Corrections

Apparently I am an even bigger idiot than I had previously thought. The BF has informed of very slight yet somehow important errors in my description of Del.icio.us. I guess it too is a bookmark-sharing web site, but is in some way different than Furl. I do not claim to understand the nuances here, I am just reporting this.

More PSAs

Well, I finally saw Brokeback Mountain this weekend, after months of wanting to see it and then for some reason or another never quite getting around to it. It was worth the wait. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (or whatever, too lazy to look up how to spell his name), were excellent. Superb. Delicious. I've never been a fan of Heath's acting or looks, but I was completely turned around on both counts after seeing this movie. (Of course, the cinematography made even Wyoming look pretty.)

So anyway. Back here in Reality Land there have been some interesting developments in my life, some of which I am not at liberty to divulge just yet (but no, I'm neither engaged nor pregnant). I can tell you, however, that I get the dubious pleasure of doing a library instruction class next week, which I'm not exactly looking forward to but which will look good on the resume. I just hope I don't end up looking and/or sounding like a retard, both of which are real possibilities for me when it comes to public speaking. If you went to library school with me, you know what I'm talking about.

But neither of the above things are the point of this post. The point of this post is to get the word out about some new FREE web services that are coolio (brought to my attention by BF.)

Last Fm
This thing is really cool - it lets you type in the name of a singer or band that you like and gives you a list of similar singers/bands. If you download the appropriate doo-hickeys (which I am aware are actually called plug-ins), you can then listen to a bunch of free music! How do they get away with that? You don't actually download any of the music to your computer. Also, near as I can figure, which isn't very near, you can't actually request any certain songs - you listen to "stations" whose content you don't have much control over other than by choosing a general genre. Eventually, the idea is that you build up a personal profile of music and then the smart little program will play songs in your station that you like. I haven't quite figured out how to make this all work yet, but it seems like a neat idea.

Del.icio.us
Lets you build you own little personal web space, with XML feeds, photos, etc. I haven't tried this one out yet, but it seems intriguing.

Furl
Called "communal bookmarking" - lets you share bookmarks with others, see what other people are bookmarking, look at most popular bookmarks, and search bookmarks on certain topics (I think).

Bloglines
This one lets you host your own blog, plus search other blogs and also acts as a "personal web space" typey thing. This kind of thing appears to be gaining popularity.

Vsocial
A video sharing site. Has some good stuff on it, including clips from SNL skits. I had fun with the Schweaty Balls one.

That's it for today, people. Hopefully I will be able to update you by the end of the week about things which may or may not be going on in my life.

Happy election day, Canada!

The polls are closed, but here's hoping no one voted Conservative! (I wish...)

This is the sound of a dream dying

So I'm reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith, which she wrote when she was 21-22 years old. Smith is 2 years older than me. She has recently published a much-ballyhooed book called On Beauty, which I believe has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and possibly also the Pulitzer. She is 2 years older than me. And I have come to the heart-sinking, dream-deflating, ego-crushing realization that never, and I mean ever, will I be as talented, articulate, creative and intelligent in all my years on Earth as she was at 21. And it sickens me. I feel like Salieri in the movie Amadeus - I have the passion and the desire to be an artistic genius, but unfortunately just not the talent. Why not me, Lord? Why not me?

*Sigh* So I guess I'll just go to bed (although not sleep, since I've been having the insomnia again), get up tomorrow, and plod off to my meaningless job at the peanut factory, where I will sit in mind-numbing boredom for 8 hours staring at my computer screen like a zombie because I'm too stupid, lazy, and/or talentless to do something interesting with my life.

Not that I'm drowning in self-pity or anything.

Best books EVER, part 2

OK, so I never finished my list of top ten books, not that its important or that anyone cares but its my blog, so what I say goes. (BTW, the post will be apostrophe-free today, since my computer freaks out every time I try to type one. Stupid computer.)

6) The Calvin and Hobbes comic books, by Bill Watterson. If you dont know the joy that is Calvin and Hobbes, I pity you.

7) Beauty by Robin McKinley (not one of the Black Beauty books). I started reading Robin McKinley books in 6th grade - she's a young adult fantasy author - and I still occasionally re-read this one (to my great embarrassment). It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, published before the Disney movie came out. Shut up.

8) Dracula by Bram Stoker. I love vampire books; this is of course the original. Yes, I am an unrepentant dork. What of it?

9) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I wasn't sure whether to include this, as I was trying to stay away from children's books - that's a whole nother list. But since I'm reading these as an adult and enjoying them in my own adult way, I think it's OK.

10) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I think perhaps the only book on the list I haven't re-read ten bajillion times (aside from H.P. books - they're too new), maybe because I enjoyed it so much the first time that I don't want to spoil that feeling. Also, it's long.

It has come to my attention through the making of this list that my reading habits are slovenly. Books I love I re-read over and over again, thus making it more difficult for me to discover new books. But I think I'm getting perhaps a smidge better at forcing myself to read something new, rather than grabbing the trusty stand-by off the bookshelf.

p.s. You may notice that my apostrophes started working about mid-way through the post. WTF?

Best books EVER

So I was pretty bored one day (you can guess where I was), and I decided to create one of those Listmania lists on Amazon. It's called List for Lit Lovers, and I would point you to it except that I don't know how Amazon assigns their damn lists to searches, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, that got me thinking about my all-time favorite books. (Can you feel another list coming? Yes, you can!) So forthwith, here is a list of my top ten favorite books ever.

1) This is a toughie. It could be about a 4-way tie but that's wimping out. So the first book that comes to mind when I say "my favorite book" is always Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, probably because it's the first book I totally identified with as a plain, lonely teenager who had never had a date. I've since re-read it about a bazillion times, and while I identify with Jane a little less now, I have to give it props for sparking my love affair with 19th century British literature.

2) I think this one goes to The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. This was the first Anne Tyler book I ever read, and she's since become one of my favorite authors (if not the favorite). It's funny, sad, poignant. If you've never read an Anne Tyler book, I suggest starting with this one.

3) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Everyone has read this so I don't really feel much more explanation is necessary, although I will say that if the last time you read this was in ninth grade, you should consider picking it up again. It only gets funnier (and at the same time, more tragic) reading it as an adult.

4) Oh, how to choose. I'm going to go with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen here. Sense and Sensibility may be the better book, but as far as favorites go it's definintely gotta be P & P. Elizabeth, Darcy, the Regency period....it's got everything.

5) Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding. This is where my snooty, high-falutin' English major facade breaks down. I'm sorry, it's just hilarious, OK?

My brain is getting tired now, so I'll finish the rest later on. (Plus I also need to go home and look at my bookshelf to refresh my memory on the books I've read). Stay tuned.

And now a public service announcement

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this Saturday Night Live video. (On the right hand side of the page, mouse over 'Videos' and click on 'Watch' for the first video, entitled 'Chronic(what)cles of Narnia.') Enjoy.

Hint: If it doesn't load in Firefox, use Internet Explorer.

You gotta be shitting me

And now for a completely boring news item brought to you by ALA, straight out of the pages of an A.S. Byatt novel:

London Librarian Finds Byron Manuscript

A University College London librarian has discovered the only known
original manuscript of a poem by English poet Lord Byron inside a book in the
library’s Strong Room Collections. Rare Books Librarian Susan Stead was
doing routine cataloging when she found the 12-line poem—which is dated
April 12, 1812, and begins “Absent or present still to thee”—inscribed in an
1810 copy of Samuel Rogers’s The Pleasures of Memory. “I just opened the
book and there it was,” Stead said in a January 3 BBC news report.
The poem was published in 1816 but there had been no known autograph manuscript of it until Stead’s discovery. The manuscript, which was later authenticated by Byron experts, will remain in the library’s collection, where it will be available to researchers, the Guardian reported January 4.

How completely fascinating. I have lots of things to complain about this week, but how to choose? Sexual harassment or slow-walkers (sort of like low-talkers)?

Sex is always more interesting, I guess. So although I am loathe to talk about my workplace, I will just say that there's this guy who comes into the library a couple times a week, doesn't speak English very well, and is in general very annoying. I made the mistake of trying to be very friendly and helpful the first time I saw him, so now every time he's here he acts very nauseating in a difficult-to-describe way, and either asks me for my personal information or tries to offer me his. I've made it quite clear (at least as I see it) that I have no interest in him whatsoever, but he persists. What creeps me out is that he keeps trying to give me his address, as though I would be stupid enough to go alone to his home, and last time he was here (after I had already refused the offer of his home address) he told me that he owned many businesses and wanted to talk to me about offering me a job. *Shiver* *Vomit* I of course told him that I was not interested.

