I promise a post about the wedding, with pictures and all that good stuff — by Monday, when I get a chance to breathe over the weekend. I’m home sick today, so you just get this meme:

Newsweek’s Top 100 Books of All Time (Orly?)

Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you tried to read & couldn’t finish, and underline those you’d recommend (plus comment freely in parentheses).

And now for something completely TMI…

Just about the only thing that saved me from bawling at work because of my migraine on Friday was getting an email from a coworker that said, in part (and I quote), “OMG!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO -MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM -GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!” I laughed my damn ass off (which is far from a painless experience with a migraine – but worth it).

Saturday, Geoffrey and I went to the Rose City Gun and Knife show. It strongly reminded me of the open-air swap meets my mom used to take me to in Hawaii, except it was indoors and there were fewer Samoans (sad to say — *grin*). Lyse was thinking of going along, but working graveyard shift makes daytime excursions a little disruptive to one’s schedule, and also she wasn’t feeling so great. It probably would have bored the demonspawn silly, and she’d had a late night, so she stayed home too. But it all worked out okay…I got this awesome new shirt (too bad I can’t wear it to work, but it would break the dress code in at least a couple ways I can think of!), and got Anxiety this shirt (in pale blue — and she can’t wear it to school, either…which still vaguely astonishes me, considering that I had my handgun targets hung inside my locker door for all to see when I was in 10th grade!!!). Geoffrey got himself a Mosin-Nagant M/44 rifle (well-used but came with some accessories), and I was soooo drooling over a rifle very similar to this (but more purple); I almost got it.

Why didn’t I? Because I decided it would be just a smidgen excessive to buy two guns at my first gun show. And I had my heart set on this darling little shiny (got it new, but didn’t pay nearly as much as that link shows, either!). Why that one, instead of something bigger? Because I’m super-picky about how a weapon feels in my hand (which is why I don’t care for semi-autos), and that was the only revolver that sat really *nicely*, like it belonged there. Okay, there were a couple of larger-caliber ones that I liked, too, but I do not need Dirty Harry’s gun! (I’ve fired a .44 without smacking myself in the forehead, but I’d rather not mess with that much recoil often. Not unless I take up weight training.)

I was terribly amused at how many vendors at the show kept pointing me toward the smaller-caliber guns with itty-bitty grips. Sure, I’m a girl — but not a small one. I’m 5′9″ and built like a Norse warbitch. I wear a size 9 ring, people; I do not have small hands! Crocheting for twenty years means I also have fairly strong and limber hands. Besides, derringers are for experts or posers; I actually want to hit what I’m aiming at, and if it’s not a paper target, it needs to go down and stay down. (BTW, I have never actually shot anything but a paper target…although one of these days I have got to try skeet-shooting.)

I wasn’t surprised that the men in attendance out-numbered the women at least 30 to 1 (in any other setting, I’d have been extremely creeped out by being in a crowd surrounded by that many guys, but everyone was so intrinsically polite that I wasn’t bothered a bit), but I was pleasantly surprised that the ratio was closer to 5 to 1 at the actual gun purchasing points. Poor Geoffrey may have been the only long-haired guy there; he was constantly referred to as “Miss.” One thing that did surprise me about the gun show was how few books there were — but we did manage to find a couple nifty titles: In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection and The Encyclopedia of Country Living. Both really excellent books, that I would recommend. Also I must say that the Expo Center concession stand makes a damned good grilled chicken sandwich.

Sunday I went grocery shopping (wearing my Infidel shirt, a few people stared but no dirty looks — which surprised me, in hippie-dippie stupidly-PC Portland), did a metric butt-ton of laundry, actually cooked a real dinner (used the oven and the rangetop, even!) and watched a horrible documentary from Netflix. I don’t know why I don’t shut horrible docs off within the first 20 minutes, they never improve…but somehow I always think they might. Le sigh. Out of every 5 flicks I get from Netflix, they tend to run thusly: 1 terrific, 3 decent (or at least not worthless), and 1 atrocious. Oh well, at least I’m learning things…like how to conclusively spot utter dreck within the first 5 minutes of a DVD. Speaking of which, I just added Repo! The Genetic Opera to my queue; my eldest loved it, and I’m a sucker for any footage in which Anthony Stewart Head is singing. I hate musicals as a rule (White Christmas being the ultimate exception), but how bad can it be? I’m going to find out.

