bloodyclever

( Nicked from candragon )
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users as of 30 September 2007. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but didn't finish, and underline it if you watched the movie adaptation.


1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Angels and Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Emma
Foucault's Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity's Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver's Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences (reading now)
Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
The Once and Future King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Oryx and Crake
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Scarlet Letter
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Sound and the Fury
A Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Three Musketeers
The Time Traveler's Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Watership Down
White Teeth
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

I'm home! Good lord! And I had legroom on both flights!

I'll write more later, but I'm finding that as soon as I'm in Ottawa, I feel like my Brum life is outside of me. That isn't phrased well, but it's almost like it existed in a dream or happened to somebody else. Probably because home never changes, really, so it's like I never left. (Mum's thinking about selling this house. I am traumatised by the very idea.)

Anyway, I've been watching CBC News Morning, today hosted by Susan Ormiston. I have worked with her. Again, that feels like it happened to someone else. But hey, it's a helluva credit for the old CV.

---

Speaking of jobs, this potential job? More vague than ever. I'm looking through job ads this morning, picking a few to apply to. I can't really work full-time yet, but I would at least like some leads for now. Fuck me, I hate job hunting. I actually found the perfect, part-time job, but unfortunately the deadline for applying was last week. Argh! Poor timing indeed.

Girlie business alert!

Is it possible to die from menstrual cramps? Today, I'd totally believe it was possible. Ugh. They seem to be getting worse every month, too. And now hot flashes are a regular part of my cycle. I thought losing weight and exercising was supposed to alleviate a lot of bleed-related issues, but in my case, I just learned that all my symptoms before were very, very mild. Ack.

(Not that I'm unhappy that I lost the weight, of course. And I'm still working on it.)

So, I'm home in two and a half weeks. I was hoping to take either kayaking or rowing lessons when I got back (if I had enough money), but they all seem to end in the next one and a half weeks. What gives? Next year, I'm really keen to get into rowing. If I had been in Ottawa, I would have tried this year. I'm built like a rower, so with a bit of training I too could be at the Olympics. (Or, y'know, not. I still have infantile Olympic dreams, though.)

---

In other news, I applied for an amazing job. AMAZING. Permanent! Full-time! Unionized! Such a fucking rarity these days. I'm keeping all my appendages crossed.

Lord.

After about 780 drafts, my proposal is workable. Jeezo. My first attempt at a proposal (the one I submitted with my application almost two years ago) took a weekend. My actually proposal took about two months. Fucking fuck.

So, now I have approval to start writing an actual formal introduction. And a more detailed chapter breakdown. And I have to be done writing everything by January 15, the completely arbitrary date I decided on as a deadline. (Sadly, I chose this in part because it means a flight back to the UK will be cheaper.)

Aaaaah.

---

I met Joe last Thursday, after much delay. He is a seriously nice and very funny guy, which I knew already, but in-person confirmation's a grand thing. We had lunch at what was possibly the most complicated pub ever. "If you're both eating, we have a special deal on where one of you will get your meal half-price. Oh, if you're both having fish & chips, you should get the SUPERCRAZYDEALOFTHECENTURY. Utensils and sauces are over there (waves vaguely away from himself in a non-specific direction). Which table? No, don't point, give me a number. I said don't point!!" Gaaaaah.

But yes, Nottingham is nice, despite that mad barmen. Was too broke to do the essential tourist shit, but it was just nice to be in a city centre that doesn't smell vaguely of vomit. And, maybe for the first time, I didn't have to think about which was the passenger side of a British car.

---

On a completely disgusting note, I am totally addicted to two of the foulest reality shows possible, How Clean is Your House and You Are What You Eat. Last night's YAWYE was amazing. Just by looking in the cupboards, she knew the woman she was assessing had a yeast problem. She's a magician! Okay, maybe not. But it's compelling, if disgusting, viewing.

As for How Clean is Your House, Ana has the best breakdown of the most disgusting episode ever. The show is on tonight! Given that I haven't got a social life, I'm going to be glued to the screen.

Ugh, I'm feeling completely incompetent still and my heartburn, which I've had since last night, is showing no signs of going away. I want to go to the gym, but I'm not sure that's the best idea given my fucked up immune system. Did I mention I seem to be developing sensitivities to tomatoes and strawberries? I feel so freakin' OLD.

