4th of July

I was dragged out of bed at 9 a.m. to go canoeing. Not my first choice of activities. Let's be honest -about the most active I normally get is turning the pages of a book. In Athens, I walk a lot more, because of the hills. And because I don't have anywhere to go that would really necessitate a car (except Wal*Mart, but even that distance is pretty easy to walk). Anyway, you get the idea. I'm a bum. So now my arms and wrists are aching tired, and I feel like something sucked all of the energy out of me. I am not in the best of moods.

Yesterday I hit up the library again. I've discovered that if I decide on a topic, instead of a specific book, I can usually find something. So I got a couple of books by/about Richard Feynman, one by Richard Dawkins (the topic was not men named Richard, just fyi), the book Rebecca and a biography of Colette that I wanted to review (and already have). It was a pretty successful trip, all things considered, although I did finally get busted for using my mom's card instead of my own, which is AWOL. I've been using mom's card since I got home. That is upwards of 12 trips to the library, at least 8 of which involved me actually using the card. This is the first time anyone has noticed it's not her....and the woman who did figure it out isn't someone I know. Creepy.

I'm still reading The Know-It-All, which is the precursor to The Year of Living Biblically, which I adored. Also, A. J. Jacobs and I are now friends on Facebook. He read my review! How small of a world is it? I was so excited I almost passed out. Mom made fun of me. I'm glad it was a positive review... But yeah, expect the KIA review to be delayed a little, since I'm trying to get more diversity of authors in the reviews right now. Admittedly, that sounds shammy when I remember that I'm also writing a review of every single Sookie Stackhouse novel, as well as an overall review (which is linked to above), but those are mostly because I know they'll generate hits. And I can link them to my Twilight review, which has over 100 comments. That amuses me. The comments range from really funny and insightful to really funny and stupid. The threatening ones I delete, despite their amusement value. I just don't think they're appropriate for the page, as much as I'm not intimidated by 13 year old girls threatening me on the internet (or IRL, really. I'm hard to intimidate).

I'm also reading Dawkins' book A Devil's Chaplain which is really interesting so far. It's a collection of essays, and although it's not nearly the polemic that The God Delusion is, I still think Dawkins is a pompous ass. As much as I agree with him (which is to say -most of the time, I think he's mostly right, but I'd still argue with him [and lose, since he's much smarter than I am]), he's a pompous ass and he writes to deliberately piss people off. I can tell, because I do it too. It's fun to get a reaction, even a negative one, from writing. And a topic as controversial as the one on which he normally writes is bound to get some negative responses no matter how gently he words it. He's fun to read, I'll be honest. I like to see how long I can go before something needles me, even if it's something with which I agree. Fun stuff, fun stuff.

There'll be reviews of a bunch of books up this week, and blogs to go with them, same as usual. This weekend I'm trying to get a little bit ahead. I figure if I write a review a day, I'll be in good shape when I go back to school and won't have the leisure to sit on my skinny butt all day and read whatever I want. Of course, I'll also have much more academic writing to put up, which will be fun and high-brow than my usual opinions. Good times.