Drew: Look, what did you say?
Me: Nothing.
Drew: Look…What?
Me: No one said anything.
Drew: Okay.
Me: I didn’t say anything.
Drew: Okay.
Me: You’re crazy.
Drew: Okay.
Categories
Category: Love
I pretty much adore Stephen King. I think I’ve made that evident. This is his author photo from his latest novel, 11/22/63. I think he looks remarkably like an older, fuller-cheeked version of my dad.
Stephen King, if you read this, I think you’re awesome.
So awesome in fact, that I have collected nearly all of your work. Here is a comprehensive list of Stephen King books (novels, short stories and collections, and nonfiction). I have italicized all the books I own, and bolded the NINE that I have yet to get my hands on.
novels:
11/22/63
Bag of Bones
Black House
Blockade Billy
Carrie
Cell
Christine
The Colorado Kid
Cujo
Cycle of the Werewolf
The Dark Half
The Dark Tower Series 1-3
The Dark Tower Series 4-8
The Dead Zone
Desperation
Dolores Claiborne
Dreamcatcher
Duma Key
The Eyes of the Dragon
Firestarter
From a Buick 8
Gerald’s Game
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Green Mile
Insomnia
IT
Lisey’s Story
Misery
Needful Things
Pet Sematary
The Plant: Zenith Rising (this one is actually an unfinished eBook that I thought would be impossible to find. Then I looked on his website and saw it’s just available to download as a pdf. BOOM)
Rose Madder
‘Salem’s Lot (I don’t have this as a single book, but in one of the collections)
The Shining
The Stand
The Talisman
The Tommyknockers
Under the Dome
nonfiction:
Danse Macabre
On Writing
Secret Windows
short story/novella collections:
Different Seasons
Everything’s Eventual
Four Past Midnight
Full Dark, No Stars
Hearts in Atlantis
Just After Sunset
Night Shift
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Skeleton Crew
as Richard Bachman:
The Bachman Books
Blaze
The Regulators
Thinner
There it is. My gleeful collection. Once I have completed it, I can set about replacing some of the ancient, falling-apart copies with newer, still-bound-together copies. Oh, I should also finally read all of them…because yes, there are some that I have only read once, years ago, and a couple that I’m sorry to say I haven’t yet read.
After yesterday’s post about how I have bought too many books since Jan 1st, a friend asked me to list them all. So here goes!
These are the ones I bought from Amazon with a gift card:
Cell by Stephen King – this is me collecting every Stephen King book
Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy – I saw this in the used bookstore I used to frequent when I worked at the Opera, and even though Erin said it was so-so, I’ve wanted to read it since then
Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs – I want to own all his stuff because I think he’s a good role model for me
Naked, Drunk, and Writing by Adair Lara – I idolize her, and this is one of the best “how to” writing books I’ve ever read
A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs – collecting all the Augusten Burroughs books is a lot easier than collecting all the Stephen King books
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin – so good!
Touched by a Vampire by someone named Jones – from the used bookstore, about religion in Twilight…it looks like a joke, and that’s why I bought it, although I paid $7 for it, so who’s the joke on now?
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – love Sherlock Holmes!
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather – love these Barnes and Noble volumes!
A Widow for One Year by John Irving – love John Irving!
More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin – I really liked the show at ACT, and I really liked the first Tales of the City, so I look forward to reading more
Oh! Here’s The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume I, near the foot of the bed. I was reading it about 6 weeks ago.
I shouldn’t count these since they were Christmas presents, but they are sitting out, so…
Etiquette by Emily Post – the 1922 edition!
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
This was also a Christmas present.
11/22/63 by Stephen King – one of his weirder premises, but I still enjoyed it!
Two major finds a couple weekends ago – two Stephen King books I thought were going to be difficult to get. But they basically fell into my hands!
Blockade Billy by Stephen King – $4.95 on the sale shelf at Barnes and Noble
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King – $2.95 at the used bookstore in Berkeley
Books 2 through 4 of the Underland Chronicles by the author of The Hunger Games. I love these books. I cannot recommend them enough. I also have the first one, but loaned it to Erin. I haven’t bought the fifth and final one yet, but I will when I finish the fourth one.
Gregory the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (not pictured)
Gregory and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins
Gregory and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins
Gregory and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins
Next to the bed! I’m about halfway through and really like it. I think I will read each book before the next season of the HBO series comes out.
