Bored?

Thursday night I was reading myself to sleep except that I wasn't getting sleepy fast enough. My eyes and head were hurting from my recent fainting spell, so I had to put the book away before I was sleepy. As I lay there, waiting on sleep, I suddenly thought, I think this book is boring me. I've been reading Snow for a few weeks now, and I thought I was enjoying it. Now, I'm not so sure. I think it's moving too slowly--moving like the snow falls, softly, quietly--but I don't read books for plot, so a slow moving books isn't necessarily a loser for me. I wanted to like this book.

I'm not going to give up on it yet. Maybe it's just book lust. Or maybe it's my new bookshelves--moving books around makes one more aware of all the books waiting to be read. Or maybe it's a cultural thing since I know nothing about the Turkish culture described in the book. Or maybe the book is boring to me. I just don't know, but I have trouble giving up on a book. I will give it a few more chapters, I guess.

Two weeks - one hectic and one painful

I can't believe that it has been almost two weeks since I posted to my blog. For the first week, I only have a busy work and grad school schedule to blame. For this last one, the painful one, all I can say is that it is not wise to get into a fight with a tile bathroom floor.

I am always looking for a way out of work, but taking a path through the tile floor with my face leading the way was not a good choice. I am too old for an injured body--middle-aged bodies don't bounce back like young ones do, and my body has had lots of opportunities to bounce back from injuries. Perhaps the problem isn't that my body is too old but that it is too sober.

My life has been filled with accidents but most of the adult ones were accompanied with alcohol, which eased the pain before and after the accident. This one just made me feel stupid and old. Last Saturday I was sick with a bad cold or the flu, and I had very little to eat or drink, and I guess I was dehydrated. Sunday morning, I went to the bathroom and passed out cold on the tile floor, resulting in a busted lip requiring 16 stitches and a slightly fractured nose. Luckily, Valerie had stayed Saturday night to take care of me, or I might still be lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.

So, I had a week off work, but it wasn't fun. It hurt to read for very long, and it hurt to work on the computer for very long, and it hurt to look in the mirror and see my black eyes and fat lip. It's a good thing that I gave up being pretty a long time ago.

I got the stitches out today and my lip is still fat and not in the Angelina Jolie sexy lips way either. The doctor said the swelling would go down, but I'm not sure that I believe her. I know the horrible bruises around my eyes will go away but not before they become a lovely yellow color. My friend Lois said to get some witch hazel to put on the bruises to make them go away faster. Maybe I'll pick some up at the drug store tomorrow and see if it works.

Sunday Snippets

As I sit here procrastinating on my grading and watching the end of the Grammy awards show, I thought I would post a blog. Lately, I have had so many things that I want to post about, but I just can't seem to make the time or find the time to post anything lately. I either need a vacation from work or a vacation from my life--of course, I would choose work. I will have a vacation from work very soon, but I'm going to spend it in London. Maybe I'll find a moment to post a blog or two from there. For now, I'll just post some snippets from possible future blogs.

When I started this blog in March 2005, I said that "I plan to use this blog as a place to talk about literature, art, politics, work, and anything else I can think of." So here are some snippets about all of those things.

• Literature -- I have been reading Snow by Orhan Pahmuk for a few weeks now, and I like it, but I feel like I need to take a day just to wallow in it for a while. One thing I have learned from it is that I have too little knowledge of Turkey and Turkish history. Actually, I have too little knowledge of so many places and their history. I guess that's what happens when you spend too many years as an accounting major because you want to make lots of money then switch to English as a junior and decide to be a teacher. Perhaps if I hadn't been an aspiring yuppie, I would have had a good liberal arts education and not feel so lacking in adequate background knowledge.
  
• Literature 2 -- Even though I am not even halfway through Snow, I have already been thinking about what I will read next. Actually, I'm always thinking about what I will read next. Here are the books that have been put in the queue: Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (current choice), The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, Evil in Modern Thought by Susan Neiman, and Written on the Body by Jeanette Witherspoon. Feel free to place your votes to help me decide. Of course, as slow as I read, you have plenty of time to weight in.
  
• Art -- The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800-1920 -- I am so excited about this new exhibit at the The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (well, it opened last Sunday, SuperBowl Sunday, but I was too busy with football watching to blog about it then). I'm such an arts nerd that I find it truly exciting to think that I will get to see some of the most famous paintings in the history of painting--I want to say that I will get to see them in person, but the English teacher in me won't let me say it. I haven't seen it yet, but I will see it very soon. If you are in Houston anytime between now and May 6, you should see this exhibit.
  
• Politics -- The 2008 Presidential Race -- I am so excited about the chances of being able to cast a meaningful vote for a woman and/or an African American. AND I am already so sick of the press worrying about whether America is ready for a woman and/or an African American. Americans need to wake up in the 21st century and get over the whole white man bias.
  
• Work -- I hate working for a school district that blatantly censors students for no legal reason. First, last year, I had to tell a student that he had to take a sentence out of his short story or not get it published in the district's online literary magazine. The sentence said something about a boy sitting around with "his thumb up his butt" instead of doing his class assignment. Then this year, two students posted something to myspace about a district administrator, something negative, but not threatening or libelous as I understand it. Finally, in the most recent issue of the school paper, the article about the myspace incident and another recent incident on campus had the district administrator's name blacked out. From what I gathered, our principal made the newspaper staff black out the name or not distribute the paper. The article in the school paper is slanted toward the school's point of view, and I believe it lies to students about their rights, so, for me, the censorship, in this case is needless.
  
• Anything else? Just before the beginning of the year, I blogged about wanting to eat better. Surprisingly, I have been eating better, but mainly because I am commiserating with Valerie in her quest to get her very high cholesterol down. I have found it much easier to eat healthy than I thought. I have even eaten healthy breakfasts out on occasion and liked it. My healthy breakfast of choice has become oatmael with brown sugar and blueberries. I love eating breakfast out, especially omelets, hash browns, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, bacon--all a bunch of artery cloggers but yummy nonetheless. I would have never ordered oatmeal in a restaurant in the past, but now, it is my first choice for breakfast out.
  

Okay, I think that is all the procrastinating that I can do for tonight. Later.

Real news or a big non-story?

Insurgents getting hands on your car

Someone please explain how this is a story? I can be stupid sometimes, and I am trying to do my homework while I watch the local news. Also, I do realize what a big seller the fear of terrorism is, but I just think this story was a complete waste.

Two statements that I have a problem with in the story in the story, first, the point that the reporter makes about the U.S.-Mexico border being a sieve--not a new idea and one that sounds like anti-immigration propaganda to me. Second, this quote from the end of the story, "...the common perception of auto theft as a victimless crime. 'Right now, it’s report it to the insurance company, get my money and go out and get another car. But if I know that something happened to one of our guys? People feel it,' Bimonte said." Please! Give me a break! I'm supposed to feel bad if my car gets stolen and is used to hurt some soldier. Even for a guilt-plagued person like me, I find this statement ridiculous.

Okay, back to my homework now.