Dominoes

Signing in the Waldenbooks

100 Best Novels

A game. A diversion. As if you (I) didn't have enough distractions.
Can you name the 100 best novels according to Modern Library (1900-1998)?

(And, for more time wasters, visit Sporcle.com.)

F Minus

H/T Anne

Cliff wants . . .

To discover what you secretly wish for, Google "[your name] wants" (and don't forget the quotation marks, or it won't work), then list the first 10 items that make sense. Post your results in a comment here, or just chuckle to yourself . . .

Cliff wants less controller buttons, more waggle.
Cliff wants to beat X Factor.
Now Cliff wants a threesome.
Cliff wants to ring a chicken's neck.
Cliff wants private loo in Celebrity Big Brother.
Coach Cliff wants you to have a healthy holiday break.
Cliff wants to hear from you.
Cliff wants musicians to receive royalty payments.
Cliff wants another word for Thesaurus.
If Cliff wants to start, he better get that area between his ears in order.

7 Things

Ryan Call tagged me for the 7 Things About Me meme, and since I haven't posted anything for a couple of days, I'll play:

1. In high school, I wanted to be President of the United States. I'd be damn good in the job, but I no longer want it. I'm very happy with Obama, thank you. And besides, this was before I decided I was an atheist. America isn't ready for an atheist President, and never will be.

2. I like rules and order (and rules of order); I like math and logic; I like building things. I've always wanted to be an architect (even when I wanted to be President, and then when I wanted to be lawyer, and now that I want to string words together into stories and novels), and these things are all related.

3. I'm giving serious thought to becoming a vegetarian. A vegetarian probably can't be elected President either. But cruelty bugs me and most--not all!--meat production in this country is cruel. Beans don't feel pain, as far as I can tell.

4. I like to travel overseas. In 2008 I broke my 25-year string of being outside the United States for all or part of the year. Since 1975, the year I graduated from college, there have only been 5 years (mostly my law school and early law practice years) in which I didn't spend some time outside the country. Another reason I probably couldn't be elected President (but might have a shot at Secretary of State).

5. I'm not a great public speaker, but as a senior in high school I won Second Place in the Illinois State High School Association Speech Tournament, Declamation Division. I still have my silver medal. The guy who won was really, really good. I don't remember his name.

6. I have about 4,000 books. They fill up my house. I know people with twice that many books. Their houses aren't twice the size of mine. I don't understand.

7. I used to have a recurring dream in which I could fly. I gather that's not unusual. My dream involved flapping my arms and gliding, rather than superman-style soaring, though. I still think that would be cool.

The rule of this thing is that I'm supposed to tag 7 people to name 7 things about themeselves. We all know how much I like rules (see No. 2), but one of my personal rules is that I don't tag people in memes. Instead, if you read this and want to play along, consider yourself tagged. If you feel like it, you can mention in a comment here that you're tagging yourself!

Happy . . .

National Day of Bhutan. Also Day 2 of Las Posadas (in Mexico). Check the Earth Calendar every day to see what you could be celebrating.

Tagged

It seems as though the page 56 meme has passed this way before, but here it is again courtesy of Kat Denza.

These things have rules, of course. The first one is that I'm supposed to grab the nearest book and turn to page 56. Then I'm supposed to go to the fifth line and type that one and the next 2 to 5. The book is A Thousand Splendid Suns:

"From her window, she watched him in the yard, securing his lunch in the rear carrier pack of his bicycle, then walking his bicycle across the yard and into the street. She watched him pedal away, saw his broad, thick-shouldered figure disappear around the turn at the end of the street."

And then I'm supposed to tag five more booklovers to do the same thing. But . . . I'm not going to do that. I don't mind being tagged and think it's kind of fun. But I don't like to intrude on others, so here's what I've been doing with other recent memes I've received: self-selective tagging. If you read this and want to participate, I invite you to consider yourself tagged. And maybe you'll leave a comment here to that effect . . .

Reprise: In Garstang

Dam Beavers

I have the pleasure of living in a quiet rural setting. My house is on a rise and the bottom of the hill is a meandering creek that attracts birds and other wildlife. A year or so after I moved here I began losing ornamental trees--mostly Dogwoods--to a pair of marauding beavers. A biologist/trapper visited, found the den (these particular beavers were building into the bank, rather than making a dam), and then set traps (for which we got a permit from Game & Fisheries). I've got nothing against beavers, but I didn't want to lose all my trees. Problem solved, for that year. I lost a couple of trees a few years later, but set up a strobe light at beaver eye level that may have worked in chasing the critters away (or blinding them) because I haven't had a problem since. I said at the time that I wouldn't worry about them at all if they would just build a dam, because it would be neat to have a pond.