Ngaaaah.

My proposal did not go over well, so I feel like I'm back to square one. I am not suited to academia. I need thicker skin and the ability to ask for help when I feel like I'm drowning in paper. So, uhm, help?

Okay, since when am I an Abba fan? I resisted my whole life until two months ago. Now I can't get enough. I feel a fraud.

Hoo, long jiffy. I should know better than to leave it so long, too, since details slip away as time passes.

Anyway, yes.

---

So, the top I intended to wear to the wedding got nail polish on it during the flight. Hoofuckingray. So I ended up wearing BRIGHT RED (with a black skirt with flowers and Chinese slippers). EXTREEEEME. Those who have met Jo know her style is, uhm, unique. She stole a turquoise flowered skirt from Rachel and worse stripey socks and green gardening clogs. No really. It was very Jo. Rachel outclassed us all. It's so weird to think that she ended up the girliest out of all of us.

---

The wedding itself was at an old boys theatre club on Gramercy Park and was absolutely fabulous. Very stiff drinks too. Mmm.

The service was amazing. The bridesmaids carried 'bouquets' of willow twigs with paper cranes afixed to the ends). The wedding bit was conducted by a Humanist chaplain with a couple of Catholic touches. (Presumably for the benefit of the groom's family, or just because lighting a unity candle is a nice thing. Oh, and the Book of Matthew has some good shit, yo.) Ruth was wearing this amazing beaded dress and both the bride and groom were giggly throughout. Perfect. And short! Only 15 minutes! That's my kind of wedding.

---

I must admit that I was drunk before dinner, but I got over it. I figured at least one person had to be able to get us back to the hotel later.

---

The groom's brother's speech was amazing. God, everyone was so funny and nice, it was just a totally beautiful occasion. Except when an uncle tried to flirt with three of us at once and his nephew called him on it. Heh.

My family is bitchy, so I'm eloping, I swear.

---

At 11, we were kicked out of The Players and we went to the bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel for a post-wedding shindig. The bride and groom, who had been 'separated' (if y'know what I'm sayin') for three weeks never showed up. Hee. The bar was surprisingly, er, meat markety for an upscale hotel, so we headed back to the hotel. Rachel was still drunk. We all slept well.

---

I walked Jo to her bus to Laguardia at 7:30am. Fucking jetlag. I checked in with the people who live in my computer to see if we were still meeting up later. Rachel (when she woke up and had some hangover recovery time) and I, like good tourists, went to the Museum of Natural History (I'd never been) and then out for a fancier-than-intended brunch at the sorta French place. Then she had to go. I probably won't see her until New Year's, unless I find some money and the inclination to go to Dallas.

---

I walked around a bit, tried to nap, and then met some of the aforementioned computer dwellers. Mitzi, Amelia, kta, Glinda, and the Divine Ms Astruc had a fabulous time talking Blackout 2003, moving to New York, leaving New York, and geneology, among other things. It was SO great to finally meet them all. I wasn't at all scared. Hee.

---

By Monday morning, I hadn't heard from my friend Brian yet. After walking to H&H (SO GOOD) and then through Riverside Park, I decided to check out. As I was leaving my room, Brian phoned. He didn't have a lunch break until 1, so I wandered around midtown for a while, pondering whether I should buy another bit of luggage to aid my journey home, then had ice cream in Bryant Park while I waited for 1 to roll around.

Now, I've known Brian for five years now. We met in Scotland and he's always been sort of quiet and a little shy. Not so much now. He has a wonderful girlfriend and he's just...transformed somehow. So smiley. So chatty. So happy. It's fantastic. It couldn't have happened to a better person. They're on vacation in Iceland right now! And they're shacking up! Phew.

---

I went to pick up my luggage, then had my first adventure on the Long Island Railway. Well, not so much an adventure as a very boring, very short trip to JFK. JFK is exceedingly boring and I resent being told to check in 3.5 hours early when I spend 2.5 sitting around trying not to die of boredom. They didn't even make me take off my shoes. I guess it's hard to hide bombs in Birkenstocks.

