Archive
Friday Fun! (Spring!)
Hello my lovely readers! Spring has finally started to show up in New England! Spring is always a conflicted time for me. I love the warm weather and appearance of new life, don’t get me wrong. I also, however, am seriously allergic to spring. Even with meds, I still have to limit my time outside. So even while I want to go out and run along the Charles River path and be completely ridiculous, I can’t really. Well, unless I want to spend the entire next day in bed wheezing for air. So my days in the spring pretty much consist of, “Yay! It’s 60 out! I could go for a nice long walk……wait. No. No I can’t.” So spring is a bit of a Catch-22 for me.
On the plus side, now I get to plan my container garden! Last year was my first year, and I learned a lot. “Learned a lot” means that I only successfully grew one plant. However! Here’s hoping that this year I will be able to apply what I learned and get at least two successful plants. Maybe even four. Mhm. I’m thinking of trying a pepper, a tomato, a zucchini, and some sort of bean. I want to see climbing things in my kitchen! So pretty! Hopefully the cat will leave the plants alone. She’s periodically good and periodically bad. Just like a person. ;-)
Other than that, life continues on as usual. I have some of the most awesome friends in the world who I see as much as possible. I’m getting in my gym time and ever improving the quality of what I eat. I feel healthier every day and every week is a new adventure. Of course, I’m also consistently reading. My first passion in life. Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (I’m Being Boring Lately So Here’s Some Wishlist Highlights)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks went well. Last weekend I went to a collegiate hockey game with a friend. It was crazy fun and full of adorable 10 year old boys in Bruins jerseys rooting for BC. It also was surprisingly warm for a building housing an ice skating rink. That could be the Vermonter in me talking though. I also hung out with one of my friends and watched trashy horror movies.
Other than that, my week has been quite normal. Well. Aside from having finally done my taxes and seeing I get moneys back for having been in graduate school last year and also being poor. Yay! I suddenly feel totally justified in getting my Xbox Kinect. So. Since I’m being an epically boring vegetarian librarian alternating between reading a shit-ton, weight lifting and doing chin-ups at the gym, and watching mini-marathons of Teen Mom 2 (for the schadenfreude aspect), I think today I’ll give you all a glance at some books on my wishlist. (Ok, some of them have yet to make it onto my LibraryThing wishlist, but they’re on my wishlist in my head, ok?!) I will probably not be able to afford them anytime soon or justify buying them since I currently have a pile of 79 physical books to read in my tiny apartment. *shuffles feet* Anywho. Here we go.
- Meat is for Pussies by John Joseph
This is marketed as a going vegan book for men written by a vegan male martial arts fighter. It’s supposed to blow the myth of being a male vegan equating being weak and/or not masculine out of the water. Since it’s a perpetual problem that veg*nism has a hard time appealing to the men of humanity, I’m very curious to check this out. - Supermarket Vegan: 225 Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes for Real People in the Real World
by Donna Klein
Fact: I am poor. Further Fact: I don’t have a car. Even Further Fact: The nearest grocery store to me is crazy cheap and mainstream so it’s not always easy for me to find obscure ingredients often listed in vegan recipes. (I do take the time to order vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast in bulk from Amazon though. That shit is awesome). Anyway, I’m very intrigued by the concept of this book. I hope the recipes are creative and not just like “pasta, veggies, rice, have fun.” We’ll see! - Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry
by Liana Krissoff
This comes across to me as the Stitch n Bitch for canning. I’m very intrigued by canning but am put-off by how old-fashioned most of the recipes and methods in the cookbooks are. Why am I into canning you ask? Hey. Ya’ll know how into local food and preparing for the zombie apocalypse I am. - Dead in the Family
by Charlaine Harris
Ok, so I could own this already, but I own the previous books in the Sookie Stackhouse series in mass market paperback, and the SERIES MUST MATCH. Also, I can’t suddenly switch to ebooks for the series at this point in the game, but I would if I could. - Handling the Undead
by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Besides having the most difficult to spell name of any author on this list, Lindqvist also wrote Let the Right One In, which I think is a wonderful twist on/addition to vampire lore. I can’t wait to see what he does to zombies. - The Loving Dead
by Amelia Beamer
All you need to know about this book is that the zombie plague is an STD in it. AN STD. MUST READ. - Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?