So my defense against him has been to act as cold, unfriendly, and rude as possible in the hopes that he will eventually get the message and stop coming here, but I hate doing that in front of other patrons because it's unprofessional and sends a bad message about the library. And yet, isn't my personal safety more important? I think so. I don't feel exactly physically threatened by this person, at least not yet, it's just that he skeeves me out. I realize that every woman who lives and breathes on this earth and doesn't live in a cave fifty miles underground has to deal with this kind of thing at some point in their lives. It's just not fair, though.

Just some odds and ends

A lot of possible blog topics have been flitting around my brain, but I can't come up with any one thing that's long enough for an entry so I'm just going to mash them all up together. Enjoy.

First, I would like to propose legislation banning skinny mirrors. From the gym to the dressing room at the Gap, skinny mirrors have become a plague on society. Why is that, you may ask? Though logically you might think I would be in favor of skinny mirrors, I believe they are actually a blight on humanity. For one thing, they tempt you to buy clothes you really shouldn't. I have to admit, I have been hornswoggled more than once into purchasing clothing that I have been conned into thinking make me look svelte and lithe, but which in reality announce to the world, "Fat girl coming through! Make way! Make way!" And then, none the wiser because both of my mirrors at home are skinny mirrors, as are the mirrors at the gym, I go into society perky and confident, thinking I am the shit, when I accentally happen to catch a glance of myself in a realistic mirror. I am then devasted by what I see and utterly confused--which is the real me? The mostly fit and only slighlty overweight image I see in the dressing room, or the chunky and sadly delusioned woman staring back at me in the reality mirror, swathed in clothing much too tight for her protruding fat rolls? People, we deserve to see ourselves as we really are, not as clothing manufacturers and health club corporations would like to trick us into believing we are so they can sell more product. Please, talk to your local representatives about this urgent issue.

The next item on my list--telephones. How I loathe them. I was just reading a letter in Dan Savage's column from a woman who wants to know if all straight men hate talking on the phone as much as straight women love it. It gave me yet another example of how BF and I completely shatter stereotypical gender roles when it comes to relationships. Now, BF doesn't talk on the phone all that much but he does speak to his family on the phone pretty frequently, like more than once a week. I, on the other hand, only use the telephone in order to glean important information from someone who lives more than five miles away, or to make doctor appointments. I do not use the telephone recreationally. I don't know what it is about telephone conversations that I loathe, but I have a few theories. One of the most important is that telephone conversations are generally spontaneous, and no one hates spontaneity more than I. I plan everything, even my trips to the grocery store (this week it will be Monday evening), and I have no place in my life for unaccounted-for events, telephone calls being one of them. To me, recreational telephone calls are the equivalent of an unexpected visit, in the middle of the afternoon, of a relative who lives clear across the country, but who just dropped in to say hello and expects you to quit whatever it is you were doing to chit-chat with them for fifteen minutes. At the end of the conversation they leave as abruptly as they arrived, and you are expected to go on with your life without thinking anything of it. I'm sorry, I just don't operate that way.

The second reason I loathe telephone calls is that someone always calls you when you are in the middle of something else that you'd really rather be doing. So then you have to talk to this person who interrupted you for no good reason, all the while thinking about that other thing you want to be doing. And then invariably the conversation is filled with awkward pauses, which you both rush in to fill, tripping over each other's words, and then the next five minutes after that are filled with even more awkward moments of you both taking turns saying, "No, you go first." I just think I have better things to do with my time. One of them is writing emails. I much prefer emailing over telephoning, because then you can carefully craft your message, perfecting the tone and nuance till you get it just right, and then the recipient has a record of your dazzling words which he or she can then share with others, if appropriate. *Sigh* I'm such a dork.

No doubt you all pity me greatly now, but let me just tell you one thing: I don't need your stinking pity.

Cheers!

(Yes, that's my hand.) Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I was recovering from a wicked hangover (too many crimson drinks, apparently), and it was all I could do just to watch four episodes of The Simpson's, much less turn on my computer and type. So apologies for that. Welcome back - I know I've been gone for awhile, but hopefully you'll like the changes I've made to the blog, and if you don't...well, sorry. I did write one entry on December 24, but it's lame so if you haven't read it yet I wouldn't bother. For my first entry back, I thought I would do the obligatory Year in Review list o' crap. I was going to do a new year's resolution list, but all the things on my list are the same old boring shiznit on everyone else's list- lose weight, get a better job, do something meaningful with my life, yadda yadda yadda - so instead I'm going to unveil my picks for 2005's best books and movies. The books listed are taken from the books I've read in 2005, not necessarily books published in 2005, since I don't often read new releases. But since you all know that I'm an avid movie-goer, rest assured those will all be 2005 releases.

