people I would rather talk to on the phone and about half of them are my mom. Soooo yeah...

8. People putting ice in my drink when I specifically order no ice. And I can tell when it's going to happen too. I know if they're listening closely or not. Even when they repeat back my no ice part of my order often they STILL give me ice. Bastards.

9. "Shine bright like a diamond(x572)" NO. I will be a dark sooty piece of coal my whole life just to spite you. I hate it sooo much. "Flames...flames, on the side of my face."