checking you out now beyond a doubt
Expense reimbursements = submitted!
Invoices = submitted!
Cobra checks = entered!
Desk = cleaned! (well, it's better than it was anyway; hopefully it's enough to placate Boss1)
And one that has nothing to do with work:
Library books = read! (well, some of them)
It's the Wednesday that feels like Friday book meme!
What I've just finished
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, and Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen, all of which are coming-of-age novels centering on young girls, and all of which have some really lovely writing in them.
Tell the Wolves I'm Home is about 14yo June, whose favorite uncle has just died of AIDS in NYC in 1986. This is really well written but I never connected with June as much as I'd hoped to, and it also didn't really ping my NYC-love, though June does talk a lot about going to the Cloisters with her uncle. That's really the only solid city setting in the book, though. I liked what this did with June and her older sister Greta's relationship a lot.
The Age of Miracles is about Julia, who is 11 when the book starts, which is the day that the earth's rotation on its axis has begun slowing, which continues throughout the book, and the ramifications of which are vast and far-reaching. So it's a kind of suburban apocalypse novel, I guess, twinned with a coming-of-age story, which is kind of slight. The background stuff is really fascinating - what the lengthening periods of light and darkness do to people and animals and plants - but the books is really focused on the vagaries of middle school friendships and the first stirrings of adolescence, and how both that and the fact that the sun does not, actually, come up tomorrow (depending on what your definition of tomorrow is) which makes this a story about what happens when rock solid certainties (Julia and Hanna are best friends; the sun will come up tomorrow) are suddenly torn away and nothing is for sure any more. Again, some really lovely writing, but a protagonist I didn't quite connect with and a very slight, familiar plot despite the intriguing premise.
Along for the Ride is about Auden, who's just graduated from high school and decided to spend her summer with her dad and his new wife and baby, instead of with the mother she feels doesn't really see or value her. As with The Truth About Forever, Auden meets some people who at first she thinks she's got pegged, but then she learns that you can't judge a girl just because she loves pink or likes girly things. She comes out of her shell and has some fun experiences she missed out on because growing up she tried to be a little adult who wouldn't make her parents worry or draw their attention at all, really. It's a formula that works, but I don't think I could read too many of Dessen's novels in a row, because all the characters sound the same.
What I'm reading now
I just started The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and what's in the title is basically what I know about the book so far, as we have achieved climbing out the window and getting on a bus out of town. I guess we'll see how it goes.
What I'm reading next
I have The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway and The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey from the library, so I guess they will be next.
***
I finished s7 of West Wing last night and did a little more crying at that final scene with Jed and Abbey. I have to say, in looking back at my posts from when it originally aired, I liked the Santoses and the campaign stuff way more this time around. I think maybe then I was still so distraught over how different everything was in the Wells era, and how Wells et al. didn't really seem to understand the core characters and their relationships (except for Josh and Donna and Josh and Leo, I think), that I couldn't appreciate the fun stuff going on (also, the radical shifts in Will's characterization). Though I swear to god, if I never hear about the situation in Kazakhstan again, it will be too soon. I mostly fast forwarded through all the White House stuff to watch the campaigns, and sure, Vinick is a dream Republican the likes of which would never - COULD never - be nominated in today's political climate, but it's Alan Alda, and I would watch him do nearly anything. (Speaking of Alan Alda, in weird connections only my brain would make, the first thing I ever saw Timothy Busfield in was that Pernell Roberts "Trapper John" show, though I remember him best from "thirtysomething" of course (also from which Mel Harris makes a late appearance on West Wing, and also Ken Olin directs a few times, iirc. Hope and Michael Steadman!). Also, I think it was only this time around that I realized that John Spencer and Jimmy Smits worked together on "L.A. Law." Can I admit that I had such a crush on John Spencer's character back then?)
I don't remember now what I wanted to say, except that I hadn't rewatched anything past season 4 ever, and I'm glad that I did.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/581006.html.
people have commented there.