Best Books 2005
1. Blue Shoe/Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (tie)
2. We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
3. Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

While I was making my list, I realized something about myself, and that is that I evidently read a lot of crap. My originial intention was to make a top ten list, but I cannot even think of ten books I've read this year that I would put on a ten best list, even though I figure I've probably read between 30 and 40 titles - just coming up with five turned out to be hard enough. Another thing I realized is that I should probably keep a list of all the books I read during the year, for no other reason than that it would be really cool to have a list of all the books I've read. Especially since the majority of my books come from the library, so I lose track from time to time. Hopefully the "What I'm Reading Now" section of my blog will help a little with that. Anyway, on to the movies.

Best Movies 2005
1. Crash
2. The Constant Gardener
3. Junebug
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. 40-Year-Old Virgin

The hard thing with these lists, especially the movies list, is picking between the most Important Movies/Books, and the most Enjoyable/Entertaining. Unfortunately for lazy-minded people like me, the twain do not often meet, so I tried to mix it up a bit. For instance, Crash was a very uncomfortable movie to sit through (I almost left during the first ten minutes, and if you've seen the movie I think you know why), and it's probably not a movie I would like to see again. But I think it's an excellent piece of art, and makes some interesting and provocative observations about American racial tensions. And then there's Pride and Prejudice, which does virtually nothing new with the whole Jane Austen thing, but it was one of those movies where it was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see at the time and it wasn't horrible, so it left me with a very favorable impression. Actually, I doubt I would ever not put a Jane Austen adaptation on a top movie list, but that's just because I'm a brit lit geek.

Anyway, thanks for coming back to me, oh my wonderful readers, and I hope I won't let you down this year. (And if you want to put your own lists in the comments, please feel free. I'm also a list geek.) Happy 2006!

The Christmas that wasn't

OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Here's the story: the BF and I decided to stay here on the East Coast this year instead of going to see relatives for Christmas, both for monetary and sanity reasons. This is the first time either one of us has not spent Christmas with one or both of our families. But we were both kind of looking forward to finally having the holiday to ourselves, rather than shuttling back and forth between families, worrying about the cat while we're away, waiting in crowded airports and on crowded runways, paying exorbitant prices for a bottle of water, etc. Oh yeah, and not having to put up with the more annoying elements of our respective relations. But we've found that Christmas on our own isn't quite as much fun as we'd imagined. Here's a quick rundown of how we've so far spent this much-anticipated holiday:

11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.: Bake "traditional" Christmas fare (BF=banana bread, me=apple pie, chex mix)

4:30 p.m.: Go for walk around neighborhood. Weather is clear and a balmy 55 degrees Fahrenheit, after weeks of cold-ass wintry conditions. Feels a bit non-Christmasy.

5:00 p.m. - Play rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Decide to quit after 25 minutes.

5:35 p.m. - Eat dinner of canned soup. Watch surfing documentary (BF's idea, but is oddly amusing.)

7:00 p.m. - Turn off the TV. Try to think of something else to do.

7:30 p.m. - Turn to one another, amidst a metaphorical chorus of chirping crickets. "So. This is why people visit other people during the holidays."

We are now sitting in separate rooms, me writing a blog entry, and BF looking at other people's digital photos on the Internet. It's not that we're homesick, though I suppose maybe we are a bit. It's just that we've spent the better part of every day this week together, and frankly, we would gladly welcome the addition of a third (or fourth, maybe even fifth) party. We've watched all the movies we want to watch, we've seen the National Christmas Tree (not that impressive), and we've played every game that can be played with only two people (that would be Trivial Pursuit). Our neighborhood is shut down and locked up tight; I think we're the only people still left in our building, possibly in all of Arlington. We, in short, are bored.

