My hands = so raw. Ow. I’m just peeling off little circles of skin from my palms and fingers.

I guess that’s what happens when you go climbing two nights in a row after not climbing for two weeks… and then most recently, two weeks before that. My hands got too soft. I need to regrow those protective calluses*. There’s pain, but it is (as they say) a good pain that means I DID something.

Various parts of NJ are without power as a result of last night’s heat-aided thunderstorms. I am not in one of those parts, but I had no train service today since they were busy cleaning debris from the tracks of my train line. Hopefully, they’ll be all done with that by tomorrow, because it really hurts to drive in now - in terms of gas prices and the price of parking.

I need some water and I need some sleep. In that order. Stat.

* I double-checked the spelling because I wasn’t sure if this should be a “-us” or “-ous.” Apparently, the “-ous” is for emotional hardening only.

As you’ll see evidenced below, I’m apparently in the mood to photograph trees. There were lots of other things I could’ve “shot” today (during a day trip to Princeton, NJ with my friends Theresa and Sara) but I liked these trees. And, honestly, we were having a splendid time and it didn’t occur to me to get the camera out and interrupt the flow. And Mihály Csíkszentmihályi will tell you how important flow is.

But really, the sky this morning was amazing and it set off the greenish-yellow of this tree to stunning effect, I think. The image hasn’t been altered in any way, other than sized down to fit this column.

Then there was this tree in a courtyard across from Princeton University itself. I liked the thickness and rope-yness of the center.

We stopped at Princeton Record Exchange and I bought a bunch of used CDs and a couple of new ones, so now I’m feeding iTunes and syncing my iPod with glorious new music. Yummy.

I also got some chocolate-covered toffee pistachios at the Thomas Sweet chocolate shop. Honestly, eating two of those packs a wallop of chocolatey sweetness, so they are going to last me a while.

While I’m quite used to paying a little extra for everything when I’m in Manhattan, it’s sometimes still a bit of an adjustment.

For example, I just stopped at a supermarket here to get some food for the weekend: a bag of baby spinach leaves, a can of beets, small tube of goat cheese, box of cereal, carton of orange juice, a lemon, a couple of tomatoes, a container of chocolate-covered raisins, loaf of whole grain bread, jar of peanut butter, jar of jelly and (my luxury) two medallions of filet mignon ($11, so that wasn’t too bad). Stuff to make salads, sandwiches, breakfast and a couple of dinners.

The total bill (for me to eat this weekend) was $67. Granted, if I went out for all those meals, I’d be paying a lot more, but I couldn’t help but think about how the same stuff would’ve cost me no more than $40 “back home.”

And for that moment, I felt a bit stodgy and country bumpkin-like. But I understand that that’s what it costs if I want to eat well and not get McDonald’s for every meal or eat toast from morning ’til night. I have friends at work who will do their food shopping in NJ before heading home to NY at night so they can save $10 or $20 or $30. I was toting a suitcase today, so that wasn’t an option.

Still, it’s going to be a nice change to be here for the weekend: spending time with an adorable doggie, walking in the park and taking photos, meeting up with some friends, and just not being home (where the quiet would probably begin to affect me, given the events of this week.)

Yesterday, my friend Sara called me to tell me about a used book sale going on in the next town over. She’d gone earlier and acquired a treasure-trove of beautiful old books for a total of $1.75 ($1 and $2 books for 50 and 75% off!)

Well, I went this morning before heading off to ComicCon, and they were having a bag sale—all the books you could carry in a paper shopping bag would cost you $5 (it was a fundraiser for a local school). Here’s what I brought home (minus one that I gave to my sister):

There are some I’ve heard of and some I’ve never heard of and bought because they looked like an interesting read from a time long gone and are probably long since out of print. To start, there is this gem from one of my favorite wits of all time, George Bernard Shaw (a 1928 publication):

I’m not sure if it’s a serious work or not… that time period was rife with things that would sound misogynistic these days but which were considered quite complimentary almost 100 years ago. I guess we’ll see just how intelligent a woman I am.

The purple cover below just made me smile - a combination of the title, the illustration… the whole cover treatment. Amusing. And it’s from 1909!

Then I found this very cool 1944 edition of Crime and Punishment. I love the embossing on the cover.

I have to admit that I bought this next book for the novelty of the title and the cool logo action. It’s from 1924…

And an interior that removes any possibility of having stumbled across interesting 1920’s erotica… I don’t think “happy ending” had taken on a lewd secondary meaning yet at that point.

And the Tempestuous Petticoat from this post’s title? Well, that’s from 1948, surprisingly. But I love this illustration.

I’m going to sit here for a bit enjoying the look and feel of these. Maybe I’ll even start reading one once I finish obsessing…

I don’t even know how much time I’ll have to write in the next week. Seriously.

