prayer hats… activate!

Category: dribblings

okay, so i need you guys to put your prayer hats on for a bit. i’ve a pal named Jenara, her son and husband are both having surgery this week. double whammy. it’s going to be a stressful week for them, yeah? So could you guys please, please, please send up some prayers of healing and blessing and peace and whatever else good things you can think of for them? she also has a sweet little girl so maybe let’s add some sweet little big huge prayers for her too?

thank you, thank you, thank you!

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liberry story #56

Category: dribblings

so the other day i’m at the circ. desk, and this guy is checking out books on tape, and he hands me his keys because he’s using the keychain card. so i take the keys and they’re heavy because also on the keys is one of those drummer wrench things? you know? a drum key?

for those of you who might not know, it’s this metal thing drummers use to tighten the heads of the drums. like this:

so i scan the card and hand him back his keys and say something like, “hey, you’re a drummer.” just trying to make conversation you know? he looks at the drum key and then looks at me and he says to me he says, “yeah. do you know a drummer or something?”

gobsmacked.

i was so mad. i couldn’t answer his question of, “do you know a drummer?” i just stared. no kidding.

cos if i had responded? it would have been terrible. i was on the verge of being all, “excuse me? do i know a drummer? what, i can’t be a drummer? cos i’m a girl? is that it?! i’m just a dumb ol’ girl who can’t keep a beat because my giant ovaries get in the way? WELL LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, DRUMMER BOY. i know plenty of drummers, and not a single one of them carries their drum key around like it’s some kind of magic talisman, okay? you know why? because they’re REAL drummers. in REAL bands. they keep their drum key with the rest of their drum shit cos they don’t need to show the world that they play drums. you’re not a real drummer! you’re just some guy who played drums in high school and now you carry your dumbass key on your key chain! you and your assumptions and your posing, poser drum-key-on-your-keychain make me sick! GOOD DAY, SIR.”

look, i’m not saying my anger made sense okay? i’m just telling you how i felt at the time. i was angry that his question was immediately, “do you know a drummer?” instead of “oh, are you a drummer too?”

if you’re a guy? you might be all, “now what is she going on about?” but if you’re a girl i know you know what i’m talking about. it was the assumption. it just… ooh it just burned me up.

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12. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Category: 50 Books

12. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This review may contain spoilers. I don’t know. It depends. What you may think is a spoiler I may think is an annoying plot device. You’ve been warned.

I know, I’m the last person to have read this book.

Things to know about this book:
1. This is actually book one of the Millenium Trilogy. This is great because for some ridiculous reason, Swedish crime fiction is translated and published in the US, but we only get book 3 or 4. It makes zero sense, but there you go. So this time we actually got book one first. Yay!

2. Stieg Larsson is dead. The three books in the tril have been published posthumously.

3. This is one of the few Scandinavian crime books I’ve read that didn’t have a tree on the cover.

It’s basically a whodunit with some extra stuff thrown in for character development. For instance the two main characters are Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, and Lisbeth Salander a young antisocial computer hacker/researcher. They both have these really big things in their lives going on, Blomkvist is a financial journalist who has to serve time in prison for libel, while Salander has to deal with a handicapped mother in a nursing home as well as the fact that Salander is much abused by her guardian/advocate. But those are just subplots.

The main plot is a whodunit that happened the the 1960s. Henrik Vanger is an old rich industrailist who hires Blomkvist to find out who killed his niece Harriet in 1966. Loads of stuff happens then Blomkvist needs to hire an assistant to help him research, enter: Salander. Loads of stuff happens after that as well.

And now for the Airing of Grievances:

1. The Vanger family history/family tree. It was way too dense and confusing. And then you have to read about how Blomkvist is confused about it as well. And you might say, “Jaimie, you dolt, it was supposed to be confusing.” Yes, but it really added nothing to the book, except of course extra pages. Because here’s the thing, if BOTH main characters each get their own subplot, and then they BOTH come in and work the main plot? WE DON’T NEED 30 EXTRA CHARACTERS. Just saying.

