We rejoin our heroine in her new digs. In the past two months she's completely changed just about everything--left the cushy-but-occasionally-dull office job and the college town that's had the shine worn off for a few years now and headed into what John Green's protagonist Miles Halter might call "The Great Perhaps."
I'm back! Who knows how long it'll last this time, as I've had very little time to devote to reading whilst uprooting my life and settling in a new town.
The books are all unpacked, though, and beckoning. Our new/old roommate has a collection several orders of magnitude larger than mine, and I'm itching to get my fingers on them just as soon as I can get everything else sorted out.
The first order of business, replacing my wonderful former job. Check.
Check? Awesome!
More details to come...
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Hah.
And once again, your friendly neighborhood Bookwench was consumed by the grind of real life. I offer my apologies.
I don't know what it is about retail that somehow manages to entirely consume your soul from time to time. I've experienced this feeling often around the winter holidays, but the past couple of months have been almost as bad.
My reading list has grown considerably since the last time I wrote, though unfortunately there were truly only a few books of note.
The first that comes to mind, Barbara Walters' Audition, was an unlikely read for me. My store sold out of it almost immediately when it was first released, but after a couple of weeks on the bestseller lists we had a fairly solid standing stock. I would have probably ignored it altogether, however, if it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Walters made an appearance on the Daily Show one night when I just happened to be watching. There was something about her sense of humor, that she would even go on Stewart's show, and the way she handled herself once there, that nudged me into seeing what all the fuss was about.
I'm glad I did.
While the memoir is not, of course, a great work of literature in the traditional sense (sometimes it gets a bit wordy and, dare I say, sentimental), it truly does justice to the extraordinary life that this woman has lived, and is living. If any of you out there are familiar with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, you might have a similar experience to mine: as I was reading I kept identifying bits and pieces of the book and song that matched up, and I was amused.
Barbara Walters has pretty much lived the last 50+ years of notable American and world history. For someone like myself, who often struggled with history classes in the traditional academic setting, this is a much more accessible and interesting way to gain a greater understanding of "what really happened."
It does seem to me that I've been leaning rather strongly towards nonfiction of late. I go through phases when all I want to read is fiction, and then suddenly nothing in that particular realm interests me in the least; it's as though the oasis had dried up without warning, and all that was left to browse were stones and dry leaves and nothing very interesting at all.
At that point I'm left wandering my usual alternative-reading haunts: biography and science. For me, science is a subject that, in various ways, I clearly did well at in school but once things got to a certain technical level (chemistry, physics) I generally became daunted by the math involved and gave up. So occasionally I'll stumble through those shelves and find something that I can relate to.
This coming week, however, I will allow myself to indulge in what I might normally dismiss as fluff. Honestly, in my most humble, bookwench-y opinion, there's a lot of fluff out there. A great deal of it is not, as they say, relevant to my interests. But Janet Evanovich has a new Stephanie Plum book, Fearless Fourteen, and as I got sucked into that series years ago by my best friend and fellow book-a-holic, I'll give this one a go as I do with each of Evanovich's yearly efforts.
Last year's title, Lean Mean Thirteen, actually made me wonder when the series was finally going to end, because if that was the best the author could do after all that time, surely it was time to call it quits. I know that, generally speaking, all the books have a similar scheme: Plum is desperate, Plum sludges through job, flirts with Ranger, hijinks with Lula and Grandma, gets into a situation more serious than she can handle, calls Joe, blows up a few cars, is rescued, spends a night with Morelli and his dog, eats dinner with parents and newlywed sister (and children), and eventually manages to save the day despite an unbelievable number of fumbles, and all with a spectacular amount of innuendo and humor. Usually these machinations are at least entertaining enough to be worth an hour of so of my time. Last time was the first time I can really say I felt disappointed by the end of the book.
However, I've had a sneak peek at the first few pages of Fourteen, and it seems to be much more promising. So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm also working on another memoir, Bar Flower, that is quite engrossing and will likely merit a post of its own once I finish.
For now, however, it's just about that time where I scuttle off to live amongst the tomes for an hour or eight.
Ta!
I don't know what it is about retail that somehow manages to entirely consume your soul from time to time. I've experienced this feeling often around the winter holidays, but the past couple of months have been almost as bad.
