Argh. I had a lengthy post drafted to encapsulate what I’ve done this past week/weekend - and explaining that I’ve been doing stuff instead of writing about doing stuff… but through a strange combination of stuck “shift” key and weird keyboard shortcuts going wrong [Alt+Tab and Alt+T], the entire post is gone. I tried back-tracking through the old cached (so I thought) pages, but there was nothing. Apparently, whatever went wrong went wrong before the most recent autosave that WordPress does, so the ENTIRE post vanished. Links, embeded video and music - everything.

I’ve just done some deep breathing and created another post that’s a skeletal outline of the previous juicy post, trying to note specific phrases I used that I felt were particularly descriptive. But the rest will have to wait since it’s late and I have to be up early to catch the train. I’ve been getting to sleep at around 3 a.m. for the last week - which would be fine if I wasn’t feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Lack of sleep won’t do me any favors in that arena; neither will coffee.

More later on a weekend of fun including music, whiskey and animatronic dinosaurs.

Neil Gaiman’s new book, The Graveyard Book, is out. And Mr. Gaiman is on tour. And at every stop, he’s reading a chapter from the book. In order. And then his publisher (HarperCollins) is providing videos of him reading each chapter online. They’re calling it a video tour.

As someone who works in publishing, I think it’s brilliant. It wouldn’t work for the kind of books I work with currently, but it’s brilliant just in general.

As someone who is a bit of a Gaiman fanatic, I think it’s brilliant. He is a great reader (methinks) and it’s wonderful to be able to hear it. Right now, I’m writing and have the video running in another tab so I can listen to him while I’m thinking my thoughts.

This first chapter is absolutely charming. This is aimed at young adults, ages 9-12, but so was his book Coraline and that was creepy as hell. And I loved it. A 3-D movie version of that one is coming soon.

Anyway - check it out. Listen to/watch him read. And note how quiet the audience is. I can only imagine that they’re just as hypnotized by his reading as I am. I admit it - it’s a geeky literary schoolgirl crush. And that’s OK.

I didn’t mind wasting this time for these two videos. Both movie-related and probably only interesting to a smattering of people. Oh - and both feature Hugo Weaving in some way.

First, someone’s attempt to subtitle a scene from “V for Vendetta” to remove some of the rhetoric and translate it for the internet age.

And then, a little behind-the-scenes featurette from The Transformers movie showing the faces behind the voices of the Autobots and Decepticons. I find this kind of thing interesting. I’m a geek. Whatever.

“…goes to my heaaaaad…” Tell me you don’t sing along when you hear that UB40 song on the radio. Tell me you don’t.

I did some cooking today (a more healthful distraction than most) and prepared some of this Bhutanese red rice I bought a few weeks ago. It’s delicious and nutty and toothsome (is that a word? and am I using it properly? too lazy to check right now) and I think it’s pretty nice-looking, too.

And suddenly, I am craving red wine. I have a few bottles here, but to open one would mean trying to drink it alone tonight and I’m not that much of a woman. Perhaps a gin and tonic. If I have tonic. Which I don’t. Ah, well. Regular old iced tea will suffice.

Lesson 1: a steering wheel does not make a steady tripod.

But the blurry shot is interesting in a “Lost Highway” sort of way.

Last night, I had 11 hours of sleep. I got home from work, had some soup and toast and got into bed with a book to read. I fell asleep at 8:30 (without setting my alarm) yet miraculously awoke at 7:30 this morning.

I hope most fervently that I’m not getting sick. The only times that I can sleep this much or need this much sleep are when I’m getting sick or in the depths of a nasty-ass depressive episode. It’s not the latter, so it would seem to be the first. Perhaps that overabundance of sleep will have recharged my body and left me healthier and able to fend off whatever is trying to sicken me.

Ugh.

Anyway, I’ve been feeling a bit of pudding-brain lately and needing some sort of mental stimulation. The NYT crossword puzzle will only take a girl so far. Rock-climbing does involve a decent degree of mental stimulation in the form of problem-solving and strategizing, and I may very well have a new climbing buddy in the coming weeks (my friend messaged me through Facebook and asked how she could get started; we have plans to go this afternoon).

But I need more. I don’t have the money to go back to grad school, and I checked our local adult school offerings and there were some interesting (and affordable) courses like introductory Japanese, introductory guitar, photography, and a film discussion group - so I may try one of those (perhaps guitar since I have one now).

