Meandering and Musing

1. Cetaganda----Lois McMasters Bujold
2. Dead Until Dark----Charlaine Harris
3. Bitten----Kelly Armstrong
4. Eat, Pray, Love----Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed----Jared Diamond
6. Living Dead in Dallas----Charlaine Harris
7. Club Dead----Charlaine Harris
8. Dead to the World----Charlaine Harris
9. Daisy Miller----Henry James
10. She's Come Undone----Wally Lamb
11. Dead as a Doornail----Charlaine Harris
12. The Joy Luck Club----Amy Tan
13. Ethan of Athos----Lois McMasters Bujold
14. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals----Michael Pollan
15. Definitely Dead----Charlaine Harris
16. The Kitchen God's Wife----Amy Tan
17. Born Standing Up----Steve Martin
18. Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality----Jared Diamond
19. Brothers in Arms----Lois McMasters Bujold
20. Love in the Time of Cholera----Gabriel Garcia Marquez (re-read)
21. Dreams Made Flesh----Anne Bishop
22. Mirror Dance----Lois McMasters Bujold
23. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Re-Made America----Garry Willis
24. The Lovely Bones----Alice Sebold
25. Baudolino----Umberto Eco
26. World War Z: An Oral History of The Zombie War----Max Brooks
27. My Sister's Keeper----Jodi Picoult
28. Perdido Street Station----China Mieville
29. Twilight----Stephenie Meyer
30. Sula----Toni Morrisson
31. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe----C.S. Lewis
32. Virtual Light----William Gibson
33. The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Girl's Illustrated Primer----Neal Stephenson
34. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness----Elyn R. Saks
35. Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D. Scottish Public Health Officer----Alasdair Gray
36. The Danish Girl----David Ebershoff
37. Tangled Webs----Anne Bishop
38. Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen----Julie Powell
39. Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx----Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
40. Prince Caspian----C.S. Lewis
41. In Cold Blood----Truman Capote
42. The Secret Life of Bees----Sue Monk Kidd
43. New Moon----Stephenie Meyer
44. Anil's Ghost----Michael Ondaatje
45. I Know This Much Is True----Wally Lamb
46. A Wolf At The Table: A Memoir----Augusten Burroughs
47. Infidel----Ayaan Hirsi Ali
48. All Together Dead----Charlaine Harris
49. From Dead To Worse----Charlaine Harris
50. Eclipse----Stephenie Meyer
51. Tess of the d'Urbervilles----Thomas Hardy
52. Fluke: Or, I Know Why The Winged Whale Sings----Christopher Moore
53. You Suck: A Love Story----Christopher Moore
54. Norwegian Wood----Haruki Murakami
55. Mama Day----Gloria Naylor (re-read)
56. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom----Don Miguel Ruiz
57. Mansfield Park----Jane Austen
58. Turtle Moon----Alice Hoffman
59. The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror----Christopher Moore
60. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal----Christopher Moore
61. Second Nature----Alice Hoffman
62. Practical DemonKeeping----Christopher MOore
63. The Drama of the Gifted Child----Alice Miller
64. The Host----Stephenie Meyer
65. The Satanic Verses----Salman Rushdie

Dear Katy Perry,

DIE! DIE! DIE!

Not only is your song trite and offensive and ....just...awful....but it gets stuck in my head. ARGH.

Angry at "risky" songs,
Enderfem

My computer is here! I am using it RIGHT NOW!

It IS named deusexmachina.

I am about to visit youtube for the first time ever. I mean, I've seen stuff on 'Kitty's computer, but I was pretty sure my aging vaio couldn't handle it. WoooooO!

Finally, a new computer!

well, not yet. But soon!

'Kitty's present to me was to pay for part of my new computer. So Sunday was computer day. We had originally planned to go buy all the stuff and he would build it for me. However, he poked around the internet and found a $200 off coupon for Dell. After comparing a few combinations, we decided we could get a better machine for less money with Dell. I'm quite happy with the deal. My new machine, which I haven't named yet but which may well be named either "cake" or "deus ex machina" is my very first desktop computer. In honor of that, I got a 500 gig hard drive. Yay! I'll have a very pretty monitor and a good video card (though not the badass one...but I'm not a gamer)I'll once again have speakers with a subwoofer (oh, how my neighbors in mcgill loved me) and all kinds of other pretty things.

It is currently listed as "In Production" on the Dell page.

And although I've signed up for a shipping notification email, that hasn't stopped me from obsessively checking the page. I want my shiny shiny new toy! I should have it by next weekend, if all goes well with production and shipping. Fingers crossed!

First off, thanks for all the good birthday wishes! My friends ROCK!

So one of my main gripes with my previous primary care doctor was that she didn't listen when I said I have enormous problems sleeping. Enormous. Unless I'm really tired (read: have fallen asleep on the futon) it can take an average of 45 minutes for me to fall asleep once I'm in bed with the lights off. Average. I also wake up VERY frequently during the night. I can often go back to sleep, but if there's any disturbance (light, noise, sudden thought) I have trouble.

I've never slept well. My mom went through all my well-baby checkups stating that I wasn't sleeping through the night. Eventually my pediatrician told her to call him when I slept all the way through the night. So when I left for college, she gave me his number. Just in case it happened.

My younger sister has chronic sleep problems. It takes her HOURS to fall asleep. Her doctor says her body doesn't produce enough....something. I can't remember. A chemical that helps you fall asleep.

I CRAVE sleep.

I also really feel like some of the other problems in my life (anxiety, depression, stress, illness) would be better if I could...you know...sleep at night.

I have a new doctor now.

She put me on Atarax, which I requested. It is helping with the falling asleep part, but not so much with staying asleep. We're going to give it another few months and move to Ambien if needed.

