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So last night I thought of a good topic to write about for today’s post. Walking to work through downtown after getting off the train this morning on my way to work I reminded myself of it, oh yes, that will be good, I thought. Now, when I am home and sit down to actually write it, do I remember what that good topic is? Of course not! If you blog, does this ever happen to you? I hope I eventually remember it or it will drive me just a little more crazy than I already am.

In lieu of what I am certain would have been a stellar post, I give you instead Weird Al Yankovic’s new video Word Crimes. Enjoy.

Just as I am over my no good horrible very bad cold, Bookman has decided it looked like such fun he’d give it a try. Only he has discovered it is no fun at all. Whereas it took me a week to progress from feeling mildly under the weather to feeling bad and two days after that to make it to horrible, he is wasting no time. He began at bad for one day and then moved right to horrible the next. While I am sorry he is ill and has a dreadfully sore throat and no voice, I must admit it is refreshing to be able to babble on and not be interrupted. It’s marvelous to be able to babble at all. Bookman is quite the yakker and it is often difficult for me to get a word in. But now, now he can do nothing but listen. Granted, he is zonked out on cold medicine so I might as well be talking to a wall, but since the wall looks remarkably like Bookman, I can delight in being The Voice in the House.

It is also a good thing Bookman hasn’t been very hungry. While this girl can make a production in the kitchen for Solstice, when it comes to every day cooking, she is a fish out of water. Canned soup is a blessing. So is cereal. In two moments of lucidity Bookman did manage to make waffles for breakfast today and pizza for lunch, but I think it was because he was desperate for something besides cereal and soup.

Between his naps this weekend he managed to read Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel. Through gesturing, he assures me it is funny and he laughed a lot even if it wasn’t out loud because his throat hurt too much. He decided to read the book because he needed something light and because he found out it is coming out as movie in November of this year. He has now passed the book over to me and indicated I had to read it as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, I am in the middle of too many other books to start that one at the moment. One of the downsides of having as many books on the go at once as I do is sometimes I find myself in the middle of all of them and nowhere near the end of any of them. While I don’t read in order to check books off a list or tot up the numbers, there is a certain satisfaction in finishing a book. When I find myself stuck in the middle of everything I am reading I get a bit of the doldrums. There is no excitement of starting something new and no pleasure in completion. This doesn’t happen very often, thank goodness, but when it does it is a bit of a downer even when I am enjoying what I am in the middle of. The book I am closest to finishing is The Canon by Natalie Angier and I still have about 150 or so pages until the end. I am liking it very much but hope to have it done by the end of the week or sooner.

Other things I read this weekend include the novel Testing the Current by William McPherson which is all kinds of good but slow reading. And I read some of How We Became Posthuman by N. Katherine Hayles. That book too requires slow and careful reading because it’s a thinking sort of book. I also read some good essays and reviews in both the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. On these both I am woefully behind the rate of their arrival. I was all caught up at the beginning of the year but have now slipped so I am two issues behind the current one for them both. I’m feeling like I need a nice long vacation just to catch up on my reading! I have to remember to buy a lottery ticket once it gets up to an obscene jackpot amount. If you recall, one of goals for 2013 is to win the lottery so I can quit my job and read all the time. I am aiming to achieve this in early April for the best birthday present ever. Don’t scoff. It could happen.

Ok, I have to cut the rambling short this evening. I need to go make myself a lunch for tomorrow because I can’t count on Bookman being able to make it for me in the morning. Then I have to set the coffee pot timer and generally get all my ducks in a row so I can get out the door on time sans assistance. After that I should be able to read for a bit before going to sleep.

As the famous line goes, “spring waits for no one.” Okay maybe it is time and not spring but if you measure time in seasons it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? All this to say I’ve spent a good portion of my day out in the garden clearing away the dregs of winter. I got a lot done but there is still much to do.

Nonetheless, by this evening the crocuses I had found valiantly trying to bloom beneath the winter mulch were perky and bright with their purple flowers opening up to the sunlight. My pussytoes are beginning to send up little white furry buds and my pasque flowers are unfurling their ferny leaves. The tulips are about six inches tall and soon will be sending up buds. Th peony is also emerging from sleep and poking up from the ground. I expect if the weather stays as mild as this (62F, 17C) I’ll have big gorgeous pink peony flowers by the end of April instead of the end of May.

