books

Workaday Wednesday

Another day, and this one kind of zipped past.

I had a meeting this morning to discuss a textbook I recently put into production, and that went well despite the competing books I’d ordered for the meeting not showing up until about an hour after it. They were supposed to have been delivered yesterday, but it really wasn’t a big deal.

Then I spent the rest of the day following up on some points from that meeting — e-mailing the author and design — and working on another report. Not the 300-plus-page one that’s been taking up so much of my time lately — that’s almost done — but another one that should probably go out sooner rather than later.

On the train ride home, I finished reading Kaye Gibbons’ short novel Ellen Foster. Oprah apparently picked it for her Book Club back in 1997, but I wasn’t terribly impressed. I picked it only because it was short.

And that was…Wednesday, right? How the week is flying by.

Sunday

So it’s been a couple of days.

They’ve been good days, mostly, and in fact quite remarkable by the poor standard that the rest of August had already set.

My back seems to be doing a lot better, in that there aren’t terrible twinges of pain every time I bend or move in the wrong way. Or, sometimes, in any way. That’s actually the worst part about having a bad back: is this the perfectly ordinary movement that’s going to cripple me for days or weeks? (Well, the worst part if you discount the pain itself.) My back is a lot better when I sit than when I stand, which is actually the exact opposite of how it was when I was first diagnosed with a herniated disc, when standing seemed to relieve it more than anything else. (I’d find reasons to work standing up, when I could, and I’d frequently not take a seat on the train.) This is probably better, since it’s usually easier to find somewhere to sit (or make excuses for having to do so) than needing to stand all the time, but it’s a little weird. And it does still kind of hurt when I’m standing. Not nearly so much that I can’t — or would prefer not to — move, but enough to make me cautious and I’m sure occasionally a little irritable. I don’t know if it’s getting better, or if this is as better as it’s going to get, but this is much, much better than it’s been for the past couple of weeks, and so I’ll take that.

And honestly, there are people who have it a lot worse than I do.

My parents spent most of Friday and Saturday away, visiting my mom’s brother in Connecticut, who isn’t doing very well. All of her brothers and sisters made the trip, and I spend the time at home looking after the dog.

Some things I did, in no particular order:

I read a couple of books. On Friday, I finished listening to David Mitchell’s Back Story and reading Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama. I think the former was probably better than the latter. What Mitchell may lack in a hugely exciting biography — he grew up fairly normal, went to school, became a comedic actor, and now does that for a living — but he tells that story well and amusingly, and I particularly enjoyed hearing it in his own voice on the audio book.

Meanwhile, I like Clarke, or at least I remember a great fondness for him when, as a young teen, I discovered the Space Odyssey series. I don’t remember if the books or Kubrick’s movie came first for me, but there’s more humanity in Clarke’s writing, more warmth and humor, and I quite enjoyed reading the books, even if I never went as far as the fourth and final volume in the series.

(3001 came out in 1997, and I have a dim recollection of it getting some bad commentary at the Penn State Science Fiction Society, which I was part of at the time…and which I discovered on Friday, quite sadly, appears to have disbanded. Or maybe I should say re-discovered, since this is apparently something I learned of back in 2007. I have a comment on that post and everything, so it’s not like I didn’t know. I was actually more distressed to learn that the Monty Python Society, of which I was a long-time member and two-time president, has probably also disbanded. With only a few exceptions, I sadly haven’t kept in touch with most of the people I knew through the club, but I’m saddened by the idea that it might be gone forever. There’s apparently a Harry Potter fan club on campus that’s taken up a lot of the slack of both clubs — inheriting the science fiction library, putting on sketch comedy for Red Nose Days — but it’s just not the same.)

Anyway, back to Rama. While I like Clarke — his short story “The Nine Billion Names of God” remains a favorite — I was a little surprised to discover this one both the Hugo and Nebula when it was published. I haven’t read any of the other nominees from the same year, but Rama is…well, kind of boring. Very little actually happens, and maybe that’s in part by design, and maybe that’s why Gentry Lee (who continued writing a number of sequels) apparently introduced a lot of new characters and plot, but it feels much more like a short story padded out to novel length. It’s never exactly unenjoyable — I was worried it would be risibly dated, remembering cosmonauts in 2061 — but that wasn’t ultimately a huge concern. There just wasn’t enough to the book. There’s a huge central mystery — and this is maybe a bit of a spoiler — and it’s one that never gets solved. Along the way a few other things happen, although the stakes never feel terribly high, but not nearly enough.

