2008-01-01

2008

So, I rang in the new year at work. Sad, eh? Feel free to feel sorry for me. But not too sorry. A couple friends visited me with coffee and conversation. And I did get to watch Edmonton's fireworks show -- the city's biggest ever, apparently -- live on Global.

Now I'm sipping Baileys and milk and watching When Harry Met Sally... for the second time in a week. (In my defence, I had a head cold all weekend, so I nursed myself with three Meg Ryan movies, including Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. As the years pass, it appears Ryan's forehead loses its ability to crinkle. Clearly a case of miraculous de-aging.)

(As I type this, it's the orgasm-in-a-deli scene! Woot!)

Anyway, it's time to set a resolution, but all I can think of is "do not lose my gloves this year" and "come up with better name for blog that doesn't steal directly from Tennyson." By the way, if anyone has help in these areas, for example one half of a set of black gloves or a good idea for a title, feel free to send'em along.



Now, some thoughts on books, since my Christmas break was spent in a zen-like state of relaxation at home, curled up reading.


  • Wuthering Heights is quite good. In the end, I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. I still don't get why it's billed as one of the most romantic books ever, but there are two very likeable characters in it towards the end, and you do pull for them. Sidenote, one of my favourite lines in Bridget Jones's Diary is: "It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting 'Cathy' and banging your head against a tree." And now I love that line even more.

  • When I think Douglas Coupland, the term "Gen X" pops into my head. Not sure if that's a compliment or not, it's just the first thing I think of. (And there's worse things than being associated with Generation X.) Anyway, I picked up my first Coupland novel, Hey Nostradamus! and it was fabulous. Starts out with a high school shooting in a Vancouver-area high school in the 80s, but more specifically it starts from the point of view of a girl stuck somewhere between life and heaven after she's been shot to death. From there, the book moves on to the life moments and narration of three other people connected, somehow, to the shooting. Amazingly, the book starts and ends on notes of hope. But the meat of it is somehow so disturbing and dire. And so well written. I think Coupland's one of my new favourite Canadian authors.

  • I got piles and piles of good books from all the people I love in my life, and I'm so thankful to everyone for their kindness. One of the first books I've delved into is The House on Mango Street, courtesy of my brother and his partner. The vignettes are very, very short, and startling in their choppy prose -- absolutely perfect for taking on a plane, by the way. An example of the clear writing: "My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." (p. 11)

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