Sunday Thoughts

So ... a few pithy comments for your Sunday reading pleasure:

My daughter has received her driver's learning permit, which means that now I get to add driving instructor to my rapidly growing resume. I do not believe I am constitutionally inclined for such a thing, for these reasons:
1) I never get into a car (or actually, any moving vehicle) without wanting to be out of it, like RIGHT NOW.
2) I get horribly motion sick (I get sick on a swing, for God's sake), and rapid stops and sudden hammer blows to the gas pedal do not help this in any way.
3) Years of working as a television news photographer (where your job is to get to places as quickly as possible, so you can then wait around for hours for something to happen), mean that I have no patience at all for slow drivers, which is directly at odds with
4) I am constantly thinking she is driving much too fast, and on the verge of complete lack of control, which means I am also constantly lunging for the wheel, thus ensuring that we will be in a terrible accident, and which leads to conversations like this: "Mom, I saw you tense up." "How could you see me tense up? You're supposed to be watching the road."

I've been watching HBO's Mildred Pierce, which I've been enjoying, almost in spite of the fact that it may be the slowest storytelling I've ever experienced. I usually spend the hour in this combined riveted/bored out of my mind state, which is confusing, to say the least. I've now watched four of the five episodes, and will watch the last one, but I keep waiting for some huge ball to drop and destroy the world or something. And it's not helped by long minutes of contemplative staring into space done by beautiful people. Not that there's anything wrong with that, exactly ... anyone who has ever entered my office will attest that it is filled with photos of beautiful people staring vacantly into space (in my very soul, I'm still a 16 year old girl), but I'm rather under the impression that moving pictures means things are ... moving.

I've now read the fourth installment of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments trilogy, City of Fallen Angels, which I liked very much, and the second in Holly Black's Curse Workers trilogy, Red Glove, which I also loved. Both are young adult series, and both move very quickly and are excellent both in character development and storytelling. I also went to see Cassandra Clare speak at a Kitsap Reads event. It's always nice to get out and hear what another author has to say about writing, and this was no exception.

Passover begins on Monday (my husband is Jewish), so I'll spend the next few days eating matzo and sponge cake before I switch gears for Easter (all leavened, all the time), which still feels to be a strange dichotomy and faintly blasphemous on both sides. However, matzo is very good when eaten with a little salt and a Cadbury mini egg.

Tonight Game of Thrones begins, which I'm hyped for. Then another episode of The Borgias, where I'm waiting for Lucretia to give in to the bloodthirsty little tyrant I know she harbors in her very soul.

And I am still coughing.