Today I drove my friend to the airport in the morning so he could catch his flight to San Francisco, and I will be flying out there to hang out with him next Wednesday. The seven days between now and then will be both interminable and far too short.

For example, I’ll be working every single day, including the weekend. That’s when I’ll be working the New York ComicCon to represent my company’s Shakespeare: The Manga Edition series. It should be pretty cool (if providing a little bit of geek overload - which I might even enjoy a bit if I didn’t get scared by people who are crazy hardcore about [insert comic book/graphic novel/manga/TV/movie series here] ) and the days should fly by since it will be busy.

Neil Gaiman is doing an appearance and signing sometime during the convention, but one part is a $500-a-ticket fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the other (reading - $20 a ticket) is most likely going to have lines spilling out the door if it doesn’t sell out. Since I’m working Saturday and Sunday, Friday is my only free night this week (and I’d like to see my other friends before I disappear for about two weeks), I won’t be attending, as much as I enjoy Mr. Gaiman - and I do.

All that coolness doesn’t change the fact that I will have spent all the hours between noon and 8 pm (you know, hours when I could be taking care of things like laundry and shopping and packing) standing in a noisy convention center.

It just puts a lot more pressure on me to get things done in the evenings. My usual evening routine is to get home from work around 6/7pm, change into running clothes, run for 30-45 minutes or so, shower, eat, check email/RSS feeds, and then read or watch a movie until I fall asleep. Tonight, I was unable to adhere to that routine; I got home at 6:30, checked email quickly and then ran out to stores to get vitals like sunglasses, shorts, a couple of tank tops and such. I got home at 9:00 and ate some dinner (leftover spinach and a piece of toast - PATHETIC) then tackled email, checking tracking on some stuff I ordered for said trip (durable rock climbing pants since Old Navy cargo pants won’t cut it), put away purchases, did some cleaning… and now it’s 11:00. Where does the time go?

Somewhere I can’t see. And the reasons for my blindness may vary.

But I’m glad to know that the title of a mix CD I made provided the possible title for a story my friend is writing, that I am basically guaranteed to have non-stop fun during my vacation which makes everything coming up to it worthwhile, that the stress I’ll be feeling at work will be productive stress because I’ll be getting lots of things done, and that I’m going to go rock-climbing tomorrow and it will feel good.

…since I’ve mentioned my obsessive reading habit. It’s still here; it’s just sometimes a bit overwhelming to write about reading because I do a LOT of it. A LOT.

And I’m not really good at writing about reading. I can analyze ’til the cows come home and write you a lengthy paper performing a close-reading of three lines from Hamlet - but I’m not a good reviewer. This is something I’ve come to terms with and can accept.

Instead, I’ll just mention two books I read this week, quote a bit from them, and make note of the fact that I really really enjoyed them. Good? OK.

Book the first: Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading. One of my greatest regrets from college is that I wasn’t able to take the Nabokov colloquium that NYU offered, like, once every two years. I took the James Joyce colloquium and that was great - but Nabokov does rate higher than Joyce on my literary love list.

So, Invitation to a Beheading is pure Nabokov in terms of his use of language and voice; the plot, however, is allegorical and surreal in a very Kafka-esque way. The very first line of the novel is the pronouncement of the death sentence for the protagonist - from there, it’s a psychological exploration of that waiting game. He knows he’s going to be executed, but doesn’t know where or when, and the cast of characters surrounding him (prison guards, lawyers, fellow prisoners) serve only to frustrate him further and drive him to lunacy.

It’s hilarious, frustrating as hell because you’re in the same boat as Cincinnatus (the protagonist), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. There’s a great segment where the narrator calls attention to our process of reading the book:

So we are coming to the end. The right-hand, still untasted part of the novel, which, during our delectable reading, we would lightly feel, mechanically testing whether there were still plenty left (and our fingers were always gladdened by the placid, faithful thickness) has suddenly, for no reason at all, become quite meager: a few minutes of quick reading, already downhill…

I found myself smiling while reading that passage since I do read that way; feeling ahead with my right hand and deriving pleasure from feeling that there are yet pages and pages to read. This isn’t the only reason to enjoy it–there’s a gem of some sort on every page (IMHO). But I really enjoy Nabokov.

Then there’s Paul Auster. He’s another one–I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve ever read by him. And I’ve read a good bit. Not everything yet, though. That’s a goal. The most recent thing I read was Oracle Night which I purchased at The Strand a couple of weeks ago. I started reading it on Saturday night and finished up on the train today.

But I’m realizing that I should hold off on the Auster-love for tonight and hit the hay since I have an early morning tomorrow…