Geoffrey and I went shopping today. It’s not something we do together very often, but shopping with him is truly enjoyable — he’s interested enough in what I look at to share the experience (and my excitement when I find something super-nifty), but not so interested that he hovers, or gets easily bored and tries to drag me out of a store. Today we went to Sock Dreams and Powell’s — the largest bookstore in the country. (The only way it could have been better is if I’d also hit Yarnia or Fabric Depot — the largest fabric store in the country — but the budget didn’t allow for a trifecta shopping run. *grin*)

We got some socks for each of us (including some over-the-knee dark green socks for me — which Lyse cannot stealborrow), and some books that we’ll both most likely end up reading. This trip was non-fiction only (for us, although we did grab some fiction for Yule gifts for a few people), which prompted me to think about how over-crowded and disheveled our non-fiction bookshelves are currently. I will have to reorganize them soon. Anyway, we got a couple of books on guns and a couple of books on country/sustainable living. I try to grab 1 or 2 of those every time I’m in Powell’s — I really like the Foxfire series (I read all of them when I was a kid devouring the small-town library), and the “Best of Backwoods Home magazine” books. Also got a nifty huge tome called The Big Book of Self-Reliant Living, which looks kick-ass amazing!

Went home to relax, and soon after my eldest and her fiance showed up. The Rocky Horror Picture Show cabaret is doing “Eighties Night”; Dustin is going as the Reanimator, and Angst is going as Jessica Rabbit:

Then Geoffrey decided to hand her his (unloaded) gun, so she could channel a Bond Girl:

She’ll be 20 on Monday. OMGWTFBBQ?! I’m not old enough to have a 20-year-old daughter, am I?

Once upon a time, I discovered Darkover. My late husband Steve owned all the Darkover books published prior to 1989 when I met him that year, and since I already liked MZB (having read The Mists of Avalon for the first time when I was 15), I started reading the series.

(BTW, my favorite Darkover novel, The Forbidden Tower, was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1978. It has as a major sub-plot the polyamorous marriage of twin sisters and their two husbands, one of whom is from an entirely different culture than the sisters and the other husband, and the relationship aspect of the story focuses on how the foursome come to understand and love one another in the midst of serious challenges to their very survival. I first read it when I was 20 or 21, and it did rather influence my view of what kinds of relationships fit my ideal.)

Steve also had a paperback copy of The Darkover Concordance, which I still have — although the back cover is torn off (but still kept with the book) and it’s moderately beat up. (The cheapest paperback copy I’ve found online is still $34.) Written in 1979, only 5,000 paperback copies and 300 hardcover copies of the concordance were published, the first 100 of which were numbered and signed by both MZB and Walter Breen (the author of the concordance, and her husband at the time). Powell’s Books has had a hardbound copy (signed by MZB only, which is all I care about) in their rare book room for at least 5 years now, and when I first spotted it there, it was priced at $480. For a while, I actually considered paying it! But I resisted temptation, and saw the price drop to $400, then $350, then $300. I stopped looking at the listing because it was too tempting.

I looked tonight. It’s down to $150 now. Aaarrrgggghhhh!

I’m dying with the temptation — especially as I searched at Amazon and found only a handful in their used dealer section (none of which sound like they’re in as good shape as the copy at Powell’s). One of the signed & numbered copies (#49 of 100) I found was listed at $195, as well as a signed & numbered copy originally owned by a member of the author’s family (#2 of 100) listed at $750. (No way in Hades could I pay $750 for a book. I mean, damn, that’s just idiotic. Most of the cars I’ve owned didn’t cost me $750!)

Now I’m soooo NOT allowed in Powell’s, or even allowed to go to their website. Eeep!

I am so out of the link of current pop-culture (thank heavens!!!) that I completely failed to notice even the existence of the Twilight phenomenon, despite the fact that the film crew was shooting in Portland earlier this year, and that it’s apparently been talked about in every publication from your basic tabloids to Newsweek, AND it’s apparently all over the godsforsasken Intarnubz.