Invoices = submitted!
Cobra checks = entered!
Desk = cleaned! (well, it's better than it was anyway; hopefully it's enough to placate Boss1)
And one that has nothing to do with work:
Library books = read! (well, some of them)
It's the Wednesday that feels like Friday book meme!
What I've just finished
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, and Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen, all of which are coming-of-age novels centering on young girls, and all of which have some really lovely writing in them.
Tell the Wolves I'm Home is about 14yo June, whose favorite uncle has just died of AIDS in NYC in 1986. This is really well written but I never connected with June as much as I'd hoped to, and it also didn't really ping my NYC-love, though June does talk a lot about going to the Cloisters with her uncle. That's really the only solid city setting in the book, though. I liked what this did with June and her older sister Greta's relationship a lot.
The Age of Miracles is about Julia, who is 11 when the book starts, which is the day that the earth's rotation on its axis has begun slowing, which continues throughout the book, and the ramifications of which are vast and far-reaching. So it's a kind of suburban apocalypse novel, I guess, twinned with a coming-of-age story, which is kind of slight. The background stuff is really fascinating - what the lengthening periods of light and darkness do to people and animals and plants - but the books is really focused on the vagaries of middle school friendships and the first stirrings of adolescence, and how both that and the fact that the sun does not, actually, come up tomorrow (depending on what your definition of tomorrow is) which makes this a story about what happens when rock solid certainties (Julia and Hanna are best friends; the sun will come up tomorrow) are suddenly torn away and nothing is for sure any more. Again, some really lovely writing, but a protagonist I didn't quite connect with and a very slight, familiar plot despite the intriguing premise.
Along for the Ride is about Auden, who's just graduated from high school and decided to spend her summer with her dad and his new wife and baby, instead of with the mother she feels doesn't really see or value her. As with The Truth About Forever, Auden meets some people who at first she thinks she's got pegged, but then she learns that you can't judge a girl just because she loves pink or likes girly things. She comes out of her shell and has some fun experiences she missed out on because growing up she tried to be a little adult who wouldn't make her parents worry or draw their attention at all, really. It's a formula that works, but I don't think I could read too many of Dessen's novels in a row, because all the characters sound the same.
What I'm reading now
I just started The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and what's in the title is basically what I know about the book so far, as we have achieved climbing out the window and getting on a bus out of town. I guess we'll see how it goes.
What I'm reading next
I have The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway and The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey from the library, so I guess they will be next.
***
I finished s7 of West Wing last night and did a little more crying at that final scene with Jed and Abbey. I have to say, in looking back at my posts from when it originally aired, I liked the Santoses and the campaign stuff way more this time around. I think maybe then I was still so distraught over how different everything was in the Wells era, and how Wells et al. didn't really seem to understand the core characters and their relationships (except for Josh and Donna and Josh and Leo, I think), that I couldn't appreciate the fun stuff going on (also, the radical shifts in Will's characterization). Though I swear to god, if I never hear about the situation in Kazakhstan again, it will be too soon. I mostly fast forwarded through all the White House stuff to watch the campaigns, and sure, Vinick is a dream Republican the likes of which would never - COULD never - be nominated in today's political climate, but it's Alan Alda, and I would watch him do nearly anything. (Speaking of Alan Alda, in weird connections only my brain would make, the first thing I ever saw Timothy Busfield in was that Pernell Roberts "Trapper John" show, though I remember him best from "thirtysomething" of course (also from which Mel Harris makes a late appearance on West Wing, and also Ken Olin directs a few times, iirc. Hope and Michael Steadman!). Also, I think it was only this time around that I realized that John Spencer and Jimmy Smits worked together on "L.A. Law." Can I admit that I had such a crush on John Spencer's character back then?)
I don't remember now what I wanted to say, except that I hadn't rewatched anything past season 4 ever, and I'm glad that I did.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/581006.html.
people have commented there.