The bigger thing? Yesterday she gave me my referral for a sleep study!! I'm so excited. I've wanted to do this for FOREVER. I now have an appointment and they're just waiting on my insurance company *crosses fingers*. I verified that chemokitty can come tuck me in, and I'll get a full list of instructions. I'll be ending birthday month all wired up and trying to sleep!

I'm so excited. And quite happy to have a doctor who listens.


*title totally stolen from a Garfield folder I had in like, third grade

Happy Birthday to Me! I can't believe I'm 29. And for today I'll ignore the angst.

Anyway, I took Friday off of work (which was much needed) and got an oil change (also much needed) and mostly sat around and read. That night 'Kitty and I went to dinner and to see Hancock (my second viewing, his first.)

Yesterday chemokitty drove over two hours roundtrip to get my cake. It is an amazing cake. It came from Truluck's, a seafood place in Boca Raton. It was a great surprise and OMG, best cake EVER!!!!!

We went to dinner with Mr. Matrix and KM. Unfortunately, RT was not feeling well and couldn't make it, and I gave really short notice to most people. We had a blast though, and then it was off to Wall-E. What a great movie, and a great choice for Birthday Movie. (I'd considered Hellboy II as well--will see it soon I'm sure.)

So far today I've slept in a little and then did an hour on the treadmill. I ate cake, yo. Later today we're computer shopping and computer assembling. Mostly, I'm just gonna chill. I have tomorrow off work too. YAY!

My birthday is Sunday (but birthday month is ALL MONTH LONG!)

So local people....

I'd like to get together for dinner and a movie Saturday night.

Dinner is at Outback Steakhouse at 6:30
3161 N.E. 163rd Street,
North Miami Beach FL 33160

Movie will be WALL-E, preferably the 9:10 showing down the street from the restaurant at Intercoastal Mall Sunrise Cinemas, but if need be we'll catch a later showing at Aventura.


Yay birthday plans! Yay cake! Yay the last of my 20s!

So chemokitty is now the proud owner of the funniest card game I've seen in quite awhile.

Yes, reallygoodgirl, he now owns "Pimp: The Backhanding".

We played a practice round last night after our 4th of July festivities. Aside from having hilarious cards, it is actually a fun game. Yay. I'm still sad it wasn't released as an RPG. Even though I don't play RPGs.

Now with that out of the way...


Dear Currently Tropical Storm Bertha,

Stay away from my birthday weekend next weekend. Stay AWAY!

no love,
Enderfem

It's BIRTHDAY MONTH!! YAY!

I began celebrating yesterday by taking the day off and going to a new doctor (thanks, infernoagogo--she's awesome and actually listens to me!) and by getting my hair done by my always awesome stylist.

Also went out to dinner with a former work associate of 'Kitty's and his wife. Nice mexican place I hadn't found before. Mmm. Cheese.

Today I am back at work, but am having dinner with one of my book club ladies tonight. Mmmm. Indian food.

you know, I really think one of my favorite lawyer things to do is execute estate planning documents. I'm a dork.

George Carlin died! So sad. I'm glad I got to see him live once.


In other news, I made another citizen Saturday morning! As I told chemokitty, you have to use the right amount of flour, and whisk for a long time.

sorry for the spamming but....I'm frustrated.

What are some good upper body toning/strengthening exercises? preferably ones that require dumbbells rather than a machine?

proper form for a pushup? what is a half pushup? the internet is annoying me with webpages that aren't answering my questions.

Nothing like prepping on Friday for a hearing on Saturday morning.

46. A Wolf At The Table----Augusten Burroughs

While far less titillating than Dry or Running with Scissors, this account of Burroughs' father and the psychological games he played with his family is chilling and ultimately sad. Of course, I do wonder how much of what Burroughs says in any book is what actually happened. But that's just cynical me. A good read overall, and very short.

47. Infidel---Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Another regyt recommendation, and another memoir. Ali is an outspoken former Muslim and a terrific writer. Follows her early life and the chaos of fleeing her home country, all the way to seeking asylum in Denmark and later becoming a member of Denmark's parlaiment. I really enjoyed this book, although I will warn others there are some very disturbing things in here (including a description of female genital mutilation.)

48. All Together Dead----Charlaine Harris

I needed something light and fluffy after those two memoirs, so happy light vampire fluff!

49. From Dead To Worse----Charlaine Harris

Continuing the light vampire fluff!

50. Eclipse----Stephenie Meyer

man, there is a lot of wank out there about these books. Which I am going to ignore, for the most part. I was really annoyed with the main character in the last book, and am happy to say that I was much less annoyed with her this time. Unfortunately, my favorite character from the last book became a manipulative jerk. So that was unpleasant. There was one *awesome* scene, in which one of the vampires relates the story of her "change". Overall, still enjoyable.

I've been an exciting combination of very busy and very sick. The sick has abated, thank goodness.

Just had to share that apparently during the very little sleep I got last night, I did something weird to my face. Because when I woke up this morning, my LIPS were ASLEEP. Yes, I had that tingling pins and needles feeling on my LIPS.

My sleeping habits continue to amaze me.

More later.

The person I was talking to in this entry about bad writing emailed me to make sure I'd seen today's Penny Arcade. The news portion contains excerpts.

Caveat: I actually don't think I got further than book nine or ten.

After last night, I am totally in love with three new(ish to me) things.

1. The Scripps National Spelling Bee and this year's winner (who totally was a good sport during a tense moment and made everyone laugh. )


2. The game Chronology, especially when played with tired and punch drunk tresca, edie22 and chemokitty.

3. Cupcakes what contain alcohol.

oh, and

4. Our new Rock Band name--Spaghetti Vespuccians.