Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) > Recent Status Updates

One of the main problems this author has is trying to work in quotes that aren't related to the subject. Example on this pg: "As Worth stood before the painting in the dark gallery that night, he might have pondered the words of the previous occupant" - Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy. Key word there is might. Because we have no idea if Worth knew that Sterne had died there, or if he'd have cared.

Remember when, much earlier I wondered about her favorite four letter word? "Once before going on stage to speak before a woman's group, she exclaimed, "Oh shit, what am i doing here!" That comment due to stage fright. Still haven't figured out her second favorite four letter word, too many choices, none of which seen much in book though.

She ended up hating her two line poem about girls and glasses (News Item): "It was "a terrible thing to have made a serious attempt to write verse and then be remembered for two lines like those. ...She told Tallulah Bankhead that she must "even by accident, have said other things worth repeating, if the lazy sons of bitches bothered to find out." "

"Suddenly the passage of time terrified her. She wondered if she really did seek death. She who had never feared death and had busily cultivated her demise was startled to realize a ghastly fact: She would not be around forever to carry on her flirtation with nonexistence."

This is a good book for "warts and all" view of Parker: "Although presumed to be tolerant [of homosexual friends] she was secretly prejudiced and enjoyed making caustic remarks at their expense." And she was also well known as ripping people up behind their backs but smiling to their face.

I do feel sorry for her (2nd) husband: "On one occasion after she had roundly abused him before a gathering of friends, someone reminded her that he was a charming, handsome man who adored her. What more did she want from the poor guy? "Presents," she growled." She always did want to be independently wealthy.

Late 1930s: "A newspaper reporter asked her if she would care to say a few words about her life. By all means. It was terrible. Didn't she enjoy anything? Certainly. Flowers, French fried potatoes, and a good cry."

Description of the remodeled county farm house in PA (bought by Parker and her second husband Alan Campbell): "...The living room contained ten shades of red, including shrimp walls, Chinese red carpeting, and a wing chair upholstered in pink chintz with a large floral pattern. It was like sitting in the middle of a bowl of cherry Jell-O..." To which I say yeek. Though I'd also love to see photos.

Have discovered something that ebooks are going to change - the section in the middle of the book for photos. It's fine in a paper book when you know it's coming, but pops up suddenly (jarringly) in an ebook. Also annoying as you can't peek ahead to see what people look like, as you didn't know photos were there. Now wondering where such sections will end up, book's start or end?

"...she said, "Mr DeMille, what were you doing with zebras?" He said, "Oh the zebras. They were pulling the chariots of Mary Magdalene. ...Terrible, they kick so easily but their legs broke."

I actually am sort of reading another book but I'm not adding it to the list simply because the airlines forced me to begin it thanks to the "your ebook is dangerous to our plane" problem - I REALLY hope that goes away by 2014, since I'm tired of always packing a backup paper book. Meanwhile I'm not going to add that force-read book because it will be yet another it will appear that I'm taking eons to finish.

"What I mean is, vampires have their "previous mental capacity," thus by your logic they are "resurrected." Might as well name it "Jesus is bringing you vampires" Cemetery."

"This is why whenever I see disheveled homeless people on the street, screaming to no one in particular about how bears are evil masterminds trying to take over the city, I immediately assume that years earlier they'd found themselves discussing this subject at a dinner party, horrified themselves into a complete breakdown, and then everyone else just wandered away."

At the start of the chapter to assure us what she's not going to talk about: "Potty training is not a fun subject to reminisce about. It's more like a horrible death march through a haunted forest, and the trees are made of angry bears that you're allergic to. And you have to look at pictures of dead people at the same time."

"Was it worse to be homesick for a time that was once home, but lived only in your own mind...or to be homesick for a place that never really existed at all?"

"...You kind of have to be nice if you know that you're trapped in a costume, and that your bathroom breaks are at the mercy of people in the vicinity who own thumbs. Honestly, if we ever run out of straightjackets we could just put crazy people in old mascot costumes."

"If you enjoyed high school you were probably a psychopath or a cheerleader. Or possibly both. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, you know."

I like this alternate chapter title: High School Is Life's Way of Giving You a Record Low to Judge the Rest of Your Life By

"Most people don't go out into the woods to catch armadillos so that their father can race them professionally."

"Suddenly, Dorothy found herself inundated with invitations to literary luncheons that were held in hotel ballrooms "filled with people who looked as if they had been scraped out of drains" " - this after publication of her first book of poetry.

"...we packed up and moved to the small, violently rural town of Wall, Texas." She's not kidding. I've driven through/past Wall and still had to check googlemaps to remind me where Wall is.

Humor is when your phone app of GR isn't as good as the computer version so you have to sneak onto your father's computer to read updates. Suddenly I'm 12 again! Suddenly have the urge to go eat all the Christmas cookies.

Parker currently getting deeper into alcoholism and starting drugs. This would be why I set this book aside (for a while) and had a timeout for lighter holiday reading.

Ok NOW that I've read a few more books (still really short, but I'll let myself count them) I now feel I can consider that book challenge over. Whew. Now I can start some long ones that I'll get sidetracked from (and pick up again) but not feel guilt!

To be filed under this isn't really a problem: husband gives me a new kindle. I love this. However. It is night before plane trip. Now having very busy night. Also unsure whether books on new device are synched. Happy in a brain-exploding-over-the-newness kinda way.