We’re in the midst of a ter­rific snow­storm, real wrath of God type stuff (and while that’s a Ghost­busters quote, the sub­ject of this post comes from our neighbor’s com­ment on the storm: “I hear today it’s sup­posed to be bad, but tomor­row it’s sup­posed to be Bib­li­cal”). The ever-watching They have been throw­ing around num­bers like 5 or 6 feet of snow. It’s going to be a fight to the death between me and Josh to see who gets the last teabag tomor­row — loser has to hike in to town for pro­vi­sions.
***
We had a friend visit over the week­end and he made it off the moun­tain just in time, as the storm arrived. We did man­age to get to the Getty on Sat­ur­day after­noon, which was delight­ful as ever — I can’t really think of any­where I’d rather spend my time than in a museum. I love glut­ting myself on LOOKING at stuff. The Impres­sion­ists were in fine form, as were the nifty illu­mi­nated man­u­scripts on exhibit in the Read­ing library.
***
Our writer’s group is keep­ing track of the books we’ve read in 2010. So far, I haven’t read any new nov­els, I’ve only re-read stuff I’ve liked before. This is mostly because my extra read­ing time is being taken up read­ing sub­mis­sions for Strange Hori­zons, which is awe­some and eye-opening and teach­ing me a ton. I’m really glad I bit the bul­let and applied for one of their First Reader positions.

Okay so books:
1) Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Von­negut — I haven’t read this since high school, when I loved it, and when I fin­ished it this time around I adored it.
2) Bird by Bird, by Anne Lam­ott — I bought this sec­ond­hand just before I left for Greece, but didn’t get a chance to read it. Instead, I bor­rowed Jane’s copy, and find­ing my own copy in a long-unopened box was like Christ­mas.
3) My Man Jeeves, by P.G. Wode­house — Pay atten­tion to all the ways Jeeves man­i­fests him­self into the pres­ence of Bertie. He “trick­les” into rooms, “slith­ers” into them, “shim­mers” even. I think I’ve read every­thing Jeeves at least twice.
4) The Spar­row, by Mary Doria Rus­sell — yeah I freak­ing love this book, I think it’s why I wanted to be a lin­guist in high school.

I unearthed all our Saul Bel­low and Dis­c­world nov­els as well as Tur­genev, Faulkner and Hem­ing­way. I’ll find some­thing new to read in the Bel­low, or find myself re-reading Terry Pratch­ett over and over.
***
While I’ve been sketch­ing each topic for IF this year so far, this is the first one I’ve completed:

Hop­ing to catch up with the other two before the next topic is cho­sen. Only three weeks behind!