On Saturday, I finished reading Voltaire’s Calligrapher by Pablo De Santis. I hope to say more about it in the near future, since it’s an interesting book, but for now let me just say that when you pick books out of the local library based almost exclusively on their short length, you may wind up with some weird choices.

On Friday evening, I finished watching the last two episodes of the British crime drama Broadchurch. I could probably say a lot more about it than I’m gong to now — it’s late, but I also know some people who are not yet caught up with watching it — but let me just say I’m a bit torn, and my feelings about the finale in particular are hugely split. Is it possible to find something both completely compelling and effective and also a letdown?

On Saturday, while the neighbors partied and karaoked, I watched Lincoln. I’ve had it out from Netflix for a while, unable to watch it until my new computer (with its working Blu-Ray drive) arrived. It’s not a perfect movie, maybe a little too pat and certainly not a full biography of the man, but it’s quite entertaining, moves at fast clips, and the performances are terrific.

And today, I went to see The World’s End, which was quite funny.

That doesn’t feel like a busy weekend, and it probably wasn’t, but it was a decent one if nothing else. I had pancakes for dinner on Friday night, so there’s at least that.

And today I also wrote this:

“When the world ended, all the birds fell from the sky, and Rachel found out she was a cyborg.”

“That never happened,” said Rachel. “Don’t believe him, Mom, he’s just being dumb.”

“Thank you, Rachel,” said their mother. She’d been trying to finish the Sunday crossword when the two kids had come in from the yard, and her pen hovered momentarily over 8 down before filling in the now obvious four-letter MINX. “I might have believed your brother if you hadn’t said something. You have been looking a little cyborgy lately.”

“Told you!” said Peter. He snatched a cookie from the plate on the counter.

“Mmhmm,” said their mother, looking sternly at her son. “And those were for after supper, but I guess if the world’s really ended neither your father nor I have to cook tonight.”

“Pizza!” said Peter around a mouthful of chocolate chip. “Gino’s will still deliver.”

“How WILL they get around the mountains of dead birds?” his mother asked. Forty-seven across, she now saw, was FLIGHT. Which crossed, perhaps morbidly, with CRASH.

“The birds didn’t die,” said Peter. “They just fell from the sky. They’re all just walking around out there, looking stunned. The thing you’ve got to watch out for are the alligators. They’re the ones that can now fly.”

“You don’t see a lot of alligators in Pennsylvania.”

“End times,” Peter said. “Anything could happen.”

“Mmm,” said his mother. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe your sister really is a cyborg.”

“Mooooom!” Rachel said.

“There was that mad scientist who used to work at the hospital where your born. What was his name? Frankenstein?”

“You’re making that up! There was no Dr. Frankenstein at the hospital!”

“Not any more. Not if his cyborg creation was loose in the world. You did make a lot of weird whirring, clicking noises as a baby!”

“I knew it!” said Peter.

“Moooom!” said Rachel. “Quit encouraging him!”

“It would make things a lot easier,” said her mother. She dipped her pen down again: 18 across, NECTARINE. “Your father and I would just have to figure out the right computer code to make you clean your room. Maybe we could get you to do your homework by remote control.”

“Very funny, ha ha!” Rachel said. “And I suppose you believe the little brat about all the dead birds, too.”

“They’re just stunned,” said her mother.

“Right,” said Peter, “just stunned.”

“It’s the flying alligators that are the real problem.” She stumbled over 22 down, then saw that it was PIANO FORTE. “And, I imagine, the zombies.”

“Zombies?” said Peter and Rachel, almost as one.

“Well it wouldn’t be the end of the world if there weren’t zombies,” their mother said. “I mean, stunned birds, flying gators, and cyborg girls are one thing, but zombies seems like standard operating procedure to me.”

Five down, she finally saw, was EDAM. You only ever saw that in a crossword puzzle.

“In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Gino’s was the first places that got overrun with zombies. It’s always so crowded on a Sunday night.”

“Does that mean no pizza?” Peter asked.

“I don’t know. Is your sister really a cyborg?”

“Probably not,” he said, reluctantly.

“Then go wash your hands and we’ll talk. And wake your father — he’s asleep on the couch.”

Peter ran from the room, shouting, “Daaaad!” and snatching another cookie from the plate as he did so.

Rachel eyed her mother. She could never understand why her mother enjoyed doing those silly crossword puzzles.

“He’s starting to suspect,” she said.

It’s probably more a meandering joke than a story — thanks in large part to the cyborg bit, which is not part of the writing prompt I supplied — but I had fun writing it.

And that’s pretty much it.

