I am out of the habit of blogging. Before my friend Debra asks me why I haven't posted anything for a while I figured I'd jump back in and say something. Thing is, it's so easy to fall out of the habit. The only way back is to start. So here we go.
I am excited.
Earlier I was far from excited. I was kind of bummed.
I thought I was going to get to see my favorite Copple's today before they headed back to the East Coast, but then I didn't. My boyfriend usually comes over one night during the week but that wasn't going to happen this week. And an old friend I haven't seen in quite some time was maybe going to stop by this week as well. That didn't happen either. So I was all "poor Shelly".
But then! My very old very good friends Leah and Steffanie invited me over to hang out with them tomorrow night! I can't even say how much I love those girls. Leah was one of my bridesmaids (yeah, that's how long I've know them), Steffanie sang at my wedding and is the best room mate I've ever had by far. So this is exciting. I am back to being happy Shelly.
(The last time I saw my girls was October of 2010. That's just crazy. Here's a picture of us then, though. And here's a post about it.)
And then Friday is a Debra night. She'll be in town and we'll go out to dinner. Always fun (although I always have a hard time coming up with a good place for us to eat!). And on Saturday I'll probably go to Berryton to see my boyfriend at his house.
It's all back to good.
Now let's talk about books.
So, I was reading this book called I, Elizabeth. It's historical fiction about the life of Queen Elizabeth the first. I made it through the first section and I was just bored. The book is written well enough, but I've already read other fiction and non fiction about that time in Tudor history so I was like Eddie Izzard talking about original sin (in Dress to Kill) -- "Heard it...". I thought about switching books, but instead I decided to skip forward to some part I hadn't read as much about. I fast forwarded through 2 sections and took up when she became Queen. That was good. It was a lot about her relationship with Robert Dudley which is perhaps my favorite romance of all time, so I was digging it.
But then today, in the mail I recieved the first book of Colleen McCullough's Master's of Rome series. Gaius Julius Caesar is mentioned in the first sentence. How can I not like that? So now I'm torn. Both of those books are as long as the dictionary. I think I'm going to give the book about Elizabeth one or two more chances. I mean if I got serious about reading it wouldn't take that long to finish it and the Caesar book isn't going anywhere.
Those are the books I'm reading. But I also have the bedtime stories book. That's a book on "tape" (although they actually come on cds that I digitize and load onto my phone) that I listen to every night when I go to bed, and often in the middle of the night when I can't get back to sleep. Sometimes I listen on longer drives in the car as well, but mostly they're bedtime stories. You may remember I started with one of the cave girl books a long time ago. I loved it so much I signed up for a Netflix like service that sends audio books (it's called Simply Audiobooks, but I'm not sure if I recommend them or not). Next came 4 different Harry Potter books. Excellent of course. Then there was "The Magician's Nephew" from the Narnia series, which really didn't seem as good as I remembered. The last one I finished was the first of CS Lewis' sciene fiction trilogy, "Out of the Silent Planet". That was fantastic. I didn't love the guy reading it, but it really reminded me of how much I love Lewis and his view of things. Uncle Jack, that's how I like to think of him. He's really wonderful. Here's some of my favorite quotes from that book:
This one is so good, and so in the Lewis way of thinking. So true. So good.
A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmân, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing.
Here's another thing I recognize the truth in, but have such a hard time remembering on a day to day basis:
And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back – if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?
He's so good at explaining things. Even hard, scientific things:
Augray: Body is movement. If it is at one speed, you smell something; if at another, you hear a sound; if at another you see a sight; if at another, you neither see nor hear nor smell, nor know the body in any way... The swiftest thing that touches our senses is light. We do not truly see light, we only see slower things lit by itm, so that for us light is on the edge - the last thing we know before things become too swift for us. But the body of an eldil is a movement swift as light; you may say its body is made of light, but not of that which is light for the eldil. His "light" is a swifter movement which for us is nothing at all; and what we call light is for him a thing like water, a visible thing, a thing he can touch and bathe in - even a dark thing when not illumined by the swifter. And what we call firm things - flesh and earth - seem to him thinner, and harder to see, than our light, and more like clouds, and nearly nothing. To us the eldil is a thin, half-real body that can go through walls and rocks; to himself he goes through them because he is solid and firm and they are like cloud.
Augray: But mark this, Small One, that the two ends meet.
Ransom: How do you mean?
Augray: If movement is faster, then that which moves is more nearly in two places at once.
Ransom: That is true.
Augray: But if movement were faster still - it is difficult, for you do not know many words - you see that if you made it faster and faster, in the end the moving thing would be in all places at once, Small One.
Ransom: I think I see that.
Augray: Well, then, that is the thing at the top of all bodies - so fast that it is at rest, so truly body that it has ceased being body at all.
But this part I really loved. It made me think of my high school art history class. When I started I only liked art that looked like photographs. When it was finished, I loved so many paintings.
To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanind can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilites within. For Ransom, this moment had now come in his understanding of Malacandrian song. ... A sense of great masses moving at visionary speeds, of giants dancing, of eternal sorrows eternally consoled, of he knew not what and yet what he had always known, awoke in him ... and bowed down his spirit as if the gate of heaven had opened before him.
"of he knew not what and yet what he had always known," That' my favorite part."
Now they've sent me "That HIdeous Strength". It's my favorite of his space trilogy, but it's also the last book of it. Kind of frustrating, which is what I don't like at all about the company. They don't really have that large of a library, and they order they send them to you is wildly random and not at all up to you. The Harry Potter books weren't at all in order and a few were skipped. The one random Narnia book. Now book 1 followed by book 3. It would be so much better if I could hear Perelandra before I listen to this one, but I guess I can't.
Still I am loving it. Having someone to read me stories at night is awesome. Some nights I can't wait to crawl into bed and start listening. Like right now even. I think I'm going to post this, turn out the lights and start listening. From what I remember this is one of the best Lewis books, all mixed in with Merlin and King Arthur and anglophile feelings.
Goodnight!