by Max Brallier
I was completely obsessed with Choose Your Own Adventure (CYA) stories when I was a kid, even the craptastic fundy Christian ones my parental units made me read. This is a CYA set in the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. It’s like a zombie videogame. Only it’s a book. COVET - The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms
by Helen Merrick
I’m just obsessed with feminist scifi and any study of or collection of feminist scifi I’ve read in the past has been motherfucking awesome. Can’t wait to see what new authors and stories I’ll discover through this book.
There’s your glimpse at my wishlist! Hope you enjoyed! Hopefully I’ll have more real life stories for you next week. Also I’m just noticing that this is an interesting mix of zombies, sex, feminism, and veg*ism. Huh. I’m *coughs* a unique one, eh?
Friday Fun! (Post Grad School)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks have been lovely with lots of time for reading crammed in. My week has been decidedly uneventful, which I am totally ok with after the insane eventfulness of the last 6 months or so. I’m settled into a post-grad school routine of work, friends, gym, cooking, professional job hunting, etc… It’s great to actually have the time to see my friends more often now than when I was in school. We’re managing to find fun ways to occupy our time in spite of the bitter cold, whether that’s Asian fusion food or hockey games. (Go BC kick UNH’s ASS). In fact, I’m so busy doing fun things that by the time I get home at night, I generally grab a quick snack or dinner then climb into bed to read and fall asleep doing so. I woke up with my glasses still on this morning. Luckily I was reading on my ipod so it turned itself off at some point in the night so no electricity was wasted. This does mean that I’m watching far fewer movies, except for when I have friends over to get drunk and watch trashy old horror movies together. ;-) Of course there are the normal post-grad school money worries and the stress of trying to fit everything in to your work week, not to mention actually making the time to wash your laundry so you have clean clothes to wear, but overall, life is good. *looks around* *knocks on wood*
Oh! I also got an xbox 360 and played a Kinect game for the first time and dudes. It is so fucking cool. The future of gaming if I do say so myself. Playing a game with your body and no controls? It’s like something out of a fucking scifi movie. The only annoying part is having to move my furniture every time I play.
There’s really not too much else to say right now. I’m striving for various goals, but I plan on only updating ya’ll on them once I’ve achieved them. I prefer not to jinx myself. ;-) In the meantime, I hope to keep encouraging everyone’s love of reading and story-telling. Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Soup Season)
Hello my lovely readers! It’s alternating between a pleasant 40-something degrees and so fucking damn cold that you just want to curl up under your pile of blankets and stay there forever. This clearly means that it is soup making season.
The great thing about soups is not only do they warm you up, but they also actually taste better when reheated than the first time around. Plus when you make a huge pot, there’s enough for dinner, lunch the next day, and some leftover to freeze for a busy evening later in the month. As such, I’ve been making soups non-stop yo.
I have a plethora of options for actual soup recipes, as opposed to what I did in previous winters which was dump boullion, veggies, and pasta or rice in water and call it good enough. No, no. Now I’m making such things as Thai Butternut Squash and Lime Soup or Kale Potato Soup or Root Veggies Red Lentil Dal. It’s divine. It’s awesome. It’s healthy. It’s one of the pluses to cold weather. I mean, seriously, I can’t imagine downing that dal in 90 degree heat. Just would not work.
Of course, when the soup doesn’t cut it to warm you up, gin always also helps. (Yes, I know technically it thins your blood so you get colder, but you still *feel* warmer, and that’s the point, isn’t it?)
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Amanda Joins the Gym)
Hello my lovely readers! February is upon us, which in this part of the world means the battle with the winter blues. It’s cold. It’s icy. It’s snowy. It takes extra effort to go anywhere or do anything. It’s dark a lot of the day. And of course there’s Valentine’s Day, which if you’re unattached is basically the haha sucks to be you of holidays. However! I am determined not to let the winter blues get me down. In light of that, as well as recent changes in my life including being single and finishing grad school, I decided to join a gym.