Back on top

My new laptop arrived today. Or maybe it didn’t. It’s hard to tell what Dell wants me to believe.

I know it’s here — I’m physically typing this post on it right now — and customer support both called and e-mailed to tell me that it had been delivered. Then again, I never received any notice that it had been shipped prior to this, and when I log in at their website to check on the order, it still comes up as in production.

Adding to the confusion, it actually says the order “is partially delivered,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. I joked over Twitter that I’d ordered Schrodinger’s laptop, both here and not here simultaneously, but as near as I can tell everything I ordered arrived. I followed up with Dell’s customer support, and I’m sure I’ll get a half dozen more phone calls and e-mails from one or two gentlemen in India before this is through — they have been persistent even when they haven’t been helpful — but so far I’m quite pleased with the computer that came by FedEx today.

Then again, I was quite pleased with the last one, and that caught fire and quit working. If this doesn’t do that — and I continue to not be charged for those first two orders that didn’t get processed at all — I’ll be happy. The laptop’s a little weird, a little different (because I didn’t want to tempt fate and get the same exact model), but it’s shiny and new, which makes up for a lot of things. Living in the cloud is all well and good, but there are some things it’s just a lot easier to do on a laptop than on an iPad or iPhone. (Like purchase this laptop for one.)

And yes, I know that’s like the epitome of first-world problems. You should have seen me the other day, when I couldn’t find the remote control to my air conditioner. The servants’ collective heads rolled for that! I joke; I don’t have servants. I do have a remote-controlled air conditioner, though, thank you very much, and woe betide the servant that comes between me and its temperature control. (It actually has a wifi option, too, but that’s apparently an added attachment we didn’t buy.)

Anyway, all this is to say I have a new computer, and in the three hours or so that it’s been on thus far, it hasn’t caught fire or disappeared in a puff of Schrodinger logic.

My back, on the other, was kind of terrible today, although this I think was a pulled muscle — probably connected to but not exactly the same thing that happened to me last week. I think this because it’s on the opposite side, and I was pretty much fine until I bent a weird way in the shower this morning, and also because it seems to be getting a little better this evening. As always, walking helps, even when walking at first makes you want to cry, is the very thing that makes it feel worst, and so I went to work. (Also, while I have some sick days left, I neither want nor really can use them so soon after using two last week.)

Honestly, I don’t want to whine about my bad back, particularly as it does seem to be getting better this evening. I’m getting some comfort out of listening to David Mitchell’s Back Story on audio book (in small part about his own bad back). And I did I mention I have a new computer that hasn’t caught fire? Things really are looking up!

The weekend what was

On Friday afternoon, since I got home from work early, I decided to watch Ghost Story. (It’s available on HBO Go.) The movie has a notable cast, with Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman among others — it was the final film role for all of the men, with the lone exception of Houseman — but it’s pretty goofy and not really what I was expecting.

On Saturday morning, I drove with my father to get his car inspected. It meant I had to get up early, on a Saturday — and my attempt to seriously nap upon my return home failed, unfortunately — but he’d done the same for me last month, so it was the least that I could do.

On Saturday afternoon, I finished reading Ben Loory’s collection, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day. I’m not sure there’s any way I can summarize the book, or the experience of reading its off-kilter, sometimes fairy-tale like stories, except to share this tweet (with scan) I made:

It’s a fun but weird book.

On Saturday evening, I watched another movie from 1981, Michael Mann’s Thief. (This one I’d rented from Netflix.) It’s an interesting movie, in that it feels like an artifact from a different time — a time when ’70s movies were becoming ’80s movies — and there’s some good acting in it, particularly from James Caan. But again, I can’t claim to have really loved it. It’s slow and over-stylized — though maybe the latter’s almost a given with Michael Mann — and it just didn’t thrill me.

On Sunday morning, I did the crossword puzzle (somewhat poorly), donated blood — partly inspired, I must admit, by Radiolab’s recent show about the red stuff — and discovered New Girl (it’s also on Netflix). I have, as of this writing, watched eight episodes, a full third of the first season. This is kind of how I like watching sitcoms: in large blocks. I find it’s easier to get emotionally invested with the characters, while ignoring some of the weaknesses that might become more apparent if I had a week to dwell on each episode. It’s how I encountered (and fell for) How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory, and it might explain why I’ve lately fallen out of watching those regularly, now that regularly means something other than watching a half dozen episodes back to back.

On Sunday afternoon, I wrote this:

“That’s me in the photo,” he says. “I’m there with a shovel.”

