Resolutions and mail (past, present and future)

Today I am wearing Envy, which started out with fabulous piercing mint, and has since mellowed to something a bit more generically green, like warm grass. I think I like it.

Also today I officially gave up the pretense that I don't really live here (after 3 years), and I swapped my BC driver's licence for an Ontario licence - or, more accurately, for a piece of paper and a promise. Why is the driver testing station out in the middle of nowhere? Shouldn't it be somewhere convenient for people who, I don't know, don't yet drive?

Last month I swore to cut down on random channel surfing, at which I'd say I succeeded during the week and failed miserably on the weekends. On the plus side, I now have an extensive knowledge of what supposedly educational soft porn sex documentaries are on after midnight.

This month I'm supposed to take up my German again, but I'm going to bump that until next month, when the classes start, so instead this month I have to go out more with friends. Friends, be warned.

And finally, last night I got a postcard from pescana, which almost made it here before she even got back. Thanks! That's a hell of a lot of fish from one trip.

Booktalk

Garth Nix Lirael

This was great - I mean, I enjoyed the first one (after a slow start), but I really liked this.  Lirael is a Daughter of the Clayr, but she is unlike any of the others, lacking the Sight that defines the Clayr.  Sam is the Prince and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, much to his own dismay.  They each have a journey to take in order to help the kingdom, which is being targeted by a necromancer.  But the best parts are Lirael's explorations of the library, and her continuing curiosity.  The ending was so frustrating, though!

Geneen Roth When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair

I have a hard time with cheerleading books like these.  I think I don't take advice well unless it's clinical and academic.  But this was actually pretty interesting, if things that I mostly had heard before.  It talked about food and our relationship with it, and things that can be done to make that better.  The format was a little glib, but I think I'll look at some others' of hers.

P.G. Wodehouse Life With Jeeves

Collection that includes the stories Inimitable Jeeves, Very Good Jeeves, and Right Ho Jeeves.  Wodehouse is always wonderful, and I never regret reading Jeeves.  I think this might have been a bit of overkill, though.  Next time I'm trying some of his other works, maybe the Psmith or the Blandings books.

Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth

This book was originally released nearly 15 years ago, but it's still incredibly relevent, and I wish I'd read it sooner.  I mean, many of the examples are so out of date it's a bit disturbing, and I'd have loved to see what she would have made the current trend toward makeover shows like The Swan, but the underlying issues and causes haven't changed - people, particularly women but increasingly men, too, are being made to feel that there is only one way to look, and that if they don't look that way, they're not worthwhile human beings.  Everyone should read the book.