plus, i love the cover.

I just finished Diane Smith's Pictures from an Expedition.

It wasn't as good as Letters from Yellowstone, but I liked it. (This is what I had to say about Letters from Yellowstone.) I think the idea of the story was good, but the execution left something to be desired. I just wasn't all that into the characters and the dialogue was a little belabored. Still, it was interesting. It deals with all the hurtles a paleontology expedition in Montana would've encountered just after the Battle of Little Big Horn. I'd never thought about Custer and dinosaur excavation happening simultaneously, so that was interesting.

they call it "service," not "duty."

If there's anything worth getting up at 5AM, which I doubt, I can tell you that it isn't jury duty. I know this because I got up at 5AM today to drive to downtown L.A. and be bored to tears. Oh, yeah, and I was terrified about how long it would take me to get there, so I left early...and got there in, like, 15 minutes, making me an hour early. Considering I live in Sunny Southern California, it's really freakin' cold sitting outside a courthouse at 6:30AM.

Kirstie Alley also had jury duty today, so I was legally bound to hang out in a room with her for several hours today. I didn't talk to her or anything, but it was still weird. She was sitting there, with who I think was her personal assistant, looking all flouncy and made-up. And I wore pants with an elastic waistband because I knew I'd be sitting in stiff government-issue chairs all day, which, by the way, I did.

It actually wasn't that bad. I ate lunch in a park with this huge, gorgeous fountain by the music center. I spent all afternoon in a courtroom, hearing all about a case, but they excused me. So, I don't have to go back and miss more work and see random celebrities. Or get up at 5AM. (Instead, I'll get up at 8 and go to work and see random celebrities.) But actually, the judge was really nice and I think, even if I'd gotten chosen, it wouldn't have been all bad. Today probably would've been the worst of it anyway.

library thing.

I'm in love with the Library Thing. It gives you suggestions based on the libraries of all it's members. You can also have an online catalog for your own personal library. Here's mine. (It's not all the books I own...but, as I'm always whining about, I haven't read most of what I own anyway.) My profile is here.

the things that fill my mind.

In case there was ever any doubt that I am the master of unimportant, useless, minute details, take this case in point:



Honestly, I was in the middle of watching The Tudors and there was Anne Boleyn...wearing Ugly Betty's necklace. Aside from being taken completely out of the moment, I was a little disturbed that I even noticed the necklace at all, let alone that I could tell, with pin-point accuracy where I'd seen it before.

poor gooby miller.

John was lucky for a few reasons this week:
1) He didn't go to the gulf coast with a church group this week, which there was some talk of him doing, so that he was here when:
2) He told me, yes, he needed to go to the ER on Monday, instead of staying at home or being stranded at a work site in Mississippi, where his appendix probably would've burst before he had a chance to
3) Have his sick, useless appendix taken out Monday night.

I'm relieved that he didn't go on the trip, that we did go to the ER, and that the surgery did the job without causing any complications. John's been home all week, working a little from home. He's still not completely back to normal, what with the tenderness that apparently accompanies having an antiquated organ removed from your body with the medical version of a drinking straw making bending at the waist a little uncomfortable. So we stayed in the apartment all weekend and I did laundry and read.

I'm pleased beyond words that I finished three books this weekend. Two of these books I started months ago and have been whittling away at a disappointing pace. The other one I started only weeks ago, which is still pathetic, but not so much so. The ebb and flow of books in my life has been truly out of control lately. So much so, in fact, that I didn't finish a single book in the entire month of March. I need to go through all my books again, as I had in our previous apartment, and separate all the books that I have yet to finish (or, in some cases, even start) so that sheer shame alone will keep me on task.

In my defense, one of the books I tried reading last month was The Grapes of Wrath, which has an entire chapter devoted to a turtle walking through a field and is over 600 pages long. Not that this is much of a defense, I realize, because I actually sort of liked the turtle chapter and found the chapters with dialogue to be rather boring.

Anyway, I finished three books this weekend and have grand plans to continue on this self-inflicted punishment of "finishing things." The one of the three I had started most recently was Lorrie Moore's Like Life, a book of short stories. I think Lorrie Moore may be my favorite writer. I've never had a favorite writer before, so claiming to have one feels weird and unnecessary, but I think it's warranted. Of her five books, I've read three. (I would love to start one of the others tomorrow, but that would be in direct contradiction to my whole scheme of "finishing things," so I won't.) The other books of hers I've read are Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, a novel, which is my favorite, and Self Help, another book of short stories. My copy of Self Help is a used hardcover with an elegantly hideous, oh-so-eighties, pink dust jacket:

Like Life is amazing. There are these moments, about one in each story, where I just had to close the book and pull it to my chest. Some touching or horrifying moment when the world of the story changes or my world changed because of the story, I'm not sure.

this one's for amanda. because it's nice to be missed.

I've been feeling very fuzzy lately.

And it certainly isn't because I'm not getting enough protein. I've been eating nothing but fish, chicken, and broccoli for three weeks now. Okay, I exaggerate. I've also been eating eggs and fat-free cheese. I have a domino-effect health problem that all boils down to my being on the South Beach diet and thyroid pills to help my ovaries. Don't ask.

My mom should be at the airport by now. A shuttle was supposed to pick her up at my apartment a little over an hour ago.

She didn't come under happy circumstances, unfortunately. My grandmother (her mom) had a massive stroke on the morning of March 18. Mom came the next day with my sister and my nephews. Grandma died early in the morning on the 20th. My sister and the boys stayed with John and I until they left with my Dad (who arrived on the 22nd) on Monday, the 26th. Mom decided to stay longer, with us. It's been sort of a whirlwind. Little boys here for a week, then gone, but it felt so short. Mom here for a week, when the brakes had been put on...

I can hear Gerald McRaney in the next room, having coffee, his distinctive voice cutting through the Ella Fitzgerald that I'm enjoying so much. Something about working at Universal, blah blah, Hollywood.

I'm missing my mother already, Major Dad. My grandmother is gone, Dash Goff.

I want a freakin' cookie!

I've been evil to John. He's doing the diet, too. We took Mom to a movie on Saturday--Meet the Robinsons at the El Capitan. Oh, and we had reserved seats...that come with popcorn...that we can't eat. I think John could live solely on popcorn and be satisfied. So, on Saturday afternoon, after we took Mom to Universal, John asked me, "We're really not going to eat our popcorn?" I said, "I didn't have chocolate pie when my grandmother died. No, you can't have popcorn." It was spiteful, but ultimately true.

John is sweet, Mr. Simon. I think you'd like him.