A Month of Books

Managed to sort through my books and put them away. The following pictures show my idea of ‘tidy’! There are hundreds more books in other bookcases and rooms.

The third photo (just above) is the reject pile… am ‘signing them off’ from my book database (when not feeling too tired and unmotivated). In the picture you can just about see a few Dean Koontz novels, including The Taking (large white hardback), Demon Seed (red) and Velocity.

Decided to see which books I’ve read in the past month (information taken from my journal):

The Taking (Dean Koontz) I already referred to it here.
Mr Murder (Dean Koontz) DK raised a sub-theme in this book of the importance of stories and novels.
Icebound (Dean Koontz) Very good. An Alistair Maclean type thriller. It’s the only one of DK’s novels I passed to Mum to read, as I didn’t think she would like the gory or supernatural occurences in the others!
Reader’s Digest Good Health Fact Book Mum brought it home and I read some of the sections and pondered! So it counts a little bit.
The Good Guy (Dean Koontz) Pretty good. You wondered who ‘Doorman’ was.
Demon Seed (Dean Koontz) Scary. Finished it in three hours.
Lightning (Dean Koontz) Better than I hoped. Quite science-fictional.
The Darkest Evening of the Year (Dean Koontz) Comment from my journal: “…too much about dogs and arsonists, but struggling on with it.” One of the villains had a perspective on women who write diaries! He believed there was no meaning in life, and it was dangerous to imagine there was. I had the thought that if you’re a prawn, you might end up in a dish of Stir-Fried Prawns with Pak Choi. I don’t know what that means.
Panicology (Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams) About fears whipped up by the media. Less lightweight than I expected. Some of it was of interest, but in other places I felt it was as much opinion as anything. People’s priorities differ, and nobody has a crystal ball.
Outsider (John Francome) – my current reading. Interesting, but running some risks where I’m concerned. Will see…

In my journal, shortly after my comment on whether there’s meaning in life for prawns, I mentioned reading an article, by Louis Menand in The New Yorker, on why people read diaries. It said we get a better idea of what people are ‘like’ from seeing them through the eyes of others — so diaries mentioning others are more interesting (and illuminating) than those focused on self.

Again, it depends on priorities! Imagine if something happened and people had to live underground. It might be all you knew, if you were born there… but there could be an archive of books and diaries about living on the surface. In those circumstances, you would absorb all the bits about the warmth of the sun on your skin, and birds warbling away to themselves.

Just a thought…

PS: Checked the difference between diaries and journals — I definitely write the latter, though not as creative as I would like! Sometimes wish I could write less, so that ‘taking your diary with you’ would mean a couple of moleskin pocket books for the whole of your life. That’s because I worry about space, storage, flood and fire. (What would you save in a fire? I expect a multi-volume journal would be left behind). But this post is quite inspiring. Happy journalling!

Bloggy Hush

My blog went a bit quiet, didn’t it? I took a shot at working out why in my journal.

Sunday 15th Feb 2009

Feeling different today — not sure why. Elizabeth’s latest writing challenge is ‘A Feeling of Harmony‘ — would like to try, if I could get it together. (Is there something ironic about that?)

Feeling slightly scattered today. PC struggling. It was making quite a racket tonight so I shut it down and turned it off at the mains. There’s a risk it won’t ever turn on again when I finally try, but I won’t lose much of importance — the stuff  is backed up.

Just had a realization — been quiet on blog. I think it’s because I got so into writing this journal again, which is ironic, as I stopped journalling when I got deep into the blog a while back. Then I realized something important was missing from my life, and picked up the journal again. I only seem able to run both of them at full whack for a while, and then something gives.

I need to express my thoughts somehow, and they’re not all blogworthy… but if my journal was just a few lines or half a page a day, it wouldn’t have the same ‘gravity pull’ that this monster has, and the blog would stand a better chance.

I’m curious now; if I had to summarize today in a few lines, what would I choose to highlight? I’ll try that at the end of this entry.

