Today is a day to Not Do Very Much

It's one of those days where I either should have just gone to work (I had a choice between today and tomorrow and didn't sleep much last night so decided to work tomorrow when I might be better rested) or stayed in bed. I managed to pour my after-lunch cup of tea on the table, my feet, and six pages of comics artwork. Fortunately, the art isn't completely ruined, just a tad wrinkled and tea-stained on the edges. Still, it was just one more thing on a day when I was already feeling a bit down.

So I've decided I just won't do very much today. Fuck trying to get something done. I tried that, and ended up with soggy art. So I added some photos to Facebook, and I'll write some in this blog. Maybe later I'll do some work blogging and start organizing the content for a "video games based on movies" article. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll fire up the PS3 and lay some ghosts to rest, or shoot some bugs, or kill a few infidels, or tear up a racetrack. And maybe I'll go to the post office, which is sort of like getting something done, only it's to mail some BookMooch books, so not really. Or maybe I'll go buy a video game I can review for work, which is also sort of like getting something done, but also not really.

Anyway. On the Finishing Half-Read Books Project, I got to the end of Lost Discoveries a couple of days ago, and have been making good progress on Women and the Book. No more new finds of half-read things, though I think I might be partway through a book on Zen that's around somewhere.

And just so you don't think crappy days are the norm around here, Sunday was a very fine day. The boy and I cycled around Halifax, stopping at the Public Gardens, the waterfront, and Point Pleasant Park before retiring to the humble abode for giant hamburgers. I got a horrific sunburn which is just becoming bearable today, but it was a great day anyway. I put some photos up on Facebook, and here's one of me on the beach (after I put on a long-sleeved shirt even though it was too late for my shoulders):



Photo by the boy, of course (who I have decided should be called "Billy Z" (the "Z" being pronounced "Zee") (I haven't informed him of this yet). And speaking of the boy, here he is:



(I call it "Blue Boy.")

Time to Read

So school is out for summer, and my one summer course is over (digital photo, which was excellent thanks to a really great teacher, even if he did only give me a B in lighting last year). Here's my favourite of the photos I did for my final project (an attempt to recreate the Happy Family photos I remember from growing up in the 70s):



I'm actually considering putting that one on the wall, even though I don't especially like having pictures of myself up. Here's another, that isn't as successful in terms of colour, but which works really well otherwise.



I love the one raised eyebrow thing.

But I began this post with a mention of school being done, and it is, until September. Which means I have a little more time. Time to play videogames, and time to read. Recently I've started to get that feeling I sometimes get, that I need to finish all the books I started before I start any more (except I just started a new one yesterday, completely violating my good intentions). So I'm going to concentrate on finishing unfinished books and see if I can't get them all out of the way by the time summer's over. Then I can start accumulating partly-finished books all over again. Whee!

There's never any one reason I don't make it all the way through a book. Sometimes it requires more brain power that I can give it at the time, so it gets put aside for when I have more leisure. Sometimes it's simply the wrong size to easily read on the bus or in bed or in the tub. Sometimes I lose interest, read something else in the meantime and then don't ever get back. Here are the things I've got in progress at the moment:

• Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi: It's subtitled "The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya" and is essentially a history of non-western science. I've been reading this one on and off whenever I don't need too much brain for other things. It's a pretty good read and I'm well over halfway through. It's not going to be a problem to finish now that I have no school for a while.


• The Lungfish, the Dodo and the Unicorn by Willy Ley: Another subtitled book; this time "An Excursion into Romantic Zoology." It's a fun book about fantastic beasts that are either not real, real but extinct, or really really for real but seemingly improbable. It was published in 1948 and just seems to work better in small doses, which is why I haven't finished it yet. I guess I've been craving something I can consume in big chunks. Mmmmmm . . . books . . .


• Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht: I'd only just begun this when I moved, so I never really had a chance to get into it before I had to set it aside. Looks like it'll be a good read, though.


• This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson: A novel about nautical exploration and discovery, in which Charles Darwin is a character. I'm enjoying it immensely, but it fits in the category of "too big to comfortably read anywhere but sitting upright in a chair," though I have made valiant attempts to read it in bed. It's going to require evenings of tea and sitting it the ugly salmon-coloured granny rocker to finish, but they'll be good evenings.


• Tom Sawyer by Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain: I love Twain, but I'm finding it hard to get into Tom. I don't remember Huckleberry Finn being this obviously written for children. I will forge on, though, because the writing is marvelous, and I have a copy of Tom Sawyer Abroad on the shelf that I want to get at soon.


• The Confusion by Neal Stephenson: This is the second book in the Baroque Cycle, and baroque it certainly is. Phew! Really great writing, but very very dense, and not as well-sprinkled with humorous bits as the first book. I'll take me a while to slog my way to the end, but I know it's going to have been worth it (how's that for a convoluted verb tense?).


• Codex: by Lev Grossman. Woo! I love books about books, and this novel is proving to be just the easy read I needed, without being too lightweight. I acquired it through BookMooch, which a recommend highly if you have books you don't need but don't really want to dispose of. BookMooch lets you send books off to appreciative other book folks and use the points you thereby accumulate to mooch new books off other people. It makes it so much easier for me to part with books (always a hard thing, even if I know I'll never read them again), knowing who they're going to, and being able to get books in the mail in return. I love mail. Especially when it has books in it.

Well, this post is getting long, so I'll leave it at that. I think there are a few more partly-finished books lurking on the shelves, but I'll deal with the ones listed first, then go in search of others.