---

The flight back was not as cool. No video-on-demand. More like video-as-we-want-to-show-it. I slept about 1.5 hours. I love my student visa, since it makes passport control easy, even when you're a zombie. I got lost trying to find Euston (again) and once I found it, the schedules said my train was cancelled. Fuckadoodledoo. I finally got into my flat at noon and then slept for 15 of the next 24 hours.

---

This was my first vacation in three and a half years. Fuck me, was it ever busy.

It's bad enough going to New York City...no wait, it's great to go there, but it's hard enough to feel like you belong there. After a SWEET flight on Virgin Atlantic watching too many Scrubs and Little Britain reruns (and Shaun of the Dead! WOO!), I ended up spending more than a hour in line at US Immigration. I actually saw someone get taken away in handcuffs. It was scary.

And then I got lost in the subway.

Not seriously lost, mind you, but when you have luggage on your person and are lost, you kind of stick out a little. I was finally back in a place with a similar accent to my own and I made a rookie mistake, a mistake I was aware that people made, and ended up thirty blocks North of where I had to be. By the time I got to the hotel, I was too tired to do anything, so I watched a Scrubs marathon (it was a very Zach Braff weekend) and ate too much stuff from the deli on the corner. I fell asleep at 10ish, but got woken up repeatedly by Rachel and the front desk staff. She got in at 1:30, in a cab from Newark ($65!!!). I've never slept so badly. And I still woke up at 7:30. Fuck.

--

Friday was fun. We wandered around a bit, with Urban Outfitters on the brain, and then it started to rain. A lot. Torrentially. I stepped in a puddle up to my knee on the way to the fancy-pants lunch. I bought an umbrella from a guy in the subway. It turns out it was the last one, so we had to share.

Lunch was lovely. We got to talk to the bride for the first time in two years and her mother for the first time in 14. And ate. A lot. And the restaurant was not quite as scary posh as I thought and the upstairs, where we were eating because of the rain, was not a rococco nightmare like the photos suggest. One of the salad options included prusciutto with a 'fantasy of melons', though, the source of much amusement. Luckily, Ruth ordered it. A piece of canteloupe was carved into a horn. Oy vey. Hee.

During this time, we found out that Jo's flight was cancelled. She was due to be arriving at 3, so she would be missing the boat cruise/dinner event planned by the groom's parents.

--

We nearly missed it ourselves, underestimating the subway times. As we approached the dock, we saw several yachts, including one with a frickin' HELICOPTER on it. I turned to Rachel and said "Imagine going on that thing?" Well, that was our boat. It was also the first of many weekend utterances of "Whose life is this?!"

I mean, despite the rain, and despite my tray of food collapsing before I even took a bite, it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. It did the loop of Manhattan, then went to the Statue of Liberty, which I've only ever seen from the air. I only hope that my photos turn out. It was a perfect idea, too, since about half of the guests had never been to New York before. This was my fourth visit and I was still in awe.

I skipped the post-dinner visit with Ruth because the jetlag was really getting to me, but by the time that I actually got to the hotel, I was overtired and getting that rapid heartbeat thing that keeps you from sleeping. When Jo showed up, I couldn't stop babbling (a bad habit when I'm lacking sleep), so I was still up when Rachel came back. Ack.

--

Next morning, we went to Tom's Restaurant (aka "That Seinfeld Place") for breakfast, then made the mistake of trying to shop in Chinatown on a Saturday. Well, it's hard to move in Chinatown on a Saturday. We ended up in this three floor superstore for a bit, but gave up after I found some slippers. Jo had never been to New York (so it really was a pity that she missed the cruise), so we went to Times Square (yuck) and beyond to Central Park. I feel badly because she didn't see that much.

(To be continued. Apologies for spelling/grammar, but this was a brain fart I wrote right after waking up.)

I'm at Heathrow, waiting to find out what gate I'm supposed to go to.

I'm on my way to New York! My friend Ruth is getting married! I'm going to be so broke!

In the end, it's good, I guess, but for now I'm a zombie. I woke up at 5:45, because I couldn't get a shower in last night. Some random fuckwits decided to have shouting party around 2:30, so, yah, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep.