2. Up until the last 70-ish pages I thought Salander was 19 years old. Turns out she’s been 25 this whole time. How was I missing that? I know that sometimes things are lost in translation. This might be one of those things. Also, it’s very possible that it’s my bad, and I didn’t read something correctly. So I’m not holding this against the book. But it did not help my feelings on:

3. The Blomkvist/Salander hook up. Give me a damn break. A book written by a middle-age guy about a middle-age guy who has a bunch of sex with the twenty-something smart hottie chick. How fucking clever is that?  And then to make it where she initiates? Fine, I can buy that, she’s been abused by older men her whole life. I get that. But I was very disappointed in Blomkvist (though he has no idea of her past, so it’s not quite so fair to blame him so harshly).

Would it have been so terrible to have them just be friends? Couldn’t they have done something AWESOME and have treated each other as peers? Wouldn’t that have been novel? I mean, especially if there’s a social message you’re trying to get across in this book in the first place. And there IS a social message. At the beginning of each section is a statistic about violence/sexual assault against women in Sweden. Not to mention that the Swedish title of the book is “Män som hatar kvinnor” which means Men Who Hate Women. And of course Blomkvist isn’t violent or abusive AT ALL towards Salander but also? The fucked up relationship ISN’T HELPING.

4. Blomkvist is a slut. He has sex with all the available women. Is this his tragic flaw?

5. And Salander comes to the conclusion that she’s falling in love with Blomkvist? Really? You want me to buy that a possibly autistic/asperger’s syndrome, slightly obsessive, antisocial (and when i say antisocial i don’t mean she doesn’t like to be around people, i mean antisocial personality disorder) abused girl who has just recently been able to hold a semi-regular freelance job, would just acclimate to a new relationship and be all, “i’m in love! yay!” Seriously, throughout the whole book she’s shown no social or emotional recipriocity, but at the end decides that she’s in love with Blomkvist? And it’s a normal thing? I mean, maybe if she had some kind of obsessive, stalker-y love i could swallow that easier than the puppy-love outlook i’m supposed to swallow. I’m calling bullshit on this.

6. There is no number 6.

7. The book could have been a 100 pages shorter if it would have JUST GOTTEN TO THE POINT ALREADY.  If, on the other hand, you love to read loads and loads of exposition, this book is for you. I don’t mind reading loads and loads of exposition as long as there’s a pay off at the end.

8. The pay off was not worth the loads and loads of expostion.

9. The Vanger family: I hated them at the beginning of the book, I hate them at the end of the book. That’s not a problem I have with the book, I just wanted you to know.

10. I think the author betrays Salander’s vengefulness at the end. She wants the families of the murdered women to know what happened to them, but she settles for what? A hit to the Vanger pocketbook? No way!

I was so excited to finally read this book because I had only heard good things about it. But after reading it I was really disappointed. I will say that the mystery itself, just the mystery and the solving of it was well done. The rest was a waste of time.

Book two comes to the US in June? July? I’m not sure. I will read it out of curiousity, but I’m not as excited about it as I had been.

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once again, i’m a blue haired freak

Category: Uncategorized

last week i went to the Moxie and had some lovely blue chunks put in my hair. but after a few days, it just wasn’t enough blue. too much brown. so i went back to the Mox and my hair master dot com forward slash colorwizard forward slash thesickest forward slash gotthehookup dot jpg, kris, cracked out lightning from his fingers and blasted my head with BLUE.

and here’s a garish one with the flash so you can see the BLUE and actually taste it too:

you could even say it glows.

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11. The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson

Category: 50 Books

11. The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson

And by the author’s name I’m certain you can tell just what kind of book I’m still addicted to? And you can just shut your face about the rut I’m stuck in, I’m enjoying the rut. Hell, I’ve 4 more Swedish crime fic books in the wings! Ha! You’ll never stop me! Looking at the author’s first name I’m not sure how you’d pronounce it, is it Kyell? or Shell? Such interesting names just filled with consonants, these Swedes.

Now, if you’re like me, when you read the title you too were all, “Oh hey, is this crime fic? Written by a Swede? About an African princess? Right on!” Well, let me quench your curiosity and go ahead and tell you that there are no African princesses in this story. The Princess of Burundi is a kind of fancy fish.

