The Book Thief

I just finished this book today. It was excellent.

The Book Thief takes place in Nazi Germany. It encompasses many stories and while at times it is confusing, there is never a dull moment. Zusak does a marvelous job of stitching together events and people with a unique point of view.

I wouldn't recommend it for young children, but to those who are mature enough to handle some death (it is Nazi Germany after all), harsh language (partly in German), and the unfairness of reality, I'd wholeheartedly tell you to pick up a copy and give it a go.

Book reviews are obviously not my forte.

Silver Stuffing

Tonight was a colander, overturned and trapping the whole world—or maybe just half of it. A giant colander. I didn’t feel trapped.

The wind tore scraps of old stuffing out of old pillows and floated them down a river of atmosphere. The moon hid.

The colander did a fine job of simulating a pitch black sky with scattered pinhead stars, but as a colander I’m afraid it was out of a job. The holes were tiny or maybe just far away. In any case, they were not evenly spread and whatever water tried to escape would have a long, hard time doing so.

There wasn’t any water coming down.

A falling leaf, a moving branch. The sounds that used to set me in my nervousness only served to soothe me when they bathed in the cool silvery blue night air with stuffing clouds, all under a colander. There could be no vicious creatures, not here.

The wind let up for a second and I started to topple backwards, having let myself lean against it like the back of a chair.

I heard cars on the highway and an airplane in the sky.

I heard it before I saw it.

I heard it after I didn’t see it anymore.

A cloud swallowed it.

The sound followed its flashing lights, staying a few steps behind, but it too was eventually smothered.

The streetlight at the corner waited, lonely, glowing on.

Somewhere, there must have been an owl.

I didn’t see or hear one, but it was a good night for owls.

Why I don't blog more often (but I should)

I’m a thinker. I often have deep or unusual thoughts that I think ought to be shared with the world, and a blog is a good and convenient place to transcribe and store those thoughts. And yet I rarely blog. I often think to myself while I am in the midst of thinking that this would make a lovely blog, yet the thoughts I am thinking of are so lovely that I let them go, following the trail they cut out in front of me with their fluent strokes of perfect wording. And in following the words and thoughts to their end, I lose their tail, where I started. It’s rather upsetting, actually, for there’s another perfect blog wasted because I liked thinking about it too much and my short term memory is rather wanting. It is then when I occupy the idea again of some sort of in-brain recording device that simply keeps track of everything I think and plays it back later for me when I want to write it down because I know it was something good. But something like that doesn’t exist, really, and even if it did I know I would refuse to use it, because the idea of something foreign in my body, especially my brain, is rather disconcerting. You can’t fool me. I’ve seen enough sci-fi.


This leads me to believe that since I wish to share these thoughts with the world and they do tend to escape me after I’ve thought them, I should simply think out loud all of the time. Of course, this could become annoying to anyone who wasn’t patient enough to put up with all of the nonsense and glean for the gold nuggets that pop out every once in a while. And I still wouldn’t remember what I said.


So maybe I should just start recording myself when I’m thinking out loud.


Except that I tend to have those deep, intriguing trails of thought when I’m doing the dishes, or showering, or something equally incompatible with electronics and paper and therefore recording devices of all kinds.


If you stop to think about it, the reason is probably that for once I’m doing something incompatible with electronics and paper and distracting devices of all kinds.


Hmmph.


In conclusion, electronics are good and electronics are bad.


I have poor self-control so electronics hinder more than help when it comes to my creativity.


I should spend some time outside. Maybe I’ll become a wiser, more thoughtful person.

Funny video post.

Poison Sockets

This made me laugh so hard!

Food

A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics), from "macro" (large) and "bios" (life), a dietary regimen which involves eating grains as a staple food supplemented with other foodstuffs such as local vegetables avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods and most animal products. Macrobiotics also addresses the manner of eating by recommending against overeating and requiring that food be chewed thoroughly before swallowing. (From Wikipedia)

I think this is what I'm doing. :D

I've been pretty much vegetarian lately, and this seems to be pretty much vegetarian as well (though it doesn't have to be). But the avoiding processed and refined foods is something I want to do as soon as I have control over it.
I'm not vegan as I like eggs and cheese and milk. :9

I just like vegetables and grains more than meat.

Also I want to be a poor person and I planned on living at or below poverty level so that I could avoid filing taxes all my life but apparently if you earn even 400 dollars in a year in "self employment" (Which by the way is like almost every job I would like to do) then you have to file which means...

I will never escape.
But isn't filing taxes (and insurance and mortgage and car registrations and asdfghjkl everything else) one of those things that makes grownups so stressed?

I don't want to be a stressed grownup.
I want to live in a little house or apartment and sleep on a futon and eat food that grows and draw things and write things and go sit places and spend a lot of time thinking. And maybe have a bike or a small car.
And if I have a car, I must make sure I can fit all my belongings inside.
I don't want or need much "stuff."
But.
This world is out to get me and make me like every other grownup who has a car and a house and debt and stress and a job they hate and too much stuff and ugh.

I WILL NOT GIVE IN.