too strange

I have a general feeling of being "arsed" out today (excuse my French).  I don't know why. 

I'm at work...working for a change.  I just came back from Seattle (the gloomiest of gloomies, but soooo lovely nonetheless).  My co-conspirators and I ironed out some of the details re: a blog we're planning to launch soon.  My husband's in good health.  My dog didn't go potty on the carpet.  A little threadbare in the pockets, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Nothing's wrong, as far as I know. 

And yet, I feel doomed.

WHY.

Sci-Fi Geek?

What does it mean to be a sci-fi geek? 

I recently found out my cousin plays Magic: The Gathering.  After my initial reaction (of abject horror), I began to ask her questions.  Do you throw the cards at one another?  No.  Do you flick the cards, carefully aimed, at an object?  No.  Do you use the cards as a backstory for a boardgame?  No.  Do you wear capes and call each other Ragnok the Rock Monster and Druidian the Troll King and Bubu the Evil Hobbit?  No.  Then what the HECK do you do with these flippin' cards??!?!?!

So began my foray into a world of absolute confusion, chaos, and geekdom.  And I began to wonder... how deep can you fall before you're labeled a sci-fi geek?

I read Ender's Game...watch Bladerunner...discuss Doctor Who over dinner...listen to EscapePod on a daily basis... But I don't know a thing about Ursula K. Le Guin or the secret goings-on of a D&D game.  I don't understand their secret language, and am a bit afraid of their passion for all things Star Trek.  I don't know the difference between a button of a Star Fleet Commander and a lesser officer.  I don't know what the inseam looks like on a Klingon's jacket, coat, thing. 

I do know that...if it's a person's passion, and it's something he/she enjoys without harming others...then it's something that should escape our judgment.  Everyone's a geek in some way or another.  Fashion geek.  iPhone geek.  Celebrity geek.  Poetry geek. 

If reading Ray Bradbury and watching Tron makes me a sci-fi geek, then so be it.  It'll just be an augmentation of my Geeks List, of which I am very proud.

Still, the question remains...  What makes a sci-fi geek...and what the HECK do you do with those flippin' Magic cards???

Better now.  It was just indigestion that made me write the other post.  :)

Listening to New Edition.  Goodness.  Makes me think of college - my neighbor sacrificed food and lodging to go to their concert.  And I only had one question, "WHY?"

To each his own.

Aaah, Angela Aki's on now.  Good stuff.

Let Them Pass By In Seasons

Ever since my husband arrived, I've been feeling increasingly distant from a majority of my friends.  I find myself on the receiving end of abandonment accusations, or claims that I've changed.  Maybe I have.  I'm a bit tired nowadays, stressed out, stretched thin...  Sometimes, I feel as if I were the one abandoned.  If a friend is stretched thin and worn bare, wouldn't you be there...?  What's changed, now that I'm married?  Why are shoulders so reluctantly given now...?

At the same time, I do feel changed.  I feel myself getting tired of having to dance and tiptoe around relationship politics.  I feel myself getting tired of justifying my actions - when there's no reason to justify anything.  I give people answers when they ask questions out of courtesy, and they easily forget that I don't owe them anything.  I'm tired of who I've become.  I don't even read anymore.

Confirms my deep- and long-rooted desire to get the hell out of Los Angeles.  This isn't my town - I may have history here, but I can't thrive in concrete.  My soul just wasn't made for that.

Ahhh, stop yer whining, woman.  Things always look better in the morning.

BBC's 100 Book List

So, somewhere on the internet grapevine, I heard (read) that the BBC has a list of 100 popular books, out of which the average reader only read 6.  So reckons the BBC.

Now...I'm a nerd, but only semi.  I love books, but when I looked at the list, I realized I'm not as much of an avid reader as I thought.  So, now, I'm encouraged to retreat from the world unhealthily to devour books and live in my mind for the duration of my life.

Here goes nuthin:

Instructions:

1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.

2) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

3) Tally your total.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien x
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen x
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman x
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling x
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee x
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne x
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell x
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis x
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë x
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller x
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë x
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier *
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger x
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame x
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens x
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott x
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy *
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell x/2 (I couldn't finish it)
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling x
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling x
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling x
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien x
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy x
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot *
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck x
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll x
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez *
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett *
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl x
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson x
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen x
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen x
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery x
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald x
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas x
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh *
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell *
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens x
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett x
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck x
53. The Stand, Stephen King x
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy x
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl x
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell x
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer x
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky x/4
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden x
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens x
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman *
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding x
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett x
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl x
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce x
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl *
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar x
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy *
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley x
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac x
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel x
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho x
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

No tally for me.  I'm too ashamed.  *sniffle*