My reading list has grown considerably since the last time I wrote, though unfortunately there were truly only a few books of note.
The first that comes to mind, Barbara Walters' Audition, was an unlikely read for me. My store sold out of it almost immediately when it was first released, but after a couple of weeks on the bestseller lists we had a fairly solid standing stock. I would have probably ignored it altogether, however, if it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Walters made an appearance on the Daily Show one night when I just happened to be watching. There was something about her sense of humor, that she would even go on Stewart's show, and the way she handled herself once there, that nudged me into seeing what all the fuss was about.
I'm glad I did.
While the memoir is not, of course, a great work of literature in the traditional sense (sometimes it gets a bit wordy and, dare I say, sentimental), it truly does justice to the extraordinary life that this woman has lived, and is living. If any of you out there are familiar with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, you might have a similar experience to mine: as I was reading I kept identifying bits and pieces of the book and song that matched up, and I was amused.
Barbara Walters has pretty much lived the last 50+ years of notable American and world history. For someone like myself, who often struggled with history classes in the traditional academic setting, this is a much more accessible and interesting way to gain a greater understanding of "what really happened."
It does seem to me that I've been leaning rather strongly towards nonfiction of late. I go through phases when all I want to read is fiction, and then suddenly nothing in that particular realm interests me in the least; it's as though the oasis had dried up without warning, and all that was left to browse were stones and dry leaves and nothing very interesting at all.
At that point I'm left wandering my usual alternative-reading haunts: biography and science. For me, science is a subject that, in various ways, I clearly did well at in school but once things got to a certain technical level (chemistry, physics) I generally became daunted by the math involved and gave up. So occasionally I'll stumble through those shelves and find something that I can relate to.
This coming week, however, I will allow myself to indulge in what I might normally dismiss as fluff. Honestly, in my most humble, bookwench-y opinion, there's a lot of fluff out there. A great deal of it is not, as they say, relevant to my interests. But Janet Evanovich has a new Stephanie Plum book, Fearless Fourteen, and as I got sucked into that series years ago by my best friend and fellow book-a-holic, I'll give this one a go as I do with each of Evanovich's yearly efforts.
Last year's title, Lean Mean Thirteen, actually made me wonder when the series was finally going to end, because if that was the best the author could do after all that time, surely it was time to call it quits. I know that, generally speaking, all the books have a similar scheme: Plum is desperate, Plum sludges through job, flirts with Ranger, hijinks with Lula and Grandma, gets into a situation more serious than she can handle, calls Joe, blows up a few cars, is rescued, spends a night with Morelli and his dog, eats dinner with parents and newlywed sister (and children), and eventually manages to save the day despite an unbelievable number of fumbles, and all with a spectacular amount of innuendo and humor. Usually these machinations are at least entertaining enough to be worth an hour of so of my time. Last time was the first time I can really say I felt disappointed by the end of the book.
However, I've had a sneak peek at the first few pages of Fourteen, and it seems to be much more promising. So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm also working on another memoir, Bar Flower, that is quite engrossing and will likely merit a post of its own once I finish.
For now, however, it's just about that time where I scuttle off to live amongst the tomes for an hour or eight.
Ta!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
First post!
So, after a long absence from blog-land, here I am!
This is the first time I've blogged publicly under my own name; all of my previous attempts have been under various personas and identities I've assumed in my years on the internet (insert cane-shaking here), and it always seemed as though my content was targeted at those who knew me under whichever name I was wearing at the time. I guess I'm a little bit anxious about the disclosure this time around, but I have my reasons, and they're currently overriding any second or third thoughts that might pop into my head. Of course I'd love for people looking for me in The Future to be able to find out what a fascinating and wonderful person I am (wink wink), but then again I'll probably settle for being happy to find out that they've Googled me at all.
So. Who am I?
I am...
It sounds odd, but when I look at the job listings (I love my job but my feet and knees kind of...don't) in our paper, I know that there are a lot of opportunities out there that demand experience that I don't have. And yet, I know that given a smidgen of training and a bit of time to fiddle around with the system, whatever it might be, that I could make it work. Unfortunately these days a smiling face and a willingness to learn don't get you very far.