Also vexing me, a disastrous haircut. Loose, long, layers means short, choppy, and stupid-looking. Grrrrr! I wonder if I can wear a hat all weekend.

Prospects.ac.uk just sent me an ad for a job working as runner. On Richard & Judy. Y'reckon I should apply? Snerk.

Having these Londoners on Coronation Street is just, well wrong. Seriously.

Also, poor Sunita. And Dev. Evil Maya must die.

---

I've become completely addicted to Countdown and Just A Minute. Can I draw a pension now?

---

Also? Got waxed. It turns out that I have elephant skin or something. I had ingrown hairs that refused to be yanked, so I'm impersonating Madonna as best I can to try and tweeze the fuckers. Grrrrrr. Remind me to exfoliate next time.

Holy long absence. Apologies to the three people who might be reading. I did actually write an update a few weeks ago, but it got eaten somehow.

Anyway, some things that are happening:

• My mum had her last (of eight) chemotherapy treatments on Tuesday.
  
• I came back to the UK.
  
• I have changed dissertation topics (again).
  

Uhm, yes. I came back and ProfessorMan was really, really impressed with my little journalistic smackdown/work term assignment and wanted me to Canadianise my topic. Because, y'know, I came to the UK to study Canada.

Now my dissertation is in disarray (again). But it's not a huge emergency, since I have to go into writing-up mode. I'm hoping to be done December/January-ish. I'm coming home in September to finish writing this bastard thing. The topic is some kind of refined version of "Canada: A People's History - shit or not? Do we need Simon Schama's help?"

---

In other news, I'm going to NYC this weekend. Yes, THIS weekend. For four days. I am crazy. One of my oldest friends is getting married to her beloved and it'll be a mini-reunion of sorts. But it's kind of crazy. Fancy lunch Friday, dinner/yacht cruise Friday night, and wedding on Saturday. I don't have that kind of wardrobe and I've never been to this schmancy a wedding. Even my dizzingly rich cousin had an understated do at an art gallery in Baltimore followed by a booze-up at his house. This posh shit is beyond me. I hope I don't get kicked out for wearing little black Chinese slipper-things to the reception. (I'm kidding. The bride is not so fancy as the festivities suggest.)

I wish I had learned to be at least a part-time girly girl. I'm getting my legs waxed tomorrow and I'm scared shitless.

---

P and J are leaving to teach English in Japan on Saturday. I might not see either of them for two years, which is just absolutely mindboggling. P has, unfortunately, just met the girl of his dreams. Holy fucking unfortunate timing. Somehow, I have hope it'll work out anyway.

---
This entry is just an excuse to not work a little longer.

Back in the day, around the end of high school, I pondered journalism as a career, despite already being skeptical about the news media in general. Nonetheless, I applied to an elite Journalism school and was disappointed when I didn't get in.

Now I'm glad I didn't. I'm too big a snob.

Seriously, I never realised how much studying history had affected me. I'm still holding on to that outdated ideal that historians are trying to contribute to a canon of 'truth' that probably never existed. Journalism ain't that.

Not that books should be the only resource, but journalists are, from what I can tell, relatively lazy. 'Research' consists largely of asking people questions about what knowledge they might have, rather than drawing on books, articles, statistics, etc. Finding stories for current affairs often involves reading newspapers and websites for stuff to probe into more deeply. History is about asking questions too, but you go to all sorts of resources to get your information. You analyse it to come to new conclusions. You can be smart about it without alienating a chunk of your (probably tiny) audience.

I think news makes an interesting source for historical research, but the content and form are so different that I'm totally frustrated by the so-called historical current affairs stories coming out of this show. They are invariably slightly corny slice-of-life stories or sentimental tales about fallen soldiers in a long-ago battle. (Occasionally, these two things are combined.)

Furthermore, I don't know how I'm going to survive in any work or academic environment where you're not guaranteed results. 'Yah, well, you know that REALLY INTERESTING story we've been working on for two months? Yah, well, it's been put on hold indefinitely. HA!'

