Last Monday I wrote that I wasn’t going to write any traditional-style New Year’s resolutions. I’ve changed my mind.
I’m making one resolution, to be repeated daily:
“Today, I will purr more and hiss less.”
I invite you to join me. If enough of us do it, the world will be a more pleasant place for all of us. Dog people may want to reword this to something like “wag more and bark less.” If you don’t identify with either dogs or cats, try “smile more and complain less.”
Happy New Year!
Yesterday was a lazy day.
We both needed a lazy day. We find it very hard to rest at home, with everything in the place whispering “deadline coming,” “clean me,” “fix me,” “organize me.”
So, Wednesday noon, we drove to Cleveland. Yes, we had friends to visit, but no actual activities on the agenda. It was a long drive, but we had a pleasant supper with our friends, good conversation, and a good night’s sleep.
Yesterday—Thursday—was lovely:
The four of us talked, read books, answered email, talked, ate, read some more, sipped a variety of wonderful teas, and had a very relaxing time.
In an hour, Andy and I will drive home to Rochester, rested and refreshed, ready to face our normal life again with energy and joy.
Hello, world!
For some reason, Thursdays have been the hardest days for me to find a topic to blog about. On other days, the problem is usually too many ideas, and not enough time to write about all of them.
Not on Thursdays.
So, when I came across Third Sentence Thursday, it seemed like a great idea!
The idea is to write down the third sentence from whatever book I’m currently reading, and blog my thoughts about it. I figure it’s a good way to get some blog mileage out of my reading list, too.
In a few minutes, when I finally put down the computer and go to bed, I expect to finish the final Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. It’s a mystery novel, fifth in a series about the [totally fictional] North London Peculiar Crimes Unit.
The third sentence:
“It detonated car alarms, hurled house bricks across the street, blew a chimney stack forty feet into the sky, ruptured the eardrums of several tramps, denuded over two dozen pigeons, catapulted a surprised ginger tom through the window of a kebab shop and fired several roofing tiles into the forehead of the Pope, who was featured on a poster for condoms opposite the tube station.”
Now, THAT’s a sentence!
It was a bomb, of course, a left-over relic from the London blitz 40 years before. The blast begins a rollicking romp of a mystery with interesting characters and a twisty plot line…line? Who am I kidding? It’s a plot helix, maybe even a double helix, with twists and turns and flashbacks and leapforwards and odd architectural features and…well…you get the idea. It was a fun read, and I’m going to put the rest of the books in the series on my reading list ASAP.
PS. I felt really sorry for those two dozen denuded pigeons.
Well, not exactly famous. I was interviewed for a column in the Wall Street Journal, and it was published today. I’ve gotten about a dozen phone calls, more emails, and even some Twitter mentions. Cool! Never realized I had so many WSJ-reading friends.
Kudos to Sue Shellenbarger, the WSJ columnist. I’ve been interviewed before, but this was one of the most enjoyable hours I’ve spent in a long time. Sue had a clear idea of where she wanted to go, and asked excellent questions to get the discussion going in the right direction. Then, she actually listened to my answers—something many interviewers don’t bother doing—and did a thorough job of following up details that would interest her readers.
Like resolutions, predictions flood the media around the beginning of the new year. Whether it’s a misreading of ancient manuscripts, half-baked interpretations of astronomical events, or the work of sensation-seeking conspiracy theorists, everybody gets into the act, predicting drama and disaster.
2012 has attracted a bumper crop of disaster predictions. Those and other, less disastrous predictions are catalogued at the 2012 Predictions website.
Half the news stories and columns stress the horrors to come. Most of the others just ridicule the first half, without actually explaining what is or isn’t happening. Among the few to serve up facts along with sensational fiction, these two stand out:
NASA
2012: The Beginning of the End, or Why the World Won’t End?
ScienceDaily
2012: Shadow of the Dark Rift
Both sites give links and references to further information on the real science behind the hype and hysteria. Please read them. Please tell your friends. Please don’t spread the mythology.