Personally, there's a part of me that really misses going to church at Christmas (though this feeling oddly disappears the rest of the year); I feel a little lost without the Christmas mass to anchor me to the holiday and the season. When I was growing up, going to church on Christmas Eve was the final obstacle standing between me and Christmas morning. Once church was over, the real fun could begin. In traditional Catholic manner, we had to work for redemption (i.e. gifts), but the relief of the work being over was almost as sweet as the reward itself. As I got older, I liked going to church on Christmas for different reasons, but the most important was that it had become the cornerstone of our family's celebration of the holiday - buying a new outfit to wear to church, getting all dressed up, singing carols before mass, admiring the church all decoratedwith lights and flowers, listening to the Christmas story for the millionth time, and ending the mass with a jubilant version of Joy to the World, knowing that an abundance of presents lay in wait for me. To be honest, the religious messages of Christmas were never very meaningful to me, but now that I'm no longer a practicing Catholic I miss that element of the holidays a little bit. Without mass, Christmas feels much like any other day, and it disorients me. I thought about finding a Catholic church that I could attend for just this one evening, but for some reason I didn't. I guess now that I don't believe in the teachings of the church I thought it would be too hypocritical to attend mass just to satisfy my need for a little "tradition."

So the only thing left to do is drink.

Merry Christmas!

I'm back! (well, sort of)

Hi Everyone,

OK, I've been inspired to continue the blog but I'm going to make some improvements to the lay-out and whatnot during my Christmas break, and then posting will resume. Please don't leave me, my five faithful readers!

See ya

As my five readers are probably aware, my recent posts have considerably decreased in quality, so I'm going to take a few weeks off to regroup and decide whether or not to continue the blog. Now, before you all start getting weepy, I should tell you that I have an interview with the University of Maryland on Tuesday which may provide some good blog fodder. Hopefully not, but we'll see. Anyway, thanks to all of my adoring fans - over and out (for now).

Shame on me

Sharp readers may notice a slight change to the previous post - I said some not-very-nice-things about a fellow blogger, and now I feel bad for talking trash since I really don't want to be that kind of blog, so I have deleted the offensive remarks. Once again, I suck.

More evidence of suckage: I am applying for an Information Manager position in which the announcement stated quite clearly they were looking for someone with mad web skillz, so I am hastily trying to update my "online portfolio" - you know the one. The only problem? I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't remember anything from my one-weekend class from over a year ago and now I have extra spaces hanging out all over the place, and God knows what else. I so don't deserve this position. And I probably won't get it, so it's win win all the way around.

In case I don't have the time or inclination to blog tomorrow, Happy Halloween!

Beauty is in the eye of the blog reader

After browsing some librarian blogs this evening, it has occured to me that perhaps I ought to spend more time prettifying my blog and adding some bells and whistles if I actually want anyone to read it. Of course, I'm not sure that I really do want anyone other than my friends to read it...

So anyway. I guess I'm too quick to judgment, because after watching the rest of The Office season one episodes I've repealed some of my earlier criticisms. The episode with the basketball game was both cringe-inducing (I had to look away from the TV a few times), and uniquely American. As the show went on, it seemed Carell really made the asshole boss character his own. But I have yet to see any shows this season so I don't know if they're continuing to improve or not. And since probably no one cares anyway, I won't pontificate any further.

Oh yeah, I just read this very interesting thing called Lies I Learned in Library School. It looks like it used to be part of a blog, and now it's just some sort of random floating-on-the-web-in- limbo page. I thought a lot of you might be able to relate to this (hi girls!), even though I think it was written a few years ago. "Librarian shortage," indeed. Ha!

She lives!

Contrary to popular belief, I am still alive. Alive and kicking, some might say. Actually, probably just alive. Well, you know how I hate to beat a dead horse. But. And I swear this is absolutely the last thing I will say on the subject - October 18. High of 78 (so let's say 25 for those of the Celsius persuasion). Just let those two concepts marinate for a moment. Now I know that technically Virginia is considered the South, but come on - I barely live in Virginia; it's practically Maryland, for God's sake. And yet I am forced to put up with this literally hellish weather.

OK, that's it. Will not mention the heat again.

Oh yeah, The Office, American style. Not as good as the British one, I'm afraid to say. For one thing, The Office was, is, and always will be Ricky Gervais. Steve Carell is good, but he just doesn't have the frenetic energy of Gervais, which is basically what made the show. And the other problem, aside from the fact that if you've seen the British version you already know most of the story lines, which in at least the first two episodes are almost verbatim the B-version, is the fact that you are always aware this is just a TV show. In the British version, the uncomfortable silences and awkwardness of the actors were so real that you really felt this office existed somewhere and was being filmed. And finally, all the actors in the American version are just too damn good-looking. Even the unattractive people are still attractive - maybe it has to do with the lighting or the make-up, but whatever it is they still come across as TV-ugly, rather than ugly ugly. Not to say that the British actors are ugly, but they are just unattractive enough to look like real people. Also, British accents will always be funnier (to Americans) than American accents. That's just the way it is.

