downtime between books

no surprise, i'm a reader. and now that i'm not working, i'm reading more.

so last night i finished up nathan singer's 'chasing the wolf', a time-travel based SF that looked interesting enough to take off the new books shelf at the library. it was a short read, under 200 pages, and it was engaging. reminds me a bit of cory doctorow's style.

prior to that, i read magnus mill's 'explorers of the new century', which was also fairly short. i want to do some research and find literary criticism of this, because in his sly and sarcastic way i think mills is bring up a huuuuge issue but oh so quietly. i had read mill's 'the scheme for full employment' a couple of years ago and was delighted to see that the local library system has kept up with his work - the system i worked for did not. he writes socioeconomic satire, a modern jonathan swift.

i have a novel by samrat upadhyay checked out, which i requested after reading his new short story collection 'the royal ghosts'. i'm a sucker for anything (well-written) set in southeast asia, and upadhyay sets his work in nepal. the short stories all dealt in tangental or direct ways to the recent antimonarchist violence in nepal.

so this is my question - i finished 'chasing the wolf' last night, and since it's set in modern NYC/1930s mississippi/1960s california, i'm not quite ready to start the upadhyay novel yet. i need a couple of evenings of downtime. usually i do suduko puzzles for a while before bed, or (since my due date has been moved up almost 2 weeks) i should hop-to on my knitting project, a maternity cardigan. i have an issue of tikkun magazine to get through as well, although it's admittedly dry reading (i'm going to try again on tikkun founder michael lerner's 'the left hand of god', though....) anyone else need downtime between books?

saab luust

well, we tried living the one-car family lifestyle. but basil's workplace changed to a location with no nearby transit, and when he brought his bike out to be stored at the closest train station, it was gone within 12 hours....

so we're getting a second car. it's a 1999 saab 9^5 sedan, and we're getting it from this swedish guy who only works on saabs and volvos. basil is pretty much indulging me, because he wanted to look at cheap old japanese/korean numbers (kia, suzuki) and i pointed out that mats offers a warranty on his cars and (pout pout) i've always kinda wanted a saab, but they are ridiculously priced new compared to the retained value.

this is part of the portland experience: getting used to how laid back things are here. mats is lending us an older saab until ours is ready; there is a wiring job he has to do on ours first. i drove the loaner saab home tuesday and the driver's side view mirror fell off onto the highway. i called him sheepishly on wednesday, and he said "ya no problem, bring it in and i'll put another mirror on it." oh and i kid you not, he was wearing a t-shirt from the ABBA musical 'mamma mia' when i went in that afternoon.

nathy is a little disappointed that we're not getting one of the 9^3 convertibles, but they're two-doors which is a little too impractical with kids.... also, it kinda rains a bit here, so how much do we get to put the top down? the clencher for us, though, is that the tops were cloth, and we could just see them getting knifed. "too much time in DC," said a local friend when we related that concern.

the other thing that hit me is that my dad immediately started listing new cars we should look at. yes, we're about to get some money from selling our house in virginia, but we don't want to spend so much on a car. and we don't want a car payment. it made me realize, though, that i've been hardwired to get new cars when used would have been better for me/us economically. so i had to move across the country to break that?

best url evah!

SJIHBO!

guilty tv pleasures

now, we're talking guilt. in a fit of 'we shall only worship at the shrine of PBS, and it comes in just fine with rabbit ears', we are forgoing cable or other services. (well, there is also the sworn-enemies-of-comcast thing, and a reluctance to put a dish on a 1912 bungalow.)

and i should explain that pregnancy leaves me tired every so often. brain-numbingly tired. and you know if brain numbing is to happen, the appropriate channel is the just-about-to-be-CW'd WB network.

so i'm watching their friday night lineup last week. no wait, that's a lie. i'm flipping the very few channels that we get. PBS before NOW is on is kinda of a wash - yeah, i know, Fareed.... is smart but dull or at least certainly not mindless passive watching. and i flip some more, and see a sitcom that has sara gilbert on it. yes, sara gilbert, smart-slacker darlene from roseanne, sparkling appearance in high fidelity, and one of those actors you just like to see pop up from time to time. and i see in the supporting cast this nebbishy older guy. looks so familiar, yet i'm racking my mushy brains to place his name. is it an actor i used to see at trinity rep in providence? there is something about him that makes me think i used to see him regularly long, long ago....

and tonight i realize who this guy is...




















IT'S COUSIN LARRY!






















now i am so happy, i do the dance of joy!

and the wikipedia entry on mark linn-baker also calls him 'nebbishy'.

btw, my other guilty tv pleasure will transfer from UPN to the CW this fall. i thought i was alone on this, but slate magazine recently revealed a love for 'girlfriends' as well....

google news thinks i care about...

brad & angelina leaving africa
nba finals

news stories on these two came up as 'recommended for me' when i looked at google news this morning. weird, since i haven't used google or google news to look up info on either topic. also, dead wrong as to interests. so maybe they were recommended to me because i'm too disinterested in brangelina and basketball?

fear o' committment

the topic of temple shopping came up over breakfast this morning.

husband isn't into it, and i'm... still not ready. even though there are some good options to explore here, including a reform congregation that is actually liberal, a reconstructionist congregation, and a renewal group.

is it that quitting ner shalom showed me that i can be jewish alone?

we're eng-er-land!

yeah, i know, two youtube posts in a week. i haven't heard the embrace england world cup song yet, but will any world cup song ever be as brill as this?

happy bday, pfms/ep/hipinion

same as it (n)ever was

wow.

condocerts, i hope you vanity search

because you suck. hard.

you're sending my documents to my old home address, instead of the real estate agent's as i had requested. this is after having to place my order a second time.

"there is you, on your computer, sexy devil"

david brancaccio just said this. wheeee pbs podcasts.

new router seems to have solved mac's problem. fingers crossed.

if this holds up, i think i'm gonna go for the mac bluetooth keyboard and mouse - nice and sleek, and would return valuable desk space.

did a prenatal yoga class today. it was very nice, but mine was the only belly not bulging (except the instructors).

who cares what they sound like

bands to love for their names:

i love you but i've chosen darkness
someone still loves you boris yeltsin

bands with dumb names that i like:

casiotone for the painfully alone
suburban kids with biblical names

but they're not tribute acts:

pretty girls make graves
stars of track and field

could not get them to change their name:

say hi to (boo)mom


btw, previous post.... back in unconnected mac hell. have asked for some help in the macaddict forum and from some mac expert friends. may be trying a new router this weekend. oh, and prenatal appt went fine, and boo was a little disappointed when he realized that his brother or sister wasn't coming just then. (i had to edit in the last sentence; where are my priorities?)