Andrew > Recent Status Updates

I know Rachel is supposed to be blonde, but I'm having trouble picturing her as anyone but Xanthippe from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

"When we get back home, I vow I shall give all my very best books to the underprivileged, once I have read them." - Leah

"...on a typical day he sleeps till noon, then takes a nap. You can just tell he isn't saved." Leah

"Yet we sang in church 'Tata Nzolo'! Which means 'Father in Heaven' or 'Father of Fish Bait' depending on just how you sing it, and that pretty well summed up my quandary."

Enjoying the bratty Rachel and the jaded (and wise beyond her years) Adah. Palindromes!

So far: bringing a hatchet on an airplane places this book deep in the past, Adah's narration is like a fever dream, and this quote: "He is reliable in the following way: if they say he is coming on Monday, it will be Thursday, Friday, or not at all."

"'...we only see the weak rats, the ones that get forced out to look for food.'" - Larry Adams (NYC exterminator)

"Literally" has a long history of being misused: "They have literally skinned me alive," a 19th century writer reacted to a bad review.

A homeless man says, "Some of these rats are too smart for their own good, but doesn't elaborate as to how. Then it becomes clear that he kills those rats. This seems to me like a logical fallacy. "Your argument is invalid because I kill you now."

Almost done. And yes, horrified.

She describes things as "creamy" way too much.

On deck is possibly Gone Girl, which would even out my author gender count for the year (four men and four women). Assuming it doesn't take me too long to read Gone Girl, I'll be at least a month ahead of my reading goal for the year, which means I can allow myself to start reading Game of Thrones. :)

"FATLOSE stands for 'Fecal Administration To LOSE weight,' an example of PLEASE--Pretty Lame Excuse for an Acronym, Scientists and Experimenters." Another accolade-worthy footnote from Mary Roach.

"Beep. Tick. Whirr. Ding. Poot." and "Amelia Bones... was looking like she'd been hit repeatedly in the face with a planet." (chapter 119 of 122)

"...he wrote [about animals eating poop] in a 1957 paper funded by, holy shit, the National Science Foundation." Love this woman.

When Harry speaks in Parseltongue, as becomes ass. (At Chapter 114 of 122)

"Back in the 1980s when everyone looked a bit off..."

"'I find, ...that I do not care.'" Albus Dumbledore for president.

I love her digressions. She comments that the person who checked out a paper on constipation before her did so on New Year's Eve, and it was interspersed with glitter.

"'...she had meant to call herself the Walking Catastrophe and the Apostle of Darkness, but in the excitement of the moment she introduced herself as the Apostrophe of Darkness instead. After that she had to ruin two entire villages before anyone took her seriously.'"

As I read chapter 108 on the last day of Passover, I smile at the author's reference to the Four Questions: "Why was that night different from all other nights..."

"Blue and green and yellow and red-trimmed robes shouted with the enthusiasm that people felt so easily when no action would be required from them personally." The author's blunt commentary on sports fandom.

The words "fistulated" and "vivisection" appear a lot in this book. "Piffle" and "foofaraw" appear less frequently, but are no less appreciated.

"Lee has the kind of face that children draw when they first begin to draw faces." I love this woman.

"'We could undoubtedly survive on these rations a lot longer than we'd care to live.'"

salivating

"There was the kind of silence there might have been on the day before creation."

Big Ted: "You're Hell's Angels, then? what chapter are you from, then?" Tall Stranger: "REVELATIONS. CHAPTER SIX."

I like his/their use of the word "cheerfully," especially to describe the disposition of inanimate objects.

"'I don't reckon it's allowed, going around setting fire to purple,' said Adam. 'Otherwise people'd be doin' it all the time.'"