Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 93

This is a Good Book Thursday, August 5, 2021

I didn’t get a lot of reading done last week, but I have BIG PLANS for this week: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and A Briefer History of Time: The Science Classic Made More Accessible. (Thank you, Book Bub.) I’m sure they’ll both be exciting, sensual, and funny with plenty of action and suspense: everything I love in a book.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Today I overslept. Now working on getting out of bed.

What did you do this week?

Happiness is a Great Line

I was thinking the other day of some the best lines from stories that I know. Sometimes the lines were in less-than-great books and film and some times they were embedded in stellar narratives, but there was always something in that moment that illuminated character and exploded plot and just stopped me and made me pay a split-second tribute to a writer who came up with a line I couldn’t have dreamt of. You know what makes me happy? Good writers writing good stories that have real moments of brilliance.

For example:

“If you bother her again, I will break every individual bone in your hand and arm. It will take about an hour.” *

“You’re wearing my shirt, Gordon.” **

“I want it on my desk warm from the laminator at 5:00 P.M., and if it is one minute late, I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat. And then, on some dark, cold night I will steal away into your home and punch you in the face.”***

“I know.”****

***** “Reality is just a collective hunch.”
(This is not the quote I wanted, so I have ordered the book from eBay (it’s OOP) and I will fix this part when it gets here. It’s something about reality being too clingy, it needed her to be there for it all the time, so she just had to let it go.)

Honorable Mention: “Dolphins are just gay sharks.”

Or the quote for today:
“I urge you to notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” (That’s Kurt Vonnegut. Also us every Sunday.)

(Also, it’s August. How time flies when you’re broiling in your own skin.)

So how did you notice you were happy this week?

Quote cheat sheet:
* Martha Wells.
** Aaron Sorkin
*** Ryan Murphy
**** ad lib by Harrison Ford
***** Lily Tomlin

Plan-Action-Completion, Where I Go Wrong: Container Gardening Edition

I bought a bunch of plants yesterday in spite of the fact that I have a black thumb: when I go into a garden store, the plants all scream cause they know they’re gonna die. But I bought plants, plants that whimpered in the car all the way home. Yesterday.

Today I must plant them in containers. No, not the ground, either the ground around here hates plants or I’m inept. Since weeds are flourishing everywhere I look, it must be me, so I’m going to hedge my bets with containers and container soil and ceramic watering spikes and plant food spikes.

Except it’s noon, and I’m still in bed typing, while the plants are outside, container-less except for the ones they came in, probably dying of thirst and cursing my name. I’m starting to think this problem might apply to more than my garden ineptitude. Like writing. And cleaning. And crochet. I’m hell on wheels on planning, I make GREAT plans, but then it gets to the action part and . . .

So I’m using you all to guilt myself into container gardening. Well, not gardening, that implies I’m going to do more than sock them into containers and make sure the water bottles don’t run out. I know what real gardening is, it’s the stuff some of you talk about on here, those of you who know the names of the plants they have. (I’ve got some kind of aster, and a daisy-looking thing, and something I think is a mini-petunia, and then some other stuff . . . )

Look, I have to at least give them all a fighting chance. I’ll report back on Monday. Maybe add a picture today. Okay, that’s it, I’m going out there a failure and coming back . . . ready for lunch. Pray for the plants.

This is a Good Book Thursday, July 29, 2021

I’m making a list of the petty things that make me stop reading.
• A writer who uses the word “smirk” to mean “cute grin.”
• A writer who missuses and misspells words, like using “fairing” instead of “faring.”
• A writer who gives main characters green eyes. (Two percent of the population has green eyes, and all of that two percent are protagonists in romance novels.)
• Babies as a plot device or proof that the relationship is successful. Especially cute babies who never projectile vomit.
Yes, I hit all of those in one book. Yes, I am a grump. Get off of my romance lawn, you damn kids.

What did you read this week? What did you not read because of a petty deal-breaker?

Working Wednesday, July 28, 2021

I’ve been cleaning up outside, putting together new benches and planter boxes and storage boxes. It’s still awful out there, but it’s a start.

What did you do this week?

Happiness is Summer Food

I haven’t been cooking much (does the microwave counts?) because my kitchen is still a disaster area (tip: do not set fire to the top of your stove) but I’m having a wonderful time with food anyway: big salads with cheese and peppers and croutons and protein and slashing of Caesar or Ranch or Italian dressing (really just sandwiches without bread if you don’t count the croutons), cold roast beef or braunschweiger on whole wheat with potato salad and carrots and celery dipped into Ranch, cheese and mustard sandwiches and tomato-basil sipping soup, almost everything cold (it’s in the 80s here, sneaking up to the 90s) and everything super easy. Easy food makes me happy. I love cooking but not in the summer. Also Snickers Ice Cream Bars, made by the Devil, I’m pretty sure.

What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, July 22, 2021

I’ve been binging Emma Lathen all week: John Putnam Thatcher is very soothing. Also reading books on art crime which, to my surprise, are also very soothing. In times like these, I like books where everything comes out all right in the end.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Speaking of working, this blog has been running sixteen years today.. (I know, I can’t believe I’ve done that much work here, either. Okay, most of the work was done by you commenters, but I commented, too. There are over 140,000 comments on this blog, that’s how hard we’ve been working for sixteen years.) Of course, things haven’t changed much. That first post ended with “But to answer your orginal question, as God is my witness, I’m working. Really.”

What did you work on this week?

Happiness is Old Friends

That’s “old” in the sense that we’ve been friends for awhile, decades in fact. The kind of friend that you can not to talk to for a couple of years because you both get distracted and then you get in touch again and it’s like no time has passed. This week it was Patricia Gaffney, whose book The Goodbye Summer, was on Book Bub last week. We ended up e-mailing after midnight last Saturday, and it was just lovely talking with Pat again. Who is also lovely, in fact a bodacious mama. Happiness is good friends, good dogs, and good memories.

What made you happy this week?