This book won an award. I wish I had written down what the award was, but it was something like (AND DON’T LAUGH, LIZ AND CHRIS) the Swedish Crime Fiction Award for Best Swedish Crime Fiction of the Year. I’m joking, but also I’m not.

This is a book in the Inspector Ann Lindell series. In this particular book she’s on maternity leave so she’s actually not in it very much except towards the end. The thing I was most impressed with in this book is that the whole book has a mood and it is desolate. The scenery, the characters, the crimes. Everything seems to be motivated out of desolation/desperation. Even the things that would happen that were supposed to be happy or positive seemed thin and see-through and just out of reach. It was so interesting to read.

Obviously it wasn’t a “feel good” murder mystery. heh.

I was just amazed at how everyone’s lives seemed to be bereft of something, from the detectives to the criminals and the victims. And all of this is played off the winter season of an old industrial section of some Swedish town I can’t remember or spell (was it Uppsala? or is that the one I’m reading about now? hmmmm.) and it was just all so lovely in it’s desperation and isolation and whatever other -ation. I know that sounds strange and impossible, but that’s how it was, and that’s probably why it won an award.

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regrets? i’ve had a few…

Category: dribblings

but then again they’re pretty lame.

por exemplo: i was at the grocery store on Sunday night and i’ve been craving butterscotch pudding. so i go to the pudding aisle. and let me just say, i’m so glad to live in a country where there’s a whole half aisle of nothing but pudding. jeez, how much pudding do we need? AT LEAST half an aisle.

so anyway, i wasn’t going to make pudding. not that it’s difficult. but i wanted butterscotch pudding like, 10 minutes ago. so i went with the snack pack sized individual pudding cups situation.

this is where i showed some massive restraint. because if there’s one thing i like more than butterscotch pudding, it’s a good deal. and if there’s a good deal on butterscotch pudding? look out.

so there was indeed a deal on butterscotch pudding. it was 10 for $10. I KNOW. so there i was in front of my pudding and i thought to myself, “well, there’s 4 individual pudding cups per pack. so if i buy 10 packs for $10… that’s 40 pudding cups. i certainly don’t need 40 pudding cups in my house.”

so i didn’t take the deal. i bought 2 packs for $2.

i know! i’m a fool!

because what i didn’t factor in is the fact that those individual cups of pudding only hold 4 teaspoonfuls of pudding! there’s only enough pudding in there to piss you off. by bite 3 you’re all, “damn, i wish i had bought 39 more of these.” but you didn’t because where would you store 40 puddings?

IN MY STOMACH. THAT’S WHERE.

i’m down to 5 puddings. and i know that i’ll eat one after my lunch break today so that’ll leave 4. should i start rationing them? or should i go back to the grocery store and do it right this time?

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this was actually fun.

Category: dribblings

www.netdisaster.com type in a url and destroy it.

my favorite was Led Zeppelin and the chainsaw.

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books? oh yeah!

Category: 50 Books

my reading has slacked off a bit, and my blogging even more so.

sorry! i read a couple of books back in February that i did not blog about:

10. Blindspot By a Lady in Disguise and a Gentleman in Exile by Jane Kemensky and Jill Lepore

Okay, wacky premise (WHAT IF?!): It’s Colonial Boston, Mr. Stewart Jameson has just arrived from Scotland (he’s left because he owes these guys money) and he’s a portrait painter and he needs an apprentice. Ms. Fanny Easton grew up in a wealthy family, was going to marry her painting tutor (plus she was already pregnant (by the painter tutor) but she finds him having sex with her slave girl so she calls off the wedding. Her father, the town’s Supreme Judge or whatever, sends the painter and slave girl away and when it comes time for Fanny to give birth he takes the baby and tells Fanny her child was stillborn. Fanny knows her dad is lying and runs away to make a life of her own. She ends up in the cotton mill or some kind of fabric factory. For years. Then she sees Jameson’s apprentice notice in the paper. So she dresses up like a boy (her hair is cut to the scalp for bugs and whatnot), changes her name to Francis Weston, and gets the apprentice job. Hilarity ensues.