Yep.

And of course www.whitehouse.org

These are really good

Hi all. Well, I'm feeling like a total waste of space right now because every day I come to work, surf the Web, play computer solitaire, and generally contribute nothing to mankind while getting paid to do it. So I have decided that I will use this blog as a forum to get the word out about very important web sites that could save the world and probably cure cancer. Here they are:

www.mycathatesyou.com
A must if you enjoy seeing photos of pissed-off cats (and who doesn't?).

www.20q.net
This is an artificial intelligence game - I started playing last year while bored to death at eHelp, and it has gotten so much smarter since then - you have to check it out.

Chatological Humor
This is Gene Weingarten's chat on Washingtonpost.com. It's diverting. A caveat: you must be registered at Washingtonpost.com to view site (it's free).

Tell Me About It
Only read this if you like to read relationship advice columns. See above caveat.

Hello, I Am Fat
Great, very funny (yet touching, but not in a gross way) blog about being overweight/trying to lose said weight. Probably not for you if you are a guy or a skinny woman who's never been overweight. Otherwise, lovely.

www.Powells.com
For obvious reasons. Also, they have author interviews and book reviews on their site.

If you guys have other boredom-sucking websites you'd like to share, please do so, because I'm dying here.

Apologies to Nabokov

So I finished reading 'Lolita' and now I see where he was headed; I feel bad for doubting him. Yet another example of why I suck. Anyway...I have made another Brilliant Observation regarding life, the universe, and everything, and it is this: there seem to be only two kinds of jobs in this world - those that overwork a person to the point of burn-out, and those that bore one to the brink of insanity. I, obviously, am currently engaged in the latter of the two, but I just have to wonder why the working world can't be more balanced. If I think back, it seems to me that every single job I have ever had has been a member of the boredom party. Is it me? Am I attracted to jobs that require so little of me? I don't know. Maybe it's just the jobs I get offered - I have so few skills that I only get the ones where the highest qualification is a pulse.

And now for the weather report: we've been blessed here in Northern Virginia with a couple of cool (read: low 70s, high 60s) days, and finally I can walk outside without feeling like dying. Yay!

Unfortunately I have nothing left to talk about now. I haven't seen any good movies lately - I've become a Netflix drone and the entire third season of Six Feet Under has been clogging my queue for the past two weeks. I like the show and all, but I'll be glad to start watching something about the land of the living again. And I'm happy to report that next up in my queue is the American version of The Office, staring the lovely and talented Steve Carrell. I'll let you know what I think of it, of course.

A post with curiously religious overtones

So I've been reading more of 'Lolita' - I'm almost finished now, actually - and I have changed my mind about the book. No, it's still about a pedophile, but I've decided that Nabokov is writing a social satire of 1950s America, an era in which girls and young women were encouraged, practically forced, to become nothing but sexual objects subservient to men. Thus the premise that the narrator and aforementioned pedophile, Humbert Humbert, is given every break in the world in order to have his disgusting way with Lolita - not to give too much away (I know you're all going to rush right out to read it), but through certain circumstances Humbert actually becomes Lolita's guardian. At least, I think that's what Nabokov is getting at, but as I said, I never was very good at the critical analysis. Anyway, it's the only interpretation that makes any sense to me, but I'm going to be a good little reader and find some more criticism to read once I'm through with the book. I'll be sure to let you all know what I find out.

So, how is Fall treating you all? Fall is treating me very poorly, as it has not yet arrived here, and once again I fear it is never going to arrive, but will instead go straight to Winter sometime in December. (And yes, I know seasons aren't supposed to be capitalized but it reads better.) It is still shorts weather here, with a predicted high of 80 degrees tomorrow. In case I haven't mentioned it enough, I HATE IT HERE. Sorry, I just had to get it out of my system. At least I've learned one very important thing about myself, which is that I enjoy experiencing all four seasons as God intended - on the northern hemisphere, in a place where the weather is mild and non-sticky.

In other news, has everyone heard the talk about Ben Affleck running for senator of Virginia? God help us all.