my poor little blog

My poor, poor, little neglected blog. I almost feel like it's a friend I've lost touch with. I should just give up. I only post a smattering of times a year. I suppose though, even if no one else reads this, I might as well keep going. It'll be nice when I'm old and lonely to look back and see that I was once young and lonely.

The library has started a blog! Well, I don't really think that one post constitutes a blog, but we'll get there. I'm in charge of it, so I've come up with a plan. For every post I write on the work blog, I will write a post on this blog. It's only fair. I don't want to show favoritism, you know.

I've decided I have a problem

I'm going to admit it. I might have an addiction to acquiring books. Not reading them, but holding on to them for EVER AND EVER. Like Lenny. I see a good cover or topic or author and I'm like "I've got to have this book right now. DON'T ARGUE WITH ME. RIGHT NOW. I don't care that I won't read it for several months because I've already got a gazillion books to read before it. I'm taking it and no one else will ever be able to read it." And then I hold on to the book for a very long time, someone else wants it, I feel bad, and then I try to sneak it back to the library when no one is looking.

My second problem (this one is not so much a problem but something I've noticed and is causing me a tiny bit of stress) is that I'm reading more non-fiction. Like, almost all of the books I've read in the past month have been fiction. Except for "Darth Vader and Son" and "Vader's Little Princess". I keep finding interesting non-fiction books to read! What else can I do? I decided to also get a sci-fi book a few weeks ago just so I could break up the monotony. It was good and now I want to read all the sci-fi. But I have to finish my stockpile of non-fiction first.

On another note, I designed my department's yearbook photo this year. Apparently it's very exciting. We got about 12 copies and everyone kept asking me if I had seen it yet and did I want to see it and they'll leave it on my desk for me. I made it very easy for them. I didn't want to see it. I know what it looks like. I made the thing. It's embarrassing to see my work in a format that other people will be able to see. I want to be anonymous. K. I'm going to go read now.

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huh.

I've noticed (and if I'm wrong, please correct me) some of my college friends started blogs around the same time that I did. I was searching (read: creeping) on some of them the other day and noticed that a lot of them stopped blogging in 2010. Or, they blogged extremely intermittently. Now, I'm not so good at this that I blog once a week (some people blog every day. yikes) but I'm wondering why this happens. Real life? Lack of interest? Maybe you're on some other form of social media that I'm not invited to see?

The break that was supposed to be very productive, but instead I did absolutely nothing but watch Dr. Kildare movies.

I guess that about sums it up. At the beginning of my holiday break, I looked at my gigantic pile of unread books (maybe 15... not THAT gigantic) and decided then and there that I would read them all over break. And I didn't read a single word. As much as I kind of regret not reading, I came to the conclusion that I needed that break. No, I didn't need a break, I NEEDED a break. If I hadn't taken time off from thinking and doing, I may have gone off the deep end. I wound myself up too tight and needed that time off from work to unwind myself.

I spent a lot of time with my family and felt like a complete outsider the entire time, but there's nothing new about that. I spent time with friends, which was nice. And I watched all the Lew Ayres Dr. Kildare movies. I don't know if I've ever mentioned my love for Lew Ayres before. Just know. He's awesome. Lionel Barrymore? Awesome. The way they moved Laraine Day out of that series because she was an up-and-coming star? Maybe not as awesome. Definitely unexpected.

My lofty goal for this year is to read 65 books. I've got 5 relatively long books that I'm reading, but none of them are grabbing my attention in the way that I like books to. I'm going to read them as quickly as possible so I can start other books that I might really enjoy. I'm going to finish The Mysteries of Udolpho today. I've got 400+ pages left, but I'm gonna do it. It's supposed to be one of the archetypal Gothic novels. The book is mostly detail and description, and the action is so fleeting that I feel like I'm missing a lot. Sentences are about 4 times too long, and I keep getting stuck reading and re-reading because every sentence sounds the same. Apparently it was redone as The Veiled Picture; or, The Mysteries of Gorgono and most of that flowery useless stuff was removed. Since I'd already started the longer version, guess I'm going to stick with it. Let it not be said that I ever gave up on a book. Except Valley of the Dolls. That book drove me crazy.

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