Song in head is still Don’t Cry for Me Argentina by the Shadows.

When I was looking on the PC, I found a folder of ‘cat movies’. Truly dreadful they are, and all too short, but they are of Thor, Fusspot, Sharky. I didn’t want to look at them but couldn’t help myself. I started with ‘Fusspot talking’, and went on to all the rest. I smiled at them, even chuckled, but when I turned back to the Mac, I got sad.

Delilah came and looked at me, and I gave her a long hug, and played with the woodpecker-on-a-pole toy. She put her nose against it as though to feel its vibrations.

Don’t cry for me…

I need a new computer. I wish Apple would hurry up and update the iMac. I wonder if I should get a PC… even a little one would probably be faster and roomier… the old one is more than 10 years old. It has been around for Thor, Fusspot, Sharky, Lucky and all their photos.

That’s why I feel different. I’m contemplating change. The PC reminds me of the old cats and the old house, and I’m having to give it up now. And it’s also because I’m looking back more vividly (the movies). And there’s a funny smell around here — it came in through my bedroom window and all the cracks in the house. On some days I think “what’s that weird smell?” and it turns out to be ‘sea haar’ or something… but I’m not sure about today. It’s like varnish. So… it smells different and it makes me feel different… living a different life!

Oh, my little experiment — today in a few lines:

Beanfrog 1st. Ate 2 dragonflies. Worked on picture. PC v. noisy, have turned it off. Found some movies of Sharky and co on the PC — they made me sad. Song in head: Don’t Cry for Me Argentina. Read Elizabeth’s blog post ‘About Heart Day‘ and commented. Fish pie, peas and evil tinned macaroni cheese for supper — didn’t eat much.

It was so short I ran out of things to say! About the Heart Day blog post, I said to Elizabeth I used to like the quiet mystery of Valentine’s Day, but it’s become a kind of parade for established couples.

I don’t intend to give up either blog or journal…  or truncate them; not if I can help it. My world focuses on imagery and ideas. Even the the fish pie doesn’t get much of a look-in. At this rate I’ll end up meditating in a cave high in the hills somewhere… but only if I can run my computer from there.

I looked for a photo of Fusspot to go with this post but they were mostly bad scans or taken by a very poor quality digital camera (1.3 megapixels! It wasn’t long before mobile phones could do better than that). He passed on a little while after I got the new Canon. He was already quite old and lanky. I found one half-decent photo and tried to brighten it, but the contrast went haywire. He looked out of the picture at me with his soulful blue eyes, and I had to close it.

We think we’re taking pictures for ourselves, but they’re really for other people. Others can look and say things like “oh, that’s what he looked like?” but we just want to close our eyes and remember quietly.

The day after watching the movies of the cats, I was resting my ears (no hearing aids) so I couldn’t hear a thing. And then I heard Fusspot yowl…  just once. I sat up and looked around, but Delilah continued to sleep peacefully. I think my brain manufactured it, the same way it creates a suitable ‘sound’ for every vibration.

I posted a pic of him before… I’ll just reuse that one. It’s one of my favourites anyway.

Dear Diary, I’m Not Ignoring You

I recently read an article saying most diarists name their diaries and address them directly. I don’t, and I’m not convinced that the ‘dear diary’ approach is all that common? I’m intrigued by the idea, though, and tried it last night in my private journal.

Dear Diary

Have you had a good Hogmanay? Who did you spend it with? I’m afraid I was spending my own Hogmanay with Blog. I hope you weren’t lonely or jealous. I quite agree, we have enough problems already – how would I ever be able to talk to you if you were having nervous breakdowns or going through spells of not speaking to me?

Blog got in a mood too the other day. I wanted to grumble about Christmas cards, but Blog refused to let me publish it, saying it was unworthy of me and unworthy of the Christmas spirit. If Blog censors everything I write, and you get jealous and turn your frosted plastic back on me, 2006 will go largely unrecorded.

I thought that would make you sit up. Happy New Year anyway.

Lots of love from Diddums XXX