Somehow, being alone with the cats doesn't count as time to myself.

They are so very omni-bloody-present. (Look! An infix!) I swear, if either one of them attacks the screen or the keyboard *one more time*... Violins, I tell you. Earmuffs. Cats on a hot tin roof. Something to that effect.

Also, why is it that whenever I have all the time to sit in a bookstore taht I could possibly want I can't find a flippin' thing to read, but when I'm in a hurry, I trip over stuff I find interesting? And why isn't the local movie theatre playing Chicago?

Not only that, but this antiquated computer I'm using while Ruth has the laptop in P.R. has decided that it is too old and tired to load Hotmail; the browser doesn't understand the SSL protocol. So I got on the web to get a better browser, and discovered a setback-- in order to download any version at all of Internet Explorer, you need to use the 'Run Program From This Location' feature that you get by right-clicking the mouse. This mouse is too old to have a right-click. It has one, count it one, button. There does not appear to be any way around this. When I tried to download a reasonably up-to-date version of Netscape, the computer requested a notary and a priest and witnesses to write out the will, so I gave the heck up. Consequently, unless I manage to get do the library during the approximately ten minutes a day it seems to be open these days, I will not be on email until Ruth gets back.

Still, it is being a decent vacation. I can tell that I need to have some rest, as I do not find myself trying to read anything that requires any mental effort whatsoever. It's a clear sign that it's time to go back to school when I start immersing myself in arcane and esoteric and complicated reading material. This is one reason I think my workload may in some directions have been too light last semester; I found myself with time to read Wuthering Heights and Moby Dick and some Borges and a great deal of cultural theory and The Devil's Dictionary and every new issue of the New Yorker and the Advocate and the two new Diane Duanes and the new Clive Barker and the amazing new Michael Chabon and at least the first volume of everything CrossGen has ever put out. I'm sure there was more, but that's all I can remember, since that was since Fall Break. Granted I read fast and every couple weekends take a few hours to head over to the bookstore and see what's new, but I am glad I am taking five classes next semester, as the amount of free time I had seems somewhat excessive.

Still, it's been an interesting while light-reading wise. I have discovered a deep and passionate love for Wuthering Heights, a book which skyrocketed onto my list of the best novels I have ever seen in the English language and hovers somewhere between second and third on it,and an equally passionate and deep hatred of Jane Eyre, a book I would not have bothered to finish had it not been for morbid curiosity. I also spent a fair portion of the time I was at my grandfather's reading a very comprehensive collection of the Apocrypha that I found in his library. It's a really cool edition, as it includes some of the correspondence of the early popes which discusses how the church officials chose exactly what was to be copied into the bible and what wasn't. Anything using a feminine or gender-neutral pronoun for divinity was out; anything suggestive of Kabbalah or Gnosticism was out; anything suggesting that Christ might have ever married was out; so sayeth Pope Clement III, one of the more annoying people I have yet come across in history, outright, in his letters. Oh, and I know Ada has some acquaintance with the Apocrypha, but I was wondering if she was aware that there is a historical basis for her monks of Judas in the Gilgamae plot? In my collection is a fascinating document called the Gospel of the Cainites, who worshiped Cain until Christianity came along, at which point they switched their allegiance to Judas. It's a fascinating blend of pre-Christian Gnosticism and Catharism, with just a touch of Manichaeanism and a heck of a big chip on the shoulder. If Ada hasn't read it I can lend it to her.

...oh dear. That was a close one. The cats have been tearing around the apartment frantically, as they still do sometimes despite having mostly outgrown kitten behavior. I had one of the windows open because no matter what I do this place smells of cat, and Lucien made a wrong turn and hit the screen at a really, really high velocity. Fortunately he bounced backward and I made a dive for him, which turned out to be a good thing because he had managed to knock the bottom of the screen out of the window. I shoved both the cats away with large quantities of force and managed to get the screen back in with a minimum of cussing; it doesn't even really look bent. But that was scary-making. We are on the seventh floor. No more windows open more thatn two inches in this apartment, ever. Gah.

I have to go shake now, and then buy some air freshener or something for this damn apartment.

