infinite jest...join us!

infinite jest...join us!
Originally uploaded by hedgenettle

the other night i was checking out colin meloy's twitter page. yeah, what of it? i have a crush on him! anyways, he tweeted (?) about infinite summer www.infinitesummer.org and i was inspired...since i sold almost all of my books to the local bookstore, i have a lot of credit right now, so i went and picked up infinite jest (by david foster wallace) and i'm going to attempt to join the summerlong movement (all the details of the "infinite summer" are at the link above) reading 75 pages a week, all summer long...it's corny, yes, but i love the idea of reading the same book as colin meloy at the same time he's reading it. (by the way, i know you're all going "who IS colin meloy?"...he's the songwriter and singer of the decemberists and my biggest famous crush pretty much ever--well, except for patrick swayze, but i was 12 then!).

it's kind of ironic, because the summer that rodney and i started "dating" he bought two copies of this book called skepticism inc. (i think) by bo fowler and we read it together and talked about it, and it also had a bluey, cloudy cover. so now i get to read a much better bluey, cloudy covered book with my pretend boyfriend, colin (and thousand of other people). bittersweet because of course the first person i wanted to ask to join me was rodney. s'okay, though.

if you're remotely interested, here's all the links i can find:

http://www.infinitesummer.org/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101116901411&ref=nf
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316066524?ie=UTF8&tag=infsum-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0316066524
http://www.metafilter.com/81834/Infinite-Summer

also there's a twitter stream for it, but i can't seem to link that, but you can get to it from the first link.

oh, yes, i suppose i should mention something of the plot...well, i'll just say a bit from the back cover blurb....

"infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are."

which makes it sound non-fictiony, but it's a novel and supposedly hilarious. that topic is spot-on for me, right now.

join me! let's read it.

ugh..oooohhh man...ugh

i am sick. i feel so weak and tired and my insides are scratchy. i felt this cold coming on over a week ago, dosed myself with emergen-C and hoped for the best. i got the worst. this cold keeps morphing and mutating, to allow me to feel every potentiality a cold could offer. congestion, sore throat, sore body, foggy mind, weakness, exhaustion, so much pain in my head. on and on. don't come near me! you don't want this.

i am hoping and praying it's over soon--this is rodney's spring break and i have been looking forward to FINALLY being able to sew sew sew until i have a good stock of offerings to post on my poor, neglected etsy site. he took jubal for a longish bikeride yesterday (before the downpour) and i was able to sew a bag from start to finish--even making the handles and overcasting the seams. the whole thing! i've also been making a few zip pouches and have plans for a bunch more. i think zip pouches are one of my new top tens--they are so handy for putting stuff in (i have a weakness for all things that hold other things--shelves, baskets, pouches, etc.) he's planning to take jubal out again today at some point, so i will be sewing some more later--through the fog.

the upside of this cold is that i--totally by chance, as i wasn't even looking for a book for me (i was reading paul theroux's hotel honolulu)--found wally lamb's new book at the library (i was there to get the little house in the big woods to read with the girls) and it's very long, big and thick...you only get the new releases for two weeks and i wondered if i'd be able to finish it. thanks to this cold, i will (though i might not remember any of it!) i'll post more about it when i'm done reading it.

congratulations to loki, who sold a story to fantasy and science fiction--hooray! loki blogs here http://www.lokikohall.blogspot.com/ and asked me the other day if she could post my old bummers and gummers nettle story for spring (yes! of course!) and i'm so excited for her. i need to write again so i, too, can sell things.

when the mindfog and the exhaustion clears i will post a bunch of pictures of my latest creations here or on the flickr site, so you have that to look forward to. until then, it's soup and bedrest (the new bed ROCKS, by the way, it's like sleeping on some very supportive clouds.)

gratitudes:
1) magazines are still buying stuff!
2) soup is easy to make
3) bodies heal
4) nothing lasts forever
5) wally lamb FINALLY wrote a new book, and just in time

life is like a...

welcome to my basic life update...

gym: still going. still liking it. having many sessions in which i feel like giving up, then throwing up, then quitting, then crying, then dying...but i keep going and then am really sore for the next two days, but it's good. i have noticed a marked improvement in my energy levels over the last couple of weeks. also, i got a swimming suit and go in the jacuzzi after my workouts to help ease the soreness. today vesta went with me and we swam laps in the pool, as well. that was really nice.

crafting: this is a real challenge for me right now. rodney keeps saying he's going to make time for me to do what i need to do, but he rarely does. he's busy with school and homework and blahblahblah. it's really, really frustrating. i wish i had somewhere to put jubal for a couple of hours a few times a week. somewhere that costs nothing and involves trusted individuals that jubal already knows and loves. too bad i'm a social retard with no friends.

the kids: vesta is doing pretty well. she has recently taken up knitting and is getting fairly good. she's still really into music, though her exposure is pretty limited--as far as i can tell her two favorite groups are the beatles and the decemberists. vesta's big news is that she recently went to california to visit devon and layla and had a smashingly great time.
hazel is really fun right now. she loves to help in the kitchen and often helps me with the granola making or cookie baking. her artwork is getting really good, she has a unique style that i think is awesome and i personally enjoy quite a bit. she's into drawing trees and owls and nests and bats right now.
they are both also a bit hormonal, which is interesting and leaves one cringing at thoughts of full-on puberty and teen-age hood. ugh.
jubal is wonderful! he's got a mouthful of teeth. his favorite thing to chew on with those teeth is meat--just like his daddy. a familiar cry at dinnertime is MEAT! (cry as in "cried out" not waaaa waaaa). he's getting some more words and they're making more sense, but he also adds more and more seemingly nonsense words--well, that's not right, because they mean something, but they are just jubalese rather than english...for instance "nana" means anything tasty to eat. he is peeing more and more on the pot and started wearing training pants today. so exciting. also, we trimmed his bangs, but left the curls in back. everyone still thinks he's a girl.

good books: just a couple-few honorable mentions...the art of racing in the rain by garth stein. it's touching and sweet and a good story, that manages to be told well despite (and even because of!) the fact that it is narrated by a dog (which would normally spell doom for a story). just after sunset by stephen king. i love stephen king because he is a genuinely talented writer. he's the only "horror" writer that i read, because his characters are so damn good, and he is so chilling and so funny, and so on-the-nose about humanity. it's not literary, per say, but it's darn good writing. just after sunset is a book of short stories, some of the gems are "the gingerbread girl", "stationary bike", "N", and "a very tight place". and lastly, the ghost in love by jonathan carroll. what an interesting story about people and our emotions. the premise is a man who doesn't die when he's supposed to, the ghost that comes to take his place and finds he's still in it, and what happens because of all THAT...but it's really about feelings and people and love.

and jubal is here to let me know that it's nap time and i have to get off this computer or he'll revolt. so i'll respect that.

i am grateful for:

the gym!
the new broadband (it's like a miracle)
canned salmon
help
neil gaiman (the girls and i are reading the graveyard book right now and it's great)