“And the plastic bucket and flippers,” she says, “I see. Were you at the beach or…?”

“That’s actually the mall,” he says. “One of those photo studio places at the one in Trenton? We went with the Hawaiian getaway theme.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“It was actually that or the landing on Mars. The place was kind of lackluster, didn’t have a lot of backdrops to choose from.”

“Why didn’t you just go to the beach? Wait, does Trenton have a beach?”

“I don’t know. Carol is — was — afraid of water. And planes. And hula dancers. That was the closest we ever got to Oahu.”

“She sounds like a real catch.”

He looks at her for a moment, then lets out a sigh.

“That’s what I used to think, too,” he tells her, shaking his head, “before she blew up the world.”

“Oh,” she answers. “I forgot that was her.”

“I want to say it wasn’t her fault,” he says, “that it could have happened to anybody. But not just anybody’s girlfriend was a mad scientist stockpiling plutonium.”

“That was Carol?”

“That was Carol. I mean, at first it was cute, just one of those little quirks that seem adorable at the start of any relationship. Like the way she’d giggle at movies, not just the funny ones, or the way she’d toy with her hair whenever she got nervous.”

“The way she was afraid of hula dancers?”

“That should have been a warning sign, I guess. Planes, the beach…I mean, those are normal enough phobias. But when you start coming home to robot armies designed to laser to death anything in a grass skirt, you start to worry, you know.”

“I didn’t know you were living with her,” she says. He knows that look.

“Not at her mountain lair, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “I didn’t even know she had a mountain lair. Apparently she bought a hollowed-out volcano during the real estate boom.”

“And that’s where she kept the plutonium?”

“Well, it wasn’t at the apartment. We’d only been moved in together for about six months, but I think I would have noticed plutonium.”

“Six months?” she says. “That sounds serious.”

“She blew up the planet,” he answers. “I’d say she was a pretty serious girl.”

“It’s just, you don’t talk about her that much. I mean, this is the first time I’ve even seen that photograph.”

“I don’t like to be reminded of those days. The moon base doesn’t even have a mall.”

“Well if somebody’s girlfriend had given us all a little more warning she was going to detonate a world-killing plutonium bomb…”

“How did this become my fault?” he asks her. “I don’t want to fight.”

“There isn’t enough air even if you did,” she says. “They’re rationing the oxygen again.”

“That’s like the fifth time this month.”

“They brought in a few hundred new refugees just last week. Folks gotta breathe.”

“God I hope they’re not mutants like the last batch. All those third eyes and blistered skin.” He shudders.

“Well I didn’t see any hula skirts, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says. “Not one single ukulele among them when we did our low-orbit pick-up.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” he tells her. “Besides, that was Carol’s thing, not mine.”

“It’s hard to tell. You two were apparently so close.”

He just stares at her. Neither one of them says anything for a while.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her,” he says finally. “It was a dark time in my life. Trouble at work, the stress of moving in together…the world blowing up. I forgot I even had that photo. If there was enough oxygen left, I probably burn it.”

With my weekly writing group. It’s not really a thing, more a sketch than a story, but I had some fun with it.

And on Sunday evening, I wrote this. That was the weekend.

Saturday

A pretty ordinary day, really. I finished reading The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly, but despite a promising start and some nice detail, I can’t claim to have quite enjoyed the book. Characters act in ways that aren’t always believable — for the time period of the British Raj, but also just for human beings — and the ending solves the mystery in what’s maybe the least interesting of the most predictable ways. Though maybe we’re at a point in mystery novels at which not confounding your expectations itself counts as a twist? Either way, I found the book ultimately a disappointment.

Moving on the Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, just for a complete change of pace.

I also finished watching Fringe, finally. I’ve had the fifth season saved up since it first aired this fall, and I’ve been watching an episode (occasionally two) every evening this week. It’s not a perfect ending, for a show that was never perfect — started out as pretty lousy, actually, before figuring out how to frequently be terrific — but a satisfying one all the same.

I wish I could say the same for Insidious, which I watched last night. It was a lot less scary than I expected, and doesn’t have a whole lot going for it beyond scares.

Finally, this evening I had dinner out with my parents. I had frog legs for the first time — also unimpressive, but maybe more from the way they were prepared — and a decent if unremarkable duck confit. Then my parents went off to see Mary Chapin Carpenter and Marc Cohn in concert and I came home (to watch Fringe and walk the dog). My mom’s a long-time fan of Carpenter, and I bought her tickets this past Mother’s Day.

And that was Saturday, with a little bit of Friday tossed in.