Another thing I’ve thought about is just getting some college textbooks and walking myself through a course (for fun, mind you) that way. Lifehacker just posted their list of the best places to save money on textbooks. Working in the publishing world, I’m aware of how the used textbook trade doesn’t do the book industry any favors, but having been a student who got away with paying very little for her textbooks (English major = NOVELS, working in a bookstore = discounts), I remember well the shock I felt when I actually had to buy something at the campus bookstore at full price. Say, an intro to psych textbook (which I still have today) that set me back $160. Which was and continues to be a sizeable amount of money to pay for a book you’ll use for only a few months, honestly.

Of course, this was 1997 and prices have increased greatly since then. And I know from my brothers’ experiences that the hard science topics like chemistry and the various maths and engineering can easily set you back $300+ per book.

It’s a bit of a no-win situation. The prices are high because the production costs and values are high and the bookstores mark them up to make a profit. Students don’t usually have assloads of money, so they’re looking to save money by buying the last edition or buying it used from last semester’s classes. But I’m beginning to pontificate.

The point is that it might be worth ordering some textbooks like an intro to Japanese or art history. That might keep my brain stimulated for a bit.

And now, time to get ready for work. Half-day = twice the work in half the time. But it’s a holiday, so I should not complain.

I’ve been going through my books and determining which ones could be donated to Goodwill. Earlier today, three boxes of books were thus removed from my life. I filled up another and have empty boxes ready for the next wheat/chaff separation.

It feels strangely good. First, because I’ve donated them and can pretend that they’ll go on to have fantastically great lives in someone else’s hands. Second, because that’s three fewer boxes I’ll have to worry about packing up and moving with me when I find a new place. Third, because I got rid of some old college books as well as books that were recommended to me by people whose opinions held a lot of sway in my world 12 years ago but who I later came to see as mere mortals after all.

Essentially, lots of those books were an emotional purge; looking at them took me back to a specific time in my life when I was still fairly young, impressionable and not comfortable enough in my own skin to say, “You know what? I don’t like David Foster Wallace at all!” for fear of the people I quasi-pedestalled* losing respect for me because our tastes differed. Those days of youth.

* (Horrible neologism - sorry - but it wasn’t idol worship; I just had them up higher than they deserved to be.)

Anyway, among the books donated today was a copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. I hesitated for a moment, thought about keeping it so I could give it another shot - perhaps I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to enjoy David Foster Wallace at that time?? I looked at the back cover… read the back cover copy and saw that smug-ass author shot… and tossed it right in the box. See? I can’t even bring myself to post that photo here. I just can’t.

It’s getting late-ish for a Sunday night. I had some semblance of a weekend - which was very nice in an odd way. Even though I was pretty unhappy for most of it, it was an unburdened unhappiness. Lots of tension headaches and neckache. Lots of random around-the-house stuff like dyeing faded curtains, making pancakes and poached eggs and bacon for breakfast, doing dishes by hand since the dishwasher is broken, helping my sister do her hair for a wedding, laundry, ironing and blow-drying a wet book to save it from mildew and worse-than-death, assorted cleaning, purging of the books, etc.

And to treat myself, I ordered a MOO stickerbook of some of my Flickr photos. I don’t think you ever get too old for stickers, really.

… to receive a text from the Obama campaign announcing Biden as his running mate.

Or to have that text message wake you. Sheesh.

Today after work, I went on a powerwalk of sorts with a friend from work. She’s tall, so her vigorous walk is practically a jog for me and we did a solid 45 minutes or so… and then decided we needed food in a bad way.

We went to a Cajun restaurant near the office and I learned that Thursday night is half-price martini night. Well, not being one to pass up a $5 martini bargain, and feeling the need to have a drink, and knowing that I had at least two hours until I needed to drive, I figured one wouldn’t hurt me. So I ordered the pear martini - Grey Goose pear, Midori and pineapple juice. I get that the sweetness can be deceiving, but this thing was strong. Even with a shrimp po’ boy sandwich and coleslaw and a glass of water in my tummy, I was having issues setting my water glass back on the ring of condensation on the table.

I’m concerned that I’ve become a ridiculous lightweight - or that it was laced with something else since I’m still sort of feeling it now (I don’t honestly think that’s the case, but wow do I feel weird).

The entire train ride home, I was sort of in a haze. That’s not normal. I drove home without incident (that was 2 hours after imbibing the SINGLE martini) but still feel a little out of it.

I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to figure out how to install this fun Flickr widget and I can’t seem to make the words come together in my head so that I can successfully configure and install the mofo.

I’m not even tipsy, but something is wonky. Maybe I’m just overly tired and stressed? Maybe the fact that tomorrow is Friday is making me a bit giddy and punchdrunk?

The best thing to do right now is crawl into bed and enjoy some delicious sleep.