A couple of years ago, I was in great shape. I miss being in that great shape, not because I’m obsessed with looks (swear), but because I like feeling like I can depend on my body, particularly in the event of a zombie apocalypse. What can I say. I was raised Baptist. They like talking about apocalypses, and I’m always slightly paranoid about them. You know how one of the Zombieland rules is cardio? I’d fail that rule right now. So I went into a local women only gym and informed them that I want to regain that inner strength I used to have. Originally the plan was to just take care of getting back in shape myself, but I got two free sessions with a personal trainer for registering with the gym. You guys. Personal trainers are officially amazing.
The woman I was randomly assigned is incredibly cool and supportive. I talked to her about my specific issues (asthma, heart disease running incredibly strong in my family), and she reassured me that I’m still young enough I can fight back and regain that body confidence I miss. She’s mad cool, you guys. Her body image ideas are very similar to mine. She talked about “skinny fat” girls who just burn calories but actually have a high body fat percentage aka no muscle. Also, she teaches Irish stick fighting and invited me to join her next group, which I SO am. I mean, what better way to prep for the zombie apocalypse, eh?
I’m really excited to get back to being the strong, healthy woman I know I am inside. My mood has already drastically improved, and I’ve only been a member of the gym for one week! Plus, it has a steam room, and nothing sounds nicer to a freezing Bostonian than a room full of steam.
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (The Long Winter)
I keep thinking this week about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Book The Long Winter
Basically, in this entry in the Little House series of books, Laura’s pioneer family faces one of the worst winters ever. Excruciating detail about the cold, the food, the clothes, and more go into the tale of how they managed to just barely survive that winter. I’ll never forget the passage in which they hang their wet clothes out to freeze as a close approximation to drying. Winter is just something northerners have always had to deal with. I remind myself that at least I have a lot more entertainment and warmth than Laura did, but Laura also could just stay in the house all winter. I have to go out and get to work. Hibernation is just not an option. Not to mention that it’d get lonely after a little while.
But there’s something comforting in reading about other people facing winter when you’re in the throes of it yourself. I know some people like to read books set in the tropics in the winter, but personally I’ll always reach for tales of freezing cold and survival against all odds. There’s a sort of camaraderie to it that only other northerners understand.
Happy weekend all!
Friday Fun! (MIT Mystery Hunt)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry I missed Friday Fun last week. Since nothing that exciting happened last weekend or this week, I thought I’d tell you about the MIT Mystery Hunt I participated in the weekend before. That was the original plan for last week’s Friday Fun anyway. ;-)
Team Unicorn friends Jeremy and Amy invited me to participate in their team in this year’s MIT Mystery Hunt. Basically, every January a bunch of groups of nerdy people get together and solve a series of mystery puzzles in a competition to win the coin and the hunt. That winning team then wins the privilege of designing the next year’s puzzle. It lasts from Friday mid-day to sometime on Sunday. I was pretty nervous going in, because I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Also I’d heard the people who participate are brilliant, and while I consider myself to be intelligent, I never claimed to be a genius. ;-) Plus, the teams are fairly large (I think there are 30ish members? Correct me if I’m wrong, Amy and Jeremy), and I only knew two team members going in….so yeah. I was nervous. But I was also excited!
I arrived after work on Friday and walked into a room full of tables of groups of people crowded around their laptops, as well as a few people at chalkboards and a table of food in the corner. I delayered from coming in from outside, tossed my bag of chips onto the communal pile, and kind of hesitated for a second. A gal I didn’t know immediately started talking to me and invited me to join the puzzle she and a couple of other gals were working on. It turned out that the puzzle had to do with musicals, and well, none of them knew much about musicals. You guys. Musicals have been my forte since I was 5 years old. So I jumped right in and started learning how the puzzling goes about.