A few days ago, I noticed that a lot of twigs had lodged against the rocks in a shallow spot of the creek. We haven't had a lot of rain, so I was actually looking for spots where I might easily cross, something I can't do when the creek is high. On closer inspection, though, I saw that the twigs had gnawed ends. Still, I wasn't certain that beavers were responsible (even though I also spotted a mud slide on the bank where some animal was obviously moving to and from the water). I checked it today and now it is unmistakable: beavers are building a dam and creating the pond I've been wanting. It's quite a bit higher than it was a few days ago and it is clearly constructed of saplings (although no trees are missing from the yard, so they must be getting them from the nearby woods) that have been stripped of bark. The dam and pond are located at a perfect spot for observation, and one that won't cause me any damage.

I'm really looking forward to watching the progress . . .

Football

I thought it would never come, but the 2008 football season is upon us. Northwestern opens agains Syracuse on Saturday, and I'll be in attendance when the Wildcats visit Duke the following weekend and also when they host Southern Illinois in Evanston the weekend after that. Here's the full schedule.

A Completely Serious Depiction of the Writing-Publishing Process

H/T Ellen Meister

A Slow Day

What do pets do when their people are away?

Thou pribbling rampallian moldwarp!

Shakespearean Insulter

Disconnection

When I lived in Washington, DC, I had cable t.v. service. Comcast, I think. It was okay. It went out sometimes. I don't really remember even thinking about it. The price wasn't horrible.

When I moved out to the country, beyond the reach of the cable systems, I took over a satellite t.v. hookup from the guy who sold me the house. Again, I didn't think about it much, although occasionally I had to trim the Black Locust tree that had a tendency to grow in the way of the signal. But prices started to rise. And I had to pay extra to get networks. And I couldn't even get all of the networks. And I noticed how many shopping channels there were, and religious channels, and music channels, none of which did anything for me. Then because of a lawsuit the satellite provider had to drop the networks (I was getting a New York feed because they couldn't give me a local feed) and in order to watch them I had to arrange with another service. Another bill, another hassle. More money.

And now it's summer and the signal is threatened by the Black Locust and maybe also the gigantic walnut tree that I couldn't trim even if I wanted to. Thunderstorms also interfere with the signal, and there's nothing I want to watch anyway. Which is the real issue, I realized. What was I watching? Sports, sometimes, but even then not with much interest. Mind-numbing dramas right before bed. The financial news in the morning. That was it. Everything else I got either on DVD or on the internet. It wasn't that hard a decision to make, once I gave it some thought.

So I cancelled the satellite t.v. service (both of them) which will save me about $60/month. I can get rid of the t.v. in the bedroom, which wasn't working all that well to begin with--it's old. I've got several unwatched DVDs that maybe now I'll get around to. In the meantime, I'm reading a lot more, and I'm feeling good about that.

Best Book Ever

Check out this and other great stuff at Red Room.

Bloomsday

Happy Bloomsday!

Meme Time

I've been tagged for this meme by Jana McBurney-Lin, author of the novel My Half of the Sky, who just started blogging. I'm happy to play along. The rules are simple:

1. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
2. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, writes on their blogs to let them know they've been tagged.
3. Each player lets the tagger know when he/she has posted answers.

So, here we go:

What were you doing ten years ago?

Hmm. Ten years ago I was a lawyer for the World Bank, and the Asian Financial Crisis was burning bright, so there’s a good chance that I was in Asia (probably Korea) or on a plane traveling to or from Seoul or Jakarta or Hanoi or Beijing. 1998 was a very busy year. Otherwise I was living in my condo in Washington DC and tinkering with a novel I’d written a couple of years earlier. That was my life. I was enjoying myself.

What are five things on your to-do list today (not in any particular order)

1. Start on the revision of a story that I hope to finish this week.
2. Go to the gym.
3. Write/post a blog entry on a short story.
4. Work on my draft query letter for the new book.
5. Read one story in the latest book I agreed to review.

What snacks do you enjoy?

I’m going to interpret “enjoy” in the sense of “consume” because I’ve been eating healthier food lately. So my snacks these days are apples, almonds, low-fat cheese and dried figs.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?

I’d remodel my house, give my sisters whatever they wanted and establish a foundation with a mission of reducing global poverty.

What are three of your bad habits?

1. Drinking too much coffee.
2. Spending too much time on the internet.
3. Watching TV when I should be reading . . . or doing anything else.

Who have you tagged?

Anybody who sees this and wants to participate, consider yourself tagged. But remember, that means you have a leave a comment here to let us know when you've answered.

A Writer's Burden

h/t Roger Morris

Time-saving Device for Writers

Write your own rejection letter.