That's why I've finally decided to go back to school. This is complicated, of course. The degree--Master's in Library/Information Science--isn't available at the school where I got my B.A. in English. I'm not terribly bothered by the fact that I'm going to have to move, since we've been tossing around the idea for quite some time now. There are some hurdles, though. Both my family and my husband's primarily live in-state and get their feathers ruffled when we can't make various holiday visits thanks to our chaotic, unpredictable, and unforgiving work schedules.
My first inclination is to move across the country. I'm sure you see the problem.
Students and retail workers (the two things I currently have experience being) don't exactly have the earning potential or the freedom to travel cross-country at the drop of a hat, or even to get plane tickets all that often, if ever.
There is a school that offers the program nearer to here, but I really don't think I want to stay so close to home, because that feels hardly like leaving at all. Nonetheless, my husband and I have discussed moving to this closer city before, but I still have my misgivings.
Decisions, decisions.
One of the primary reasons I've started blogging again is because I need a place to think about these things, to plot and ponder and consider and look at my situation from all sides. Maybe I'll eventually pick up a few readers who care to offer insight and objective opinions. Or spam. I'll take some of the latter as long as I can have the former as well.
I tend to be a wordy wench, as you've probably noticed by now. I'm going to make an effort to keep things somewhat short and sweet, but please forgive me if I stray from time to time. I do like to talk, and sometimes it gets the better of me.
So here's to posting, and to figuring things out!
This is the first time I've blogged publicly under my own name; all of my previous attempts have been under various personas and identities I've assumed in my years on the internet (insert cane-shaking here), and it always seemed as though my content was targeted at those who knew me under whichever name I was wearing at the time. I guess I'm a little bit anxious about the disclosure this time around, but I have my reasons, and they're currently overriding any second or third thoughts that might pop into my head. Of course I'd love for people looking for me in The Future to be able to find out what a fascinating and wonderful person I am (wink wink), but then again I'll probably settle for being happy to find out that they've Googled me at all.
So. Who am I?
I am...
- 23 years old
- a barista and bookseller in a store that probably isn't the one you're thinking of
- a writer, when I feel like it
- a reader, voraciously, all of the time
- finally getting myself settled and thinking about getting back to school (I miss it!)
- married to a man I've known for almost seven years now
- companion to one crazy Siamese cat who disguises herself as a calico tabby
- more likely to recall pointless trivia than to remember to pay the bills
- capable of learning just about anything
- feeling stuck and trying to find a more productive life
It sounds odd, but when I look at the job listings (I love my job but my feet and knees kind of...don't) in our paper, I know that there are a lot of opportunities out there that demand experience that I don't have. And yet, I know that given a smidgen of training and a bit of time to fiddle around with the system, whatever it might be, that I could make it work. Unfortunately these days a smiling face and a willingness to learn don't get you very far.
That's why I've finally decided to go back to school. This is complicated, of course. The degree--Master's in Library/Information Science--isn't available at the school where I got my B.A. in English. I'm not terribly bothered by the fact that I'm going to have to move, since we've been tossing around the idea for quite some time now. There are some hurdles, though. Both my family and my husband's primarily live in-state and get their feathers ruffled when we can't make various holiday visits thanks to our chaotic, unpredictable, and unforgiving work schedules.
My first inclination is to move across the country. I'm sure you see the problem.
Students and retail workers (the two things I currently have experience being) don't exactly have the earning potential or the freedom to travel cross-country at the drop of a hat, or even to get plane tickets all that often, if ever.
There is a school that offers the program nearer to here, but I really don't think I want to stay so close to home, because that feels hardly like leaving at all. Nonetheless, my husband and I have discussed moving to this closer city before, but I still have my misgivings.
Decisions, decisions.
One of the primary reasons I've started blogging again is because I need a place to think about these things, to plot and ponder and consider and look at my situation from all sides. Maybe I'll eventually pick up a few readers who care to offer insight and objective opinions. Or spam. I'll take some of the latter as long as I can have the former as well.
I tend to be a wordy wench, as you've probably noticed by now. I'm going to make an effort to keep things somewhat short and sweet, but please forgive me if I stray from time to time. I do like to talk, and sometimes it gets the better of me.
So here's to posting, and to figuring things out!
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