There’s a lot going on in this book. Almost too much. Clever in parts, the way they talk; there’s loads of wordplay, bawdy wordplay at that. LOTS of bawdy wordplay, actually. It’s… I hate to have to say it but it’s overkill. There is a fine line between how many times something is funny and clever and then it becomes over used and boring. These two authors take it to the limit and beyond.

Not to say that the authors don’t know what they are talking about, you can tell they are really keen on American history. They know their stuff. It was just overkill on the sex jokes. And I like sex jokes!

Plot… there was too much going on. There’s the semi-gay/bisexual thing going on with Jameson and Weston. There’s the politics of the time (whigs v. tories). There’s a whole anti-slavery plot going on as well. And of course, a murder mystery. This? IS TOO MUCH. Which is a shame because by the end, you don’t really care what’s going to happen. There’s so much going on you lose interest. Sad but true.

The part I did like about it is that Fanny learns that even as a woman she’s not really “free”. She’s not a slave, of course, but she gets to go about as a man and learns the freedoms of being a white man, and so she’s conflicted (i don’t like that word, is there a better one?) about going back to being a woman. She wants to paint and be her own person, not necessarily marry some guy and run a household. So, points for Fanny’s conflict.

9. Nemesis by Jo Nesbø

More Swedish crime fiction. It’s a longish book, but stay with it. This book has more twists and turns than any I’ve ever read. The only problem is that it seems a bit far-fetched. This is book 6 in a series (i think) but I’m not sure that all six books have been translated into English.

Now remember, it’s a translation, so it might not read as smooth as you’re used to, but I thought it was all right really. The only thing I could not get used to was all the names of towns and such, they’re Swedish and I’m not really sure how to pronounce all the vowel sounds. Also, the main character… his name is Harry. Which is fine. But his last name? is Hole. Here in the U.S. Harry Hole would be an awful name! And every time the book had his whole name (heh, hole name) I would snicker. I’m guessing that Hole doesn’t mean hole in Sweden and that perhaps it’s pronounced hol-uh?

In this book a murder is pinned on none other than detective Harry Hole, and he has to figure it out before his police friends can arrest him. You know how it goes.

8. The Learners by Chip Kidd

You know how I’m ALWAYS charmed by clever? This book is no exception. GREAT BOOK. The main character, Happy,  is a graphic artist in the 1950s, fresh out of college. He goes to work at a small ad agency somewhere in New England (I can’t remember, wait it was Connecticut.) And he’s living the life.

Then he designs an add for Dr. Milgram who is looking for people for an experiment. One of his only friends ends up killing herself. Happy finds out that before she committed suicide she had taken part in Dr. Milgram’s experiment. Eventually Happy volunteers for the experiment to see what it’s all about.

Clever plot. Very clever writing. Fantastic book.

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my parents are pimpin’ pimpin’.

Category: dribblings

here’s a picture of mom and popsicle before the Valentine’s dance:

aren’t they sweet?

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How Jaimie Got Her Cool Back.

Category: dribblings

you guys.

my husband, Mr. Fleegan, is the bomb diggity dot com forward slash mac daddy. he surprised me with a gift. a pair of shoes.

a pair of PINK FLOYD DARK SIDE OF THE MOON CONVERSE CHUCK TAYLOR ALL STARS.

i don’t even know if i’m cool enough to wear these shoes, but that’s not going to stop me.

NOT GOING TO STOP ME FROM WEARING THEM TO WORK TOMORROW. BOOSH.

i’m gonna be the coolest Marian the Librarian and there’s nothing you can do about it. TATDOW.

and bonus? i have to do Storytime tomorrow for the 4 – 6 year olds. word. we’re doing hats. i’m going to read a story about a farmer and his hat, and then there’s another story about hats. and then i was thinking about bringing different hats for them to talk about. and THEN we’re decorating sun visors. BOOSH.

all of this will happen while i’m wearing PINK FLOYD DARK SIDE OF THE MOON CONVERSE CHUCK TAYLOR ALL STARS.

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