There's also the question of pleasing everyone. Did you know that because of Hutton Inquiry, the CBC has to be even more careful about what it says? Or that, despite their 'best' efforts, the show I work on still gets complaints every single day from people who feel that we are the mouthpiece of the Liberal Party and that we're ignoring the West/Natives/Maritimers/Conservatives/etc? It's excrutiating that the idea of 'national' news in this country, on Canada's public broadcaster, means showing yet another parliamentary fuckwit holding yet another press conference in the centre block and footage of a blizzard somewhere in the hinterland. (By 'hinterland', I mean 'somewhere outside Toronto.')

Thing is, I have no real right to a) question their methods or b) pretend to be a proper historian. I do feel very privileged to work here at the CBC and I still do respect the organisation. I'm just glad I get to leave soon. And that I get to use my perplexed attitude to my advantage for my term assignment. Mwahaha.

Evan Solomon is The Hotness.

I see him in the office all the time and I was in an elevator with him just now and he's just fucking beautiful.

And married. Damn.

You'd think that working at a news/current affairs programme would be interesting. You would be wrong. I'm bored. I actually got a book out of the library on the general election of 2000 so that I understand the media and politics a little better.

At least I know not to recommend this placement to the head of my programme, eh?

Not that it matters so much, really, in the end, but I've decided that I really need to write. I need to express myself somehow and, well, I'm not a dancer, I don't have a strong enough liver to sing in public, and I can't draw beyond Exploding Dog-style cartoons (and I lack the imagination to do them.)

So, here I am, having another go at the online journal thing.

--

My mother has cancer. It's back. Just a few stray cells, like last time, but it means more chemo and more fear. Her body expresses its dismay by filling cavity with fluid. The last couple of times, it was her pericardium and her lungs. This time, it's in her (already ample) abdomen. She's in pain. She's on 'pee pills', but they aren't helping a whole lot yet.

I had to take the train back to Toronto today, even though she starts treatment tomorrow. I'm on the train now. I don't want to be here. The burden falls on the daughter again? Maybe not more than on my brothers, but they don't express their emotions as much. And don't have Mum saying, tearfully, "I'm okay...my girl's here for the weekend" within earshot. Not that I can do anything. This kind of chemo is much easier than the first kind and the same as the second go-round. But it is the kind that made her finger and toenails become so infected and sore that most of them fell off. Most of them still don't look normal two years later.

I feel like I should be doing more with my life, even though I'm stretched to the limit. I'm a Momma's girl in the worst, most emotionally retarded way of anyone of my acquaintance. I haven't grown up yet because Mum's always there to take care of me. She raised us on our own at the expense of her own personal life, really, so I don't know how to function properly on a grown-up level sometimes. I love my mum. I know she's tougher than this, but I'm scared all the same. Being in another city this time around makes it all the harder. I don't have close friends there yet. I can't be there to hold her hand or clean the house or make her green tea (to make her pee! Hee!)

Hopefully, this will be over soon. Hopefully, this time her meds won't stop working for years and years and years.

--

It sounds corny, but now I feel like I should belong to something bigger. I'm going to try to go to the Homes Not Bombs event tomorrow night, but it could be tricky given that I'll a) be exhausted and b) be distracted. Also, now that the government's gone to pot, I want to figure out how I can volunteer for the NDP AND work AND find a part-time job AND sort out my academic life while not breaking down. Gah. I'm sick of life being work and television (which overlap a lot.) I want to graduate. Mum's getting her passport photo done now, before her hair falls out, so that she can be there. I can't wait.

Okay, I just don't update when I'm in Canada, apparently. Christmas was nearly very good, aside from some scary-ass right-wing comments from my formerly liberal aunt. Hmm.

I'm back in Brum for a whole week. Woo. Long-ass flight, again, because I couldn't come over direct from Ottawa this time around. So I got to see the lovely airport in Halifax and the tarmac at St. John's. NO running water for the trans-Atlantic bit. Fuck.

---

Anyway, I got my NHS card four months after applying at the medical centre. Which is a two-minute walk from here. So, the NHS is much like the Ontario public healthcare system, obviously.


More soon.

You know what's worse than a 7+ hour flight out of Heathrow? Waiting on the tarmac at Heathrow for two hours before being cleared to fly.

I didn't pee on the plane at all because it is so dehydrating.

That's 9.5 hours of non-peeing.