specialagency.net

In which I engage in other interests.

The long Midwestern sojourn has finally ended--I lie, you know. It wasn't long, it was only a week, and a very pleasant week at that. I got a lot of good research done, I spent time with good friends in two different states (both cold and Midwestern), drank about a liter of Spatenbrau at the Schnitzel Platz with my mother's brother and his family, that kind of thing. I spent two hours sewing pillows for my cousin Karin's flag team (and, may I add, I was pleased to find that I've still got a decent backstitch despite it being fourteen years since my last session at the Needlecraft Sewing Center). I may have committed myself to going to Karin's high school graduation in June, not to mention spending a week at the Jersey Shore for a family reunion in August. These are the dangers of spending time with family.

Mostly, though, I spent a lot of the week in an internet and television blackout. It's not that they weren't available, it's that I mostly ignored them. I plotted out an afghan I want to knit, I spent a lot of time talking to people and playing with their kids, I did a lot of crossword puzzles, and I read.

I read a lot, actually. I've been so burnt out on reading, between school work and magazine work, that when I bother to read novels at all I tend to read ones that I've read before, ones that aren't going to surprise me. My whole travel week, though, I was grabbing books wherever I could find them. The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Kushiel's Chosen, some Nora Roberts, some PD James. Right now I'm about halfway through The Coffee Trader and I'm really loving it. I've missed reading.

That said, I've also missed having some goddamn idea of what's going on in both politics and news. Hello internet! Hello television! Now if I can just get through the next few days without someone telling me what happened in the Sex and the City finale (TiVo is grabbing the Tuesday-night rerun for me) I'll consider this a success.