I had not planned on spending most of my day outdoors in the garden, only a little of it. But after I got going it was hard to stop. That and the thought of not finishing cleaning up the flower beds in the front yard and leaving fresh green shoots trapped beneath soggy leaves made me feel guilty. I don’t have the energy to do much in the garden during the week after work so the poor plants wouldn’t have gotten any attention until next weekend. Couldn’t have that.

As it is, I haven’t gotten to any of the flower beds in the backyard yet. I noticed one of my clematis is already greening up and my climbing rose has small leaves on it too. The honeysuckle also has leaf buds on it. Crazy because it is a month early for this to be starting.

Even with the warm winter I didn’t expect spring to arrive so soon. Living in a cold climate (zone 4 for you gardening buffs), I find the first half of winter to be a wonderful time for relaxing and recovering from the busy gardening season. By the start of January I am already thinking about what I might like to plant in the spring. By early February after winter has done its worst and the days are getting noticeably longer, I begin yearning for spring (forgetting completely about the allergies that will also sprout up). And yet, year after year as spring draws nearer and I am anticipating the ground thawing and getting out to clean up, I am always taken by surprise when the warm days arrive. I was so surprised by spring this year it took a whole week of gradually worsening allergy symptoms before I realized what was going on. I heartily thank the medical establishment for the invention of truly non-drowsy antihistamines and antihistamine eye drops. I would not be able to bear spring or later summer without them.

Enough of my garden rambling for one day. I will endeavor to have something appropriately bookish for you tomorrow.

Did you know that Lisa Yee ( the of fantastic books like Warp Speed, Good Jon Kanani and Millicent Min, Girl Genius) and schedule to be at this year’s Virginia Hamilton Conference…that same Lisa Yee also used to write The West Wing? The show ran on NBC from 1999 to 2006.

I mention this because I recently finished watching the West Wing on DVD and noted some very interesting co-incidences. If you watched the show, you may remember that in the last season Jimmy Smits was the first Latino to run for president. The following happened during his campaign and his subsequent election.

• Smit’s character was a young, revolutionary campaigner
• Leo McGarry, a much older, White statesman, was selected to be his running mate.
• During one of the debates between Smit’s character and his opponent, someone in the crowd yelled “Liar!”
• Smit’s first term was going to be burdened by his predecessor’s actions which got the country involved in a war between India and China.
• Smit, a Democrat, chose several Republicans for key offices in his presidency.
• While campaign, Smit avoided issues dealing with his ethnicity

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

I’ve got a vacation coming up from the 21st through January 1st and I keep finding myself in slow moments throughout the day thinking about what I might read during my end of year reading binge opportunity. I’ve got lots of books in progress and lots of books waiting in the wings. And since I work in a library it is so easy to request books on the spur of the moment. Like I did yesterday. Now, added to my possible binge pile is Nothing: A Very Short Introduction by Frank Close. I found out about the book from the Millions Year in Reading columns. It really is short, only 145 pages. Trouble is, it is one of many in an Oxford University Press series of short introductions to subjects. There is a list of some of the titles in the book and a note that there are, as of 2009 when this book was published, over 200 books in the series. Oxford UP knows readers because I was drooling over several titles and came this close to requesting them from the library before I regained control.

Another library book that recently arrived is Craig Thompson’s Habibi. I’ve been on the wait list for this one for two months. It will be read before my vacation most likely.

Since I was looking for books, I put myself on the e-book wait list for Brian Greene’s latest, Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. The e-book wait list was shorter than the print list. I almost got in line for the e-book of Moonwalking with Einstein as well but figured that with my luck they’d both arrive at the same time and I am already getting close to the front of the line on some print books I have requests for. Balancing all this can be quite a challenge, can’t it?

I realized the other day that all the books I am actively reading at the moment are nonfiction – a biography on Margaret Fuller, essays and lectures. I was surprised when I realized this and thought I should start a novel right away. But when it came to it I picked up one of the essay books to read. I worried about it a little off and on today and when I got home from work this evening I decided to stop worrying. If I am not in the mood for a novel there is no sense in forcing myself into one. I am sure before long I will be deep into several novels. Still, it’s kind of weird to not be reading a novel at the moment. I don’t recall that ever happening before.

Apologies for the unfocused ramble this evening. I had intended to write about Howards End is on the Landing but couldn’t bring my brain around to it. To compensate, here are instructions on how to build a hidden door bookshelf. I’ve got a place for one, not sure we have the tools and abilities needed to actually pull it off. If Bookman and I manage it though, you all will be the first to hear about it.