Here is the book haul from the holidays:

I want to read more of Tracy Chevalier's books, so I asked for and got The Virgin Blue and Burning Bright. I feel terrible that I have not kept up with her work, so now's my chance to catch up!

When I first saw this book last year, I thought, "Oh! I wish I'd written that!" What a perfect topic. Sentence diagramming! My husband never learned diagramming in school, but I remember fondly many a fifth-grade afternoon drawing lines on the blackboard. The book is good so far. It's nice to learn the history of it and see the structures again.

My aunt and uncle sent this book to me, knowing that I enjoy reading of the Nicholas II family history. These are stories told to the children by the Imperial family's physician's son. The illustrations are wonderful, and I'm sure the stories are fun.

It may seem strange, but I think this is my favorite book of them all this year. I love apples! I've picked them in the orchards of a manor by the Hudson River, I've canned jars of homemade applesauce in my mother's kitchen, the only thing I eat at McDonald's is their fruit and walnut salad (apples, nuts, and yogurt! rather good!), and the only way I can swallow a pill is to bury it in thick applesauce and pray it goes down. This book has beautiful illustrations of apples, one to a page. My plan is to eat one of each kind in here and note the date and my observations. I feel like Darwin!!

I make myself sick, I really do. I sit and "put the sad face on" (as we say around here) and feed myself falsities and feel sorry for myself and covet material things ... terrible, terrible. It takes reading an article like this to set me straight ... again. I hope it lasts this time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/nyregion/28neediest.html

No, I have NOT been spending tons of time editing during this holiday. I am actually taking a break for the seasonal festivities. Here's what I have been doing ...

Actually, I think we have all been partying a bit too hard!

My good friend sent this card to me, and I think it's hilarious. I don't care how many of these I see ... this whole your-head-in-the-animated-body thing is great!!

We got a holiday card from a friend today, and it wins the Best Comment in the Card Award this year:

"Here's to a happy, safe, and prosperous 2008! Oh -- and an honest election, if possible."

The incandescent light bulb, one of the most venerable inventions of its era but deemed too inefficient for our own, will be phased off the U.S. market beginning in 2012 under the new energy law just approved by Congress.

Consumers are rightly concerned about the toxic substance mercury that helps the compact fluorescent produce light. Even though the amount sealed in each bulb is small--one old-fashioned thermometer had about 100 times as much mercury--contact local trash collection for disposal instructions. Environmentalists agree that more work must be done on bulb recycling programs. Right now, you can return any CFL to any Ikea store for recycling.

These bulbs must be handled with caution. Using a drop cloth might be a good new routine to develop when screwing in a light bulb, to make the clean-up of any breaks easier.

Yeah, okay, I'll just get out my handy drop cloth, lift the lamp, throw it over my end table, put down the lamp, and proceed. I'm certainly not against the new bulb plan but come on. If I have to put down a drop cloth to change a light bulb, perhaps we haven't developed the right new bulb yet???

Of course I miss the gang from my previous job, but more specifically I miss the rituals I anticipated and relied on every year. One of these yearly events was when E would play his Dan Fogelberg CD in the department for the first time, the starting gun to usher autumn in officially. For whatever reason, Dan Fogelberg’s music rang most true for us in the fall. E knew I loved Dan Fogelberg, and I knew he loved Dan Fogelberg, and there it was.

I read today that Dan passed away at age 56, much much too young. “Longer” will always be one of the best love songs ever, and “Same Old Lang Syne” is exactly what a storytelling song should be. The chorus of “Part of the Plan” got me through many a sad time. He had a voice you instantly fell in love with.

Here's a great post from Susan remembering Dan.

Wish I could have said this in person, but thanks, Dan, for everything. E, I hope you played his CD today!! The Greatest Hits is on my player right now.

Just found out the choral group my mom is in will be featured for the semi-finals of a Holiday Moments segment on the new show Clash of the Choirs. Pretty cool. I didn't even know this show was coming.

I'm just waiting for something like "Prevailing Poet" or "American Bard" and I'm in!!

YEA! Today I finished both of my editing projects that were due. The monster huge one (see post below) was a couple days late, but I did get it done this week! Whew. I only had to stay up until 2:30 a.m. a few times.

I feel like I should get an award for working so hard to finish everything! What do I win??

Oh crap.

Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist

“It’s natural for people to want to be perfect in a few things, say in their job — being a good editor or surgeon depends on not making mistakes,” said Gordon L. Flett, a psychology professor at York University and an author of many of the studies. “It’s when it generalizes to other areas of life, home life, appearance, hobbies, that you begin to see real problems.”

Trying desperately to catch up on this huge project and I came across a cited author whose name is King, and that reminded me that I wanted to say ...

This new series of Burger King commercials with the women who want to knock off the King is rather tasteless (*ahem*) and totally inappropriate these days, I think. It actually bothers me to the point that I now flip the channel (and it takes a bit to get me motivated to move after working 11 hours straight).

I typically have a soft spot for BK, as it was the first real fast-food place that came in when I was growing up, and the chicken sandwich was rather good, but their ad company should pack its bags. These commercials are not funny (although the one actress has amusing facial expressions when she shouts at him in frustration); with instances of children plotting to take out teachers and schoolmates and with a war going on and with all the death surrounding us on a regular basis, isn't there enough evil in the world without trying to make a hit seem like a good marketing springboard?

I am pretty open but this is just too much for even me. Yeah, I know ... "oh it's just a commercial ..." But it's not just that. Commercials, and all media in some way, reflect our lives, our world, our psyche, and it's sad to me that people find this particular message/undertone/idea amusing.

Although I have not read it completely, Television II: Television Commercials looks like an interesting paper that discusses this idea (and there is a nice article by Bruce Campbell on some of these ideas also)

I put "burger king commercial hitman" into a search engine, and for every comment from someone who agrees with me, there is a comment that another finds the commercials funny. Obviously the management at BK thinks they are funny too.

*sigh*