A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin
So that’s 19 books that I’ve purchased since January 1st, plus 3 Christmas presents. But wait! I am currently awaiting two books from Amazon:
These are for next month’s book club – they’re both pretty short and we couldn’t meet for another 5 weeks, so we decided to do both of them. I am actually pretty excited about both, but I will probably read them in this order.
The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney – this book has been on my “to read” list FOREVER
So there you have it. Twenty-one books purchased in the first two months of 2012. Will the trend continue like this?
The thing of it is, I’m obviously not embarrassed or worried about this behavior. I love buying books and having books and reading books. I have no intention to stop buying them. I make no promises like, “I won’t buy anything else until I read everything I own.” There’s a Barenaked Ladies lyric,
I don’t buy everything I read,
I haven’t even read everything I’ve bought.
I identify with that.
Stay tuned, and I’ll give you a full breakdown of all of Stephen King’s works, and the few I still need to complete my collection!
Categories
A Very Special Sleep Talking 17
So I’m fast asleep last night when all of a sudden Drew stands up.
At first I figure he’s just going to the bathroom, but he turns around and starts messing with the blankets, specifically the quilt on top. He appears to be trying to rotate it.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
“How do I get these two? To stick together?” he says. He still looks like he wants to rotate the top one, so I find him a corner and hand it to him, and then he starts pulling it off the bed.
“Hey hey! What are you doing?” I say.
Then he pauses for a minute, says, “What am I doing?” and laughs and lies back down. At this point I figure he’s awake and knows how silly he was being.
Then he says, “I think I have too many suits of armor.”
“…What?”
“Too many…suits of armor…you know.”
“Where?”
“…Never mind.”
It’s been quite the busy weekend. Drew has been in Sacramento with his friends this weekend and is coming home tonight. I somehow accidentally scheduled myself full days so there has been hardly any time at home to do the chores/homework I was going to do this weekend.
Yesterday around noon I picked up Erin and took her with me to look at this apartment in Daly City. Then we went and had sushi, and then we both went home. Then we met up again in Berkeley to see Ghost Light. We both got there early so we spent some time in the most awesome half-price bookstore by Berkeley Rep.
Today, Erin, her 15-year-old sister, and I got manicures at this kind of skeevy place in Burlingame. We won’t be going there again. But my nails are pretty. Then Erin and I went up to Mill Valley to see A Steady Rain at MTC, picking up some In & Out on the way. The show turned out to be a one-act, which was the most happy surprise ever. On the way back home, we stopped to do something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile.
I have this picture of myself when I was really young (4? 5? I can’t tell kids’ ages) up on the headlands over the Golden Gate Bridge, with this security blanket I loved until my dog Kim ate it. And I’ve been wanting to kind of recreate that picture, with my other security blanket (replacement post-Kim), which is almost in pieces. And I know Erin loves adventures and taking pictures, and since we were on that side of the bridge anyway…
So here are the results from that!
It was quite windy.
But a freaking beautiful day today.
I tried to do a panorama view with this (free) app I have, but it was only semi-successful. I’m still learning.
Great weekend! And I’m SO GLAD tomorrow is off as well!
There’s an old wives’ tale that every seven years all the cells in your body have regenerated and replaced themselves, so every seven years you’re like a brand new person.
There’s another saying that relationships suffer from the “seven year itch,” and that you need to be careful at that point because that’s when many people re-evaluate their relationships, and break-ups or divorces happen.
(There’s also research to suggest that the “seven year itch” has become the “three year itch,” and that’s the year you really need to watch out for. Yikes. Three years? Apprently attention spans are shrinking…)
Internet rumors and Yahoo answers aside…this is on my mind because today is Drew’s and my seven year anniversary. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been seven years. I feel like it’s been forever. I couldn’t even buy alcohol when we first got together, and since then we’ve been through college graduations (a certain classmate graduating with each of us, in two different years!), two cross-country moves, pets, no pets, jobs, no jobs, tough times and easier times.
There were times for each of us that we weren’t sure it was going to work out. But that was early days, when we were both still figuring out the intricacies of relationships. By now we’ve learned how to weather storms and that most arguments are momentary and inconsequential. We’ve hit our stride. I could do this forever.