For those of you who are similarly blessed to be out of the loop, this is a very silly PG-rated series of books about twu wuv between a klutzy (but otherwise Mary Sue perfect) girl named Bella and a (OMG!) vampire boy who sparkles. Literally.

I know, it sounds ridiculous. It’s like fanfic run amok. How could such a silly thing become so huge, and make in the neighborhood of a bazillion dollars? The answer is simple: people (especially teen girls) are heart-breakingly stupid. The upside is that this is all terribly entertaining, in a can’t-look-away-from-the-car-crash kind of way.

Anxiety’s friend Kate made her borrow the first book and read it, which naturally led to Anxiety demanding to buy the second book. On our most recent trip to Powell’s, we obtained the third book. Just so I’m not a totally-clueless mom, I read the first & second books, but after reading the hilarity that is Cleolinda’s take on Twilight (thank you Karel for the link!), I no longer feel the need to read the last 2 books. I certainly couldn’t enjoy it as much as Cleo’s synopses of them! (”The pillow-biting will never, ever stop cracking my shit up. Ever. OM NOM ROUGH SEX NOM.”)

Actually, there is ZERO sex in the first 3 books, and the only sex in the fourth is “fade to black” scenes after they get married. It’s no surprise that these are written by a devout Mormon (who thought hand-holding was mind-blowing when she was 16 years old, OMG), and adored by suburban moms everywhere because of the zero sex content. (Reading the first couple of books did give me flashbacks to my own teen angst over boys, leaving me with just a touch of outrage that I never had a boyfriend who sparkled.)

The movie comes out in November, and I will definitely have to see it, mainly so I can take Anxiety and her boyfriend of several months, who looks vaguely like the actor who plays the bad guy in the movie. Also I want to enjoy the lulz of the whole ridiculous thing. (Oh crap, I just realized this means I’ll have to be in a movie theater with 300 girls under the age of 15: ***My personal version of Hell.*** Well, perhaps some of them will mistake Anxiety’s boyfriend for James, and hilarity will ensue. Oh yeah, that would be lulz-tastic!)

Honestly, the books are so simplistic and repetitive — if accurate regarding teen angst run amok (sometimes so stupidly it makes you wonder how the hell humanity became the dominant species on the planet) — that it’s almost painful to read. The author’s writing style can be most charitably described as casual. Kudos to Stephenie Meyer for having gotten published, but geez lady, take some writing lessons already! If nothing else, the Twilight phenomenon will provoke thousands of people to realize, “Hey, I can write better than this crap!” and perhaps a whole new slew of authors will be born.

My future son-in-law, the Dustinator, is a very bad & wicked man. He left one of his books at my house, and when I ran out of stuff to read, I innocently picked it up and started in on it.

Now I have to buy every damned book that Christopher Moore has ever written.

On the bright side, I spent a day & a half reading — nay, devouring — A Dirty Job, giggling uncontrollably the whole while, and now I have several more books to look forward to. On the not-bright side, that means there are several books that I have to buy, and books aren’t cheap.

But mixed emotions about books are my favorite kind of mixed emotions.

If you ever tucked a note inside a bottle and threw it into the ocean, or tied a postcard to a balloon and set it aloft, you just might like this:

BookCrossing

Here’s how it works:

1. Pick one of your books.
2. Go to BookCrossing.com and click on “register book” under the “member’s links” in the left hand column of each page. Follow the prompts to register the book and generate a BCID (BookCrossing ID).
3. Write the BCID in ink inside the cover. Add a label or write the BookCrossing info. You can add some additional markings, stickers, notes, etc to make the book noticeable, if you wish.
4. Release the book. Where? Almost anywhere! (restaurants, coffee houses, those newspaper boxes for free papers, a bus, hospitals, doctor’s offices, anywhere people have to wait, on top of ATM’s, the DMV, museums, park benches, gyms, etc)

It’s kind of like GeoCaching for people who love books – with a lot less hiking! *grin* I’m going to release a few books into the wild when I’m out running errands later!

Here we go…this one was found at Morning Glory 2. (I admit, I added one author — Robert A. Heinlein — because I thought it was utterly ridiculous that Dan Brown & J.K. Rowling were on the list but not Heinlein. I did refrain from adding my most favorite author — Spider Robinson — as I believe I’ve read all the fiction he’s ever published, but sadly, most people have never heard of him.)

