20 books and 20 lbs (week 30): It would be nice just to be whelmed

I’ve had this conversation with family before, including dh: how come you can be overwhelmed or underwhelmed, but never just “whelmed”? Right about now, I could use just being whelmed. It would be such a nice change of pace.

Since we got back from vacation, things have been quite busy at work – to the point where one of my major sources of work-related stress is just getting there and getting out on time. I’m very much looking forward to the point a little more than a year from now, when we’ll get back to ONE set of drop-offs and ONE set of pick-ups for the kids; having two separate drop-offs and pick-ups makes morning and evening logistics hard and adds stress. Will I get to work on time or show up late? Will I get the kids before {the place I’m getting them from} closes and I get into trouble?

I also – rather randomly – got sick late last week, probably food poisoning of some kind, so my eating was pretty curtailed. On the plus side, that meant I lost some of the weight I’d gained in DC. That’s definitely NOT how I like to lose weight, so I’ll hope that I can find a way to lose the remaining 10lbs without that extra oomph. Of course, being that this week had extra stress at work and with my family, my eating habits were off a bit. I wasn’t shoveling all the food into my body at a breakneck pace, but neither was I existing off lettuce and raw carrots. Neither is sustainable, anyway, so I’ll just take what I’ve got when I weigh in tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I can report that I’m currently down almost 10lbs from my starting point…but I’m losing daylight on the year and need to find a ~sustainable~ way of losing the remaining 10. I also managed to finish off another two books, so at least I think I’m on track there. I hope.

Book #9: “Gun Machine” by Warren Ellis

This is my second read by Ellis this year, and between that and “FreakAngels”, I’m starting to get the sense that he’s one moody, dark genius. I consider this an incredibly good thing. The story opens with Detective John Tallow losing his partner to a gun-wielding psychotic. The building where the shooting takes place gets cordoned off as a crime scene, and when Tallow discovers an apartment that’s literally covered in guns, he unwittingly uncovers a conspiracy, ages-old murders, and a plan by one of the most dangerous men in history. Ellis deftly mixes the geography and history of New York City with more information about how to kill a person than most sane folks should ever know. The story builds slowly and carefully until it all starts to come together…by which time the characters, the story, and you are running through it all so fast that it climaxes in a blur. Ellis’ second novel is an incredibly engaging read – not for the faint of heart – and it shows that just as he’s got the ability to craft rich, well-drawn stories in graphic novels (where “well-drawn” refers both to the artwork AND the story), he’s mastered the art of the graphic (un-graphic) novel, as well.

Book #10: “Gossip Girl” by Cecily Von Ziegesar

Figuring that I’d need a “light, come-down” reading after another Warren Ellis book, I’d saved this library sale pick for the #10 spot. It definitely didn’t disappoint for the category of “light read”, although I can’t say that I was entirely enamored of it. Perhaps it’s because I read it immediately following a book that had my neurons firing constantly, or perhaps it’s because I never saw the show “Gossip Girl” but had the images in my head of the various actors who played the key roles as I read every page of this book. In any event, I found “Gossip Girl” to be fairly meh, as books go.

I’ve read enough young adult (YA) lit to know how things typically go, and I’m just as interested as the next person in reading about the troubled life of the brahmin; however, I found the writing to be scattered enough that character development was too limited for my taste. Only two characters really got fleshed out to any extent, and even then it was hard to find anyone particularly sympathetic enough that you’d want to continue reading on. This works fine for TV, when the purpose is to give short, easily consumed bites on a weekly basis…but when it’s a book, it’s not always as attractive. Let’s just say that I’m not inspired to read the rest of the series. For those interested in a far better YA read with a girly bend to it, I’d recommend skipping “Gossip Girl” and getting “Spoiled” by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (aka “The Fuggirls”). It’s a far more amusing and engaging read, as is its followup, “Messy”.

20 books and 20 lbs (week 28): The weight of it all

Now that I’m past the horrible time suck that was Salman Rushdie, it seems like things are finally proceeding apace with my reading goal. I just finished book #8 and I’m already onto book #9: “Gun Machine” by Warren Ellis. At this rate, I’m still not at the point where I can say that I’m on track to get through all 20 books by the end of the year…but I’ll put in the hours, if that’s what it takes. My sister informed me just the other day that she’s challenged herself to read 25 books this year, and I just can’t even imagine that right now.

Book #8: “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card

How desperate are we when we say that children are the key to our future? In Card’s dystopian image of Earth’s future, desperation has grown to enormous proportions as children are recruited in their mid-single digits to get trained for military service. Years before, a savage race of aliens – known only as “buggers” – attempted to wipe humans off the face of the galaxy. Earth’s countries took this opportunity to stop aiming their weapons at each other and created a joint military service that was aimed solely at protecting the planet from the buggers. That’s where these genius children come in: plucked from obscurity after much testing and (invasive) monitoring, they’re taken away to an orbiting Battle School that prepares them for infantry, piloting or even command.

This is where we meet Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a small child of six who is destined to be so much more. Ender is not only a genius; he’s also a “third” (the third child to parents who, under strict population controls, should typically never have been born). His older brother (Peter) and sister (Valentine) are seemingly polar opposites; Peter is a psychopath who delights in tormenting others (especially Ender), and Valentine is his sweet sister who plays the salve to Peter’s acid burn. Ender is whisked away to Battle School by the manipulative Colonel Graff, where he’s tested day in, day out, by all manners of physical, psychological and emotional stresses. Graff believes Ender is the key to the humans’ survival against the next bugger invasion, and Ender – repeatedly displaced from what little familiarity he is allowed to foster at any time – is far from just any ordinary marionette.

