"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
I didn’t do too much today. I went for a walk, I read some, and I watched both Craig Ferguson: A Wee Bit o’ Revolution (amusing, if short, reminiscent of Ferguson’s autobiography, American on Purpose) and Crazy Heart (not exactly remarkable, but both Jeff Bridges and the music are great). And somehow that managed to fill a day. Don’t ask me how, I just work here.
Today is Friday. Yep, no doubt about that.
It was a quick week, all things considered, and I keep finding it tough to believe that it’s almost the end of May already. Somewhere, maybe in the week my mom was sick with pneumonia — she’s back at work and feeling better, by the way — I think I lost a couple of days.
I’m taking one of them back on Monday, taking an impromptu three-day weekend. It’s mostly because I have the days and not a whole lot to do with them. (I’m still mulling over the idea of an honest to goodness vacation before the end of the year.) And it may seem a little silly, but the day off will give me a chance to watch the series finale of Lost, which I probably won’t get a chance to watch live on Sunday.
Tonight, I watched the series finale of House, and I just don’t know. I think if the show didn’t have an actor as strong as Hugh Laurie at its center, it would just fall apart. Zach Handlen neatly sums up pretty much everything I felt about the episode, and he does so remarkably well. This part contains a pretty huge spoiler for the episode, so be forewarned. I just think it’s some great and insightful writing:
The truth is, that’s how it works. The benefit we get from decency isn’t something that can be demonstrated by flat algebra. It isn’t a barter system. Having Cuddy show up at the end is too easy, because it’s what we all want when we’re alone and afraid and miserable. We want the person we love but can’t have to show up at our door and change everything, and that’s not how life works, and we deserve better than to be lied to by shows like this that pretend to dig deeper.
You know what else had some really great writing? Last night’s season finale of Community. “Do you try to evolve, or do you try to know what you are?” I’m just saying.
You know how I said yesterday was pretty much just a repeat of the day before? Well, ditto for Thursday. It wasn’t identical to yesterday, or the day before, but there also wasn’t a whole lot to distinguish it. I’m just glad — a little amazed, actually, but glad — that tomorrow is Friday.
A cold, rainy day here in New York, and not a whole lot to report. I started reading Fifth Business by Robertson Davies this morning, but I’m really not far enough along in it to have formed an opinion. I like it so far, though, and it comes well recommended, so we’ll see. It seemed sufficiently different from the last book I read.
But beyond that? Just cold and rainy.
Today’s Forgotten English calendar page is fun, though, offering “an excellent way to get a fairy” (at least according to a late 1600s manuscript in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum). It suggests that one
…get a broad, square crystal, in length and breadth three inches, and lay it in the blood of a hen three Wednesdays or three Fridays. Then take it out and wash it in Holy Water and fumigate it. Then take three hazel rods of a year’s growth, peel them fair and white, and write the fairy’s name (which you call three times) on every stick being made flat one side. Then bury them under some hill whereas you suppose fairies haunt the Wednesday before you call her; and the Friday following, call her three times at eight, or three, or ten of the clock. But when you call, be in Clean Life and turn thy face towards the east; and when you have her, bind her in that crystal.
Is that all? Well, tomorrow’s Wednesday, so I better get cracking!
Back to work today, for a pretty typical Monday. I got into the office slightly later than expected when I missed my morning train. I was running a little late already, but then I got halfway down the block when I realized I had forgotten my wallet. I doubled back, but that meant that I wouldn’t be on the 8:15 train.
And that’s about the height of the excitement for today.
I did have a slightly weird experience when a potential reviewer, who I’d e-mailed earlier that day about an art therapy proposal sitting on my desk, asked if it was me who had posted something to Twitter that morning. This, specifically. I’d had at least two art therapists in quick succession turn down doing reviews, or I’d had e-mails bounce back from them, because they were on sabbatical. This reviewer found my post by searching for art therapy news, which she does regularly, and she thought it was funny enough to ask me about it. I don’t actively hide my weblog or Twitterings from co-workers and people I work with outside the office, but it is a little odd when they find them on their own.
The only other thing I really did today was finish reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It was okay. My opinion of it largely matches up with Betty’s, I think, namely that there’s stuff to like about the book, and the title character is certainly interesting, but it really does not live up to the hype. I think it’s incredible success is due to a number of things not entirely related to the contents of the book. It hits upon some current hot-button topics, like financial crime and faltering economies, and marries that to a procedural crime novel. The fact that it’s a translation lends it a bit of mystique and prestige, at least here in the US, as does the fact that it (along with its two sequels) were released posthumously. Again, the book itself has its fair share of moments, but I found long stretches of it slightly boring and thought some characters could have been easily excised. Its incredible success is also a little baffling.
Oh, and for those of you wondering about my mom, she’s feeling a lot better. She was up and around for the first time over the weekend, and she’s got the all-clear from her doctor. She’s still tired and not too hungry, but the worst of the pneumonia seems to be past. Thanks for the well-wishes, all!