Somehow, being alone with the cats doesn't count as time to myself.

They are so very omni-bloody-present. (Look! An infix!) I swear, if either one of them attacks the screen or the keyboard *one more time*... Violins, I tell you. Earmuffs. Cats on a hot tin roof. Something to that effect.

Also, why is it that whenever I have all the time to sit in a bookstore taht I could possibly want I can't find a flippin' thing to read, but when I'm in a hurry, I trip over stuff I find interesting? And why isn't the local movie theatre playing Chicago?

Not only that, but this antiquated computer I'm using while Ruth has the laptop in P.R. has decided that it is too old and tired to load Hotmail; the browser doesn't understand the SSL protocol. So I got on the web to get a better browser, and discovered a setback-- in order to download any version at all of Internet Explorer, you need to use the 'Run Program From This Location' feature that you get by right-clicking the mouse. This mouse is too old to have a right-click. It has one, count it one, button. There does not appear to be any way around this. When I tried to download a reasonably up-to-date version of Netscape, the computer requested a notary and a priest and witnesses to write out the will, so I gave the heck up. Consequently, unless I manage to get do the library during the approximately ten minutes a day it seems to be open these days, I will not be on email until Ruth gets back.

Still, it is being a decent vacation. I can tell that I need to have some rest, as I do not find myself trying to read anything that requires any mental effort whatsoever. It's a clear sign that it's time to go back to school when I start immersing myself in arcane and esoteric and complicated reading material. This is one reason I think my workload may in some directions have been too light last semester; I found myself with time to read Wuthering Heights and Moby Dick and some Borges and a great deal of cultural theory and The Devil's Dictionary and every new issue of the New Yorker and the Advocate and the two new Diane Duanes and the new Clive Barker and the amazing new Michael Chabon and at least the first volume of everything CrossGen has ever put out. I'm sure there was more, but that's all I can remember, since that was since Fall Break. Granted I read fast and every couple weekends take a few hours to head over to the bookstore and see what's new, but I am glad I am taking five classes next semester, as the amount of free time I had seems somewhat excessive.

Still, it's been an interesting while light-reading wise. I have discovered a deep and passionate love for Wuthering Heights, a book which skyrocketed onto my list of the best novels I have ever seen in the English language and hovers somewhere between second and third on it,and an equally passionate and deep hatred of Jane Eyre, a book I would not have bothered to finish had it not been for morbid curiosity. I also spent a fair portion of the time I was at my grandfather's reading a very comprehensive collection of the Apocrypha that I found in his library. It's a really cool edition, as it includes some of the correspondence of the early popes which discusses how the church officials chose exactly what was to be copied into the bible and what wasn't. Anything using a feminine or gender-neutral pronoun for divinity was out; anything suggestive of Kabbalah or Gnosticism was out; anything suggesting that Christ might have ever married was out; so sayeth Pope Clement III, one of the more annoying people I have yet come across in history, outright, in his letters. Oh, and I know Ada has some acquaintance with the Apocrypha, but I was wondering if she was aware that there is a historical basis for her monks of Judas in the Gilgamae plot? In my collection is a fascinating document called the Gospel of the Cainites, who worshiped Cain until Christianity came along, at which point they switched their allegiance to Judas. It's a fascinating blend of pre-Christian Gnosticism and Catharism, with just a touch of Manichaeanism and a heck of a big chip on the shoulder. If Ada hasn't read it I can lend it to her.

...oh dear. That was a close one. The cats have been tearing around the apartment frantically, as they still do sometimes despite having mostly outgrown kitten behavior. I had one of the windows open because no matter what I do this place smells of cat, and Lucien made a wrong turn and hit the screen at a really, really high velocity. Fortunately he bounced backward and I made a dive for him, which turned out to be a good thing because he had managed to knock the bottom of the screen out of the window. I shoved both the cats away with large quantities of force and managed to get the screen back in with a minimum of cussing; it doesn't even really look bent. But that was scary-making. We are on the seventh floor. No more windows open more thatn two inches in this apartment, ever. Gah.

I have to go shake now, and then buy some air freshener or something for this damn apartment.