Using the list below the cut, bold all the titles that you’ve read. If you’ve read other titles by the same author, add them under that author.

Delete nothing! Play along, and leave a comment to let me know you did so I can check out your list.

My list:
And now for something completely TMI…

The cats continue to be a constant source of entertainment! Zadya got very interested in what was going on when I fed little Peyo today (the bearded dragon lizard). She seems to think I should let him out to run around:

A few days ago, I got a great pic of the tabby cats almost sleeping together:

Zadya isn’t as interested in sharing catnaps as Hasani is. Here’s a pic of how I typically find the two younger cats:

In other news, I’ve been ridiculously productive in recent days. I got onto the Oregon Prescription Drug Program, which is for any Oregonians who don’t have prescription drug coverage (with or without health insurance). It’s so simple to apply, one page to print out, sign & date, and that’s it! I also got an application sent off to hopefully get Anxiety on the Oregon Health Plan…I should have done that a year ago, really. At least it’s taken care of now.

And I finished filing my taxes! My federal refund was less than half of the refunds I’ve gotten for the last couple of years, since my eldest basically supported herself last year and I couldn’t claim her as a dependent. But my refund this year will still be enough to pay all of Anxiety’s Catalina Island trip (over $800), pay for my next tattoo (scheduled for Feb. 15th), and leave me a smidgen left over for a (small) book-shopping spree! I’m going to hit Moonshadow first, and maybe Powell’s if I still have any money left.

So, that said, I need recommendations for Pagan/Wiccan books! I’ve got quite a few, but always looking for more that are intelligent & well-written. My income tax will probably show up around Feb. 10th (gotta love direct deposit!).

I wrote this out of frustration that so many of the books I’ve read (and loved!) aren’t on the book memes I’ve seen (and done). I don’t care if a book is a “classic” or a “best seller.” I don’t care if a book qualifies as “great literature.” All I care about in fiction books is that they 1) tell an entertaining story, and 2) make me think and/or feel. These aren’t the extent of my book collection, by any means — they’re just the 40 that I think are most worth recommending to others. So here’s my list (without bolding, italicizing, etc, since I’ve loved virtually all of these).

Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth’s Children series), Jean Auel
Ariel, Stephen R. Boyett
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Darkover Landfall (Darkover series), Marion Zimmer Bradley
Star Rebel (Rissa & Tregare series), F.M. Busby
Ender’s Game (Ender series), Orson Scott Card
The Andromeda Strain, Micheal Crichton
1632 (Assiti Shards series), Eric Flint
Native Tongue (Native Tongue trilogy), Suzette Hadin Elgin
Chicks In Chainmail, edited by Esther Friesner
The Gandalara Cycle series, by Randall Garrett & Vicki Ann Heydron
Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake series), Laurell K. Hamilton
Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire series), Charlaine Harris
Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Robert A. Heinlein
The Man Who Sold The Moon, Robert A. Heinlein
The Rains of Eridan, H.M. Hoover
Blood Trail (Blood series), Tanya Huff
Sing the Four Quarters (Quarters series), Tanya Huff
The Green Mile, Stephen King
The Shawshank Redemption, Stephen King
Arrows of the Queen (Valdemar series), Mercedes Lackey
Savage Empire (Savage Empire series), Jean Lorrah
Channel’s Destiny (Sime/Gen series), Jacqueline Lichtenberg & Jean Lorrah
1916 (Irish Century series), Morgan Llywelyn
Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern series), Anne McCaffrey
Crystal Singer (Crystal trilogy), Anne McCaffrey
The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley
The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
Little Fuzzy, H.Beam Piper
A Hymn Before Battle (Human-Posleen War series), John Ringo
Sword Dancer (Tiger & Del series), Jennifer Roberson
Shapechangers (Chronicles of the Cheysuli series), Jennifer Roberson
Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon (Callahan’s series), Spider Robinson
Deathkiller (originally published as 2 titles: Mindkiller and Time Pressure), Spider Robinson
Stardance (Stardancers trilogy), Spider & Jeanne Robinson
Drakon, S.M. Stirling
On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington series), David Weber
Path of the Fury, David Weber