I’m probably not supposed to say this, but I’ve changed a lot in seven years, and it’s due to this relationship. Am I a whole new person? Possibly. Am I better person? Definitely. I’m more patient, quicker to be grateful, and less moody. And if I’m a little cattier…well, it’s all in good spirits. I like me now. I hope other people like me now too.
Happy Anniversary Drew! Here’s to seventy-seven more years! (Hope he reads this post. Otherwise this is kind of awkward.)
There’s this neighborhood in South San Francisco, where they must have some kind of agreement or something that you have to sign when you move in, because everyone goes crazy during the holidays. I love it. I aspire to one day live in a place where I’m forced to put up hundreds of dollars of decorations every year so people can come park in front of my driveway and take pictures in my front yard.
Oh, that came out as sarcasm, but I’m totally serious.
Drew, Erin, and I went the other night, but we just drove through and so all my pictures are a little blurry, as Drew was reluctant to stop in the middle of everything and wait for me to get the perfect shot. I had to just magically get it while he was stopped momentarily in the line of cars.
Here are an assortment of – but not all of – those pictures:
That last house is the best house – it’s one of the first ones you see on your way in and the last one on your way out. It’s the prettiest and the cleanest-looking. There aren’t any weird creepy anamatronics in the windows, and what you can see of the inside of their house is also nice and Christmassy. It’s just the best house of the bunch.
I could have taken my blurry shots and been done with it – and supplemented this blog post with a handmade holiday poem or something – but then last night some of us went out for dinner and on the way back, the one person in the car who you’d expect to be the least excited about Christmas, said, “Ooh! Ooh! Have you seen the neighborhood with the decorated houses? Can we go look at it?”
I mean, that’s just adorable, you have to say yes.
Plus, we had Starbucks, so we were all feeling the holiday spirit.
So we parked and walked around, which means I got slightly less blurry pictures. Although I think that, without a real camera and a tripod, I was never going to get magazine-spread-ready photos. But I mean…cameraphone diaries.
Here are some details I didn’t get during our drive-by visit:
- Geese on the roof!
It sure feels like Christmas here – and I can’t wait to see my family tonight and Drew’s family tomorrow! Merry Christmas, all!!
The scene: Drew and I are both sitting quietly in the living room, minding our own business. Minutes have gone by, silently. I am reading some blog I follow, which is talking about Adele.
Syche: “Okay, I know it’s not going to happen…but I SERIOUSLY wish Justin Beiber is that girl’s baby daddy.”
Drew: *stares* “Are you kidding? I was just thinking that. I was literally – JUST – thinking, I hope that’s Justin Beiber’s kid.”
A match made in heaven, am I right?
Categories
This Perfect Day
Before Liz’s wedding, as before Megan’s wedding, we got ready in a Hampton Inn. Apparently all Hampton Inns are created equal, meaning that yesterday I had a lot of deja vu of running around getting ready, on the same pattern of carpet, in a bridesmaid dress and flip flops, with my hair all did and my eyelashes all fake.
Liz and Molly and I had a kickass time this weekend, getting to hang out and drink wine and eat brie and watch Buffy – also, sharing irrational fears, turning off the lights to go to sleep and then continuing to talk, and all having the exact same (occasionally judgy) thought about the exact same thing at the exact same time.
Liz looked amazing. (Molly and I did too, but obviously slightly less amazing.) She was also over the moon, which is a good thing to see from a bride on her wedding day. I don’t know Bill super well, but I like what I do know, and he seemed quietly thrilled in the whole day. Also a little stunned. I get it.
I have that song “More I Cannot Wish You” from Guys and Dolls stuck in my head. It’s not totally applicable, since they have already found their true loves, but I still like the sentiment.
Velvet I can wish you
For the collar of your coat
And fortune smiling all along your way
But more I cannot wish you
Than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
Mansions I can wish you
Seven footmen all in red
And calling cards upon a silver tray.
But more I cannot wish you
Than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
Standing there
Gazing at you
Full of the bloom of youth
Standing there
Gazing at you
With a sheep’s eye
And a lickerish tooth.
Music I can wish you
Merry music while you’re young
And wisdom when your hair has turned to gray.
But more I cannot wish you
Than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
With a sheep’s eye
And a lickerish tooth
And strong arms
To carry you away.
Happy first day of married life, Liz and Bill! Congratulations, and I love you, and I’m so happy you two found each other, since you’re obviously two halves of one whole.
The Cameraphone Diaries 