A burrito run, some chit-chat, and some solving later, and I found myself totally engrossed in the world of puzzling. Not only were the puzzles really challenging, but the way they’re designed you need a group of people to work on them. A combination of everyone’s strengths. It naturally leads to group work in a way I never experienced in the classroom. Plus, everyone I met on the team was super-nice, friendly, and welcoming. They were funny and fun to hang out with. Shortly I found myself talking off-topic with one of the gals and found out we live in the same general area of Boston. We hit it right off discussing zombies and True Blood, and I felt right at home. I wound up showing up for each day of the puzzling, even though at first I wasn’t sure if I’d like it enough to. I also may have ordered a team tshirt and promised to come next year as well. ;-)
It was a real blast, and I encourage any nerds to participate. You can participate from a distance via internet connection if you want, so you don’t have to be local to play. Thanks a bunch, Amy and Jeremy, for encouraging me to come play! It was one of my best weekends I’ve had in Boston.
Friday Fun! (Thoughts on Community and Environment)
Hello my lovely readers! Boston got hit with yet another blizzard, although the real record-breaker was that 49 of the 50 states had snow on the same day (including Hawaii). The one without? Florida. I spent my Wednesday morning shoveling about a foot and a half of snow off of my building’s steps and sidewalk. Another member of the building did the afternoon shoveling. It was actually really lovely getting a workout in outside in the snow while listening to an audiobook on my iPod. :-) Of course, the afternoon was spent alternating between reading and craft projects.
My friends Nina and E and I have been spending a lot of time lately discussing big questions. Maybe it’s because we all went to Brandeis where you were more likely to find huge groups of people discussing existential questions than playing Beirut. Maybe it’s just the kind of people we are. Anyway. Nina is currently on a kibbutz in Israel, and she emailed me asking me what I think makes a community. I know a lot of people believe it’s your family or your religion or nationality or who lives in proximity to you, but that’s not how I make my community. I think the ideal community is a group of people who happen to meet in whatever way and who love and support each other unconditionally. You should be able to trust your community to support you and be there for you no matter how you fuck up or what choices you make. I’m incredibly grateful to have found that with my current groups of friends. It’s not an easy thing to find, but I think it’s what works. I’m a big proponent of creating your own family and often talk with various friends about how awesome it would be to one day all live together on a big plot of land. A gal can dream, can’t she?
Meanwhile, E and I have been discussing the environment a lot. I’ve always considered myself a bit of an environmentalist, but I’m continually moving even further in that direction. To put it bluntly, the earth doesn’t belong to humans. The earth is its own thing, and if we don’t straighten up, we’re gonna kill ourselves off. You think the earth cares if we die? Nope. The earth will keep on doing its thing and other creatures will take over. Kind of like how we took over from the dinosaurs. Still though. The earth isn’t our. It belongs to all creatures, and it honestly disgusts me the way humans have been ruining it, not only for future generations, but for current creatures of other species. So what is a gal to do? How can I function within modern society and make the least impact? As I become increasingly aware, I strive every day to make less impact to the best of my abilities. I keep my heat turned down incredibly low not just for my electric bill, but to make less of an impact on earth. I’m a vegetarian and am striving to slowly cut down and maybe eventually eliminate dairy from my diet. I’ve already decided that I’d rather adopt than have children of my own. Yet every week when I bring out my recycling, I’m shocked that one person has created so much waste. It’s mind-boggling.
I guess being out of grad school has given me more time to contemplate these core values. Community. Environmentalism. Maybe I’m still a bit more idealistic than I thought I was. I thought I’d entirely reverted to pessimism and giving up on idealism, but that may not be the case after all.
Friday Fun! (Creepy Sprouts Guy Update)
Hello my lovely readers! It’s been a long week for me what with being sick and all. I’m afraid I’ve been rather dull this week, so I thought why not update you all on Creepy Sprouts Guy?
I got on the bus a morning about a week or so ago and was floored to see Creepy Sprouts Guy sitting in one of the two-person seats and not eating sprouts. I know. Shocker, right? He was instead eating pine nuts. At least, they looked like pine nuts. Personally, I think that’s kind of an expensive breakfast, but whatever.