Card’s story is another very fast read – incredibly engrossing and very hard to put down. At the same time, it’s terribly distressing. The idea that society would ever get to the point where we would willingly put small children through this kind of torture is really upsetting, and I’m glad that the movie version of the book (coming out in November 2013) shifts things by a few years so that Ender’s not quite so young when Graff gets at him. As a side note, I was further upset to find that Card spends his free time playing homophobe extraordinaire; I tend not to give financial or other support to people who clearly espouse viewpoints that make my blood boil. So, read it or not – it’s an excellent book that’s likely to make for an interesting movie. I’ll say that the only things of Card’s I’d be willing to read would be what I’ve purchased (the series that includes “Ender’s Game”). The rest of my money I think I’ll spend on authors who have a bit wider of a world view.

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I was mostly back to normal with my eating habits last week, although the holiday and various commitments made it very difficult to get any real exercise in. I suppose *sweating* may count, and I certainly did my fair share of that. These are the days where I feel wise to have purchased a house with central air conditioning.

My weight loss is back on track, and I’m now 8lbs under my starting weight. So, I’m still behind where I should be…but it’s not worth fretting over lost time. Some of it is that I haven’t exercised more (partially my fault and partially out of my control); some of it is that I won’t stop having my ice cream a few nights a week. I know where these issues are, but since I’m looking for a lifelong solution and not just a quick way to get to my goal (which would be just as quickly lost), I need a solution that accommodates moderation over limitation. I’m sure I sound like a broken record about this, but I just have no desire to lose the weight quickly with a fad that gets undone the second I get back into “regular” eating habits. In other words, I’ll just keep my feet moving and see where I land as of 12/31.

20 books and 20 lbs (week 27): Devouring Neil Gaiman

Once upon a time, there was a young boy who had something bad happen with one of the lodgers at his house. Now, depending upon whether you’re looking for real life or fiction, you can either interpret that as an opening statement on a story from author Neil Gaiman’s life or his latest novel, “The Ocean at the End of the Lane”.

Book #7: “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman

Wow. I loved this book. Let me preface this by saying that I’ve been a fan of Gaiman’s ever since I was first introduced to his completely sick and twisted mind by “Sandman”. Add some “American Gods” (woah) into the mix, plus “Stardust” (aww…cute!) and “Neverwhere” (WTH just happened?!) to you get a picture of someone who’s clearly got his mind wrapped around many dimensions simultaneously. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s written two amazing episodes of “Doctor Who” and that my kids love “Chu’s Day” – his most recent publication strictly aimed at the younger set.

So, with all of that in mind, I cracked open my signed first edition almost immediately upon boarding the train for New York, on my way to a conference. I had a solid block of time to myself – about 3-1/2hrs on the Acela – and that seemed like a good time to start reading “Ocean”. Turns out, it was a good time to read it and FINISH it. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a book so fast in my life. It’s not that it was a quick read in the sense that it was breezy or whimsical. I couldn’t put it down because it was engrossing and utterly fantastic, leaving me breathless as I turned each page wondering what would befall the unnamed protagonist next.

“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” opens with the narrator wandering around after a funeral, taking a detour fueled by muscle memory that brings him back to a small rural town where he once lived. As he sits by the small pond in the backyard of a former neighbor, his memories come flooding back and you’re transported back to his childhood – where immortal beings and other realities freely mix with the reality most of us know. The narrator stumbles onto the evidence that a being from another world, something of immense power, has been tampering with the lives of the people in his village, and he enlists the help of an eccentric girl who is seemingly only a few years older than himself.

As it turns out, of course, she’s nothing of the sort – and she takes him into another part of the world, where faerie clearly reigns more than the laws of science. They encounter an evil presence that follows them back into our world and ingratiates itself into his family as the nanny from Hell. The rest of the story is an insane thrill-ride as the protagonist tries to rid himself – and the world – of this demonic force from beyond time. As with so many of Gaiman’s other works, to read too much into the possibility is either to scare yourself half to death or to shake it off as utterly unbelievable. I prefer to think of his stories as best read when the lights are firmly set in the ON position, and this book is no exception. I loved it and would highly recommend it. Clearly, it was a fast read (I was done with it within about 3hrs), but that’s a GOOD THING. Devouring a book is what it’s all about – when you find something that speaks to you, that you can’t imagine putting down, that’s my idea of a truly great read.

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Book #8 is “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card, and I’m enjoying that immensely, as well. It’s causing me no shortage of insomnia, though, partially due to the content and partially due to the fact that I’m having trouble putting it down. Truly, having books be so good that you want to stay up all night to read them is what I’d consider “a good problem to have”.

As far as anything else goes, like weight loss, the trip to NYC was far better for reading than it was for managing my weight. I was in my conference, meetings, and schmoozy, heavy dinners from about 8am until 9pm every day, so I didn’t get nearly enough of that NYC walking that I really enjoy. I saw a few pounds added onto the scale (ugh), but I consider that a challenge and not a complete setback. A quick mid-week weigh-in showed a lower amount than I saw on weigh-in day, but since I only weigh myself ONCE a week (officially), I’m still sticking with the higher number I got on Sunday. Lesson learned: eating your way through a conference without walking or other forms of exercise is NOT smart. Got it.