I carefully situated myself in one of the sideways-facing seats for optimal viewing. Would someone sit next to Creepy Sprouts Guy now that he was eating pine nuts? What’s creeping people out about him? Him or the sprouts? Well, sure enough, two stops later a 20-something, most likely grad student, woman plopped in the seat next to him. Creepy Sprouts Guy responded by giving her a look of shock and horror that I’ve only seen replicated in zombie movies when a non-zombie sees a zombie flailing itself at the window.
How DARE someone sit next to Creepy Sprouts Guy?!
Jesus, it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.
The next day, Creepy Sprouts Guy was back to eating sprouts and being left alone.
People, the mystery has been solved! Creepy Sprouts Guy eats sprouts to get a seat alone on the bus.
Friday Fun! (Reflections and Looking Forward)
Hello my lovely readers! Today is the last day of 2010, and it feels to me like it just flew by, in spite of everything that happened during it.
As far as this blog goes, 2010 was my first full year of blogging. I really think I’ve solidified what I want my blog to be and look like this year. My layout and sidebars really reflect who I am, and I think I’ve finally got a solid style going for my reviews as well as weekly schedules. I hope you guys think so too! In 2011, I’m hosting my first reading challenge (sign up here!) and now that I’m out of grad school, I expect my non-review posts to be slightly less librarianship focused. But you never know.
On a personal note, 2010 was the first year I lived entirely in one place since I was 15 years old. It’s been kind of amazing, and I’m loving having the feeling of having roots somewhere. As my first full year living in Boston, I’ve been able to fully experience all the thrills of living in such a historic, academic city. I enjoy every aspect of it–even the ones I complain about. I love it that I can eat any variety of foods pretty much anytime I want. I can’t get over the fact that I can get a veggie burger at pretty much every single pub. I learned how to ride my bike in city traffic and experienced the joy of riding to the park to spend the day on the grass reading while others read, toss a football around, or play volleyball, and cap the day off with a walk to get some bubble tea. I discovered local independent bookstores and their fabulous used book basements that have killed my tbr pile. I went to a free Dharma and meditation session for the first time and found out how awesome it is to be quiet in a roomful of people. I’ve had the bonding experience of struggling with public transit on rainy days and in blizzards. A recent immigrant who barely spoke English once shared her umbrella with me when waiting for the bus, and it was the highlight of my day. I tried container gardening for the first time and encountered the community of urban environmentalists. So many new experiences in so little time.
This year also saw the end of my first real relationship. It’s been sad and a struggle for me, but I view the entire relationship from beginning to end to now as a wonderful experience, and I wouldn’t undo it for anything in the world. My only regrets are some of the mistakes I made, but how else can we grow and learn? Now that I know what a relationship *can* be, I’m working on being ok being alone until the next one comes along.
This year also saw me complete my Masters of Library and Information Science! The last two weeks have been the first time since I was….what? Four years old? That I haven’t been a student. I’m thoroughly enjoying having time to myself to do more of what I’d like to do. I’m nervous about the next step of my career–hunting for a higher paying job with the blessings of my current employer–, but I’m also thrilled to see where I end up. Part of me still can’t believe that I’m a white collar, highly educated, young professional living in a city. Someone pinch me!
I also hope in 2011 to really get down to business with my writing. I want to finish at least one novel, hopefully two, and start shopping them around to publishers. I have faith in my writing, and it’s time to start acting on it.
Don’t worry; this blog won’t suffer. It’s so closely tied to my favorite hobby of reading that I have a hard time imagining ever not blogging again. I’m looking forward to 2011. I’m eager. I will strive for my goals and take everything life throws at me. Anytime I start to struggle or feel down, I just remember how shocked and proud 14 year old me would be of 24 year old me, and I smile. I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings. Everything is a learning experience, and I truly feel that I am beating down more and more demons as I get older. Bring it on, 2011. I’m ready, and I’m not afraid.
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 