I'm applying for the best job ever!

It's my birthday, by the way.

I finally finished my video application for the Best Job in the World. Video applications are due 2/22, so of course I finished mine 2/21. You'd be amazed--simply amazed!--at the amount of crap I got done today, crap I've had to do for weeks. Funny what a month-long trip away from home will inspire a girl to do. I mailed a ton of letters, sent off boring paperwork, took care of my taxes (read: mailed all forms to an accountant), did Addieville duties, picked up some Argentine pesos, tidied the house, and more, more, more!

Plus I went out for an hour this evening to celebrate Baby Neighb's birthday. And I watched a movie and did this video! Life is good. Hope I'm not too sleepy when I wake up all too early tomorrow.

Watch the video, but don't write evil comments or give me less than 5 stars. 'Cause then, you know, I'd be sad--and a girl shouldn't be sad on her birthday.

noncommittal blogging alert

I decided to get a Tumblr.com account. My username is jannygirljr. Thanks, Lawson, for the inspiration.

There are often moments when I see things I want to share with people, but it's getting to the point where Facebook is rife (or overstuffed) with users' posts on TONS of stuff, so I'm discouraged from posting mine. I don't know why I resist--maybe I don't want people to see how much I am on Facebook wasting my life away.

The articles, photos, and slice o' life stories are often not substantial enough for a blog entry (in my strange rule system), so I usually end up not sharing. Tumblr has granted my wish to be able to have a thought occur to me and post it immediately. Today I remembered a funny photo of my dad and decided to post it along with a story. I guess I could've written about it in my blog, but it seemed more fun to post on my mini-blog. Ew. Mini-blog.

Adieu.

$2 Radio & Vroman's Bookstore

When I went to the Book Expo America this past May, I was thrilled to see some old friends (Eliza, Eric, Alissa!) and really happy to meet a new one (Patrick Brown of Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, CA). Imagine my surprise and delight to have stumbled upon this blog entry, written by Patrick for the Vroman's site, starring Eliza & Eric of $2 Radio!

Independent publishing houses are able to publish works that you might not ordinarily come across while browsing through Barnes & Noble's bestseller displays; independent bookstores are inspirational and inspired places where you can find all sorts of reading material to feed your brain.

I am so excited to be a part of all this in my own small way--perhaps this time next year I'll be ready to say that I've assumed an even bigger role!

save bitch!

JSYK: themigrainegirl.blogspot.com is where it's at!

Hi guys,

I haven't been writing on here much, but I have kept up my anonymous-until-recently blog! It's really is a project for me that has ended up benefiting lots of migraineurs as well as my family and friends, who want to understand my Migraine disease better.

Have at it if you'd like: http://themigrainegirl.blogspot.com

I ban't believe this.

This is all over the news, I know, but the Gawker article is just too hilarious to not share with you.

letter to the press

I can't stop thinking about the missing girl. It has occupied my thoughts for days. Today I found out that the last person to see her is a casual friend of mine. That must be such a strange position to be in.

Here's the letter I've been sending to news outfits. Feel free to use it as a template or a starting point for your own. It's far from polished, as I whipped it up in about 50 seconds. Links to the places you can email letters to can be found in my previous post.

Take care and be safe.

To whom it may concern:

I find it surprising and disheartening that Cayle Bywater, a 29-year-old graduate student in Athens, Georgia who has been missing since December 31st, is not getting more prominent coverage in your paper. In order to ensure her safety and increase the chances of her safe recovery, this story needs to get out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Please do a feature on Cayle, including her photograph(s), so that people will be able to recognize her as a missing person if they come across her.

All press releases, photographs, and information you need for getting contact info for her family and the Athens Clarke-County Police can be found at http://findcayle.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for your time.

Sincerely,
a concerned Athens resident

http://findcayle.blogspot.com/

A site has been launched to help consolidate all information related to missing UGA grad student Cayle Bywater. I copied some information from an Athens Banner-Herald article about her disappearance a few days ago and have gotten some comments and messages from friends and people on the search team thanking me. As in all cases when someone is missing, I suppose every little bit counts.

Walking around downtown Athens this weekend, I saw her face on the MISSING posters in several windows of stores, bars, and restaurants. You can hear people here and there talking about her in hushed tones, people who don't know her at all or who have seen her around. People who wonder where she could be, people who hope she has just wandered off for a bit and will soon be discovered. My friend Paul told me that six years ago or so a young woman in Athens just up and vanished and was never heard from again. I don't know what the details of that story are or how sensationalized it is, but it made me go cold inside, just as I went cold when I first read about Cayle, whom I've never even met.

The local and national news channels are going haywire covering what little information they have on the missing Georgia hiker and her dog, but there's been virtually nothing on Cayle. In no way am I trying to minimize the anguish of the missing hiker, who is, according to the news reports I read this evening, now believed to be dead. That is awful. But how is one human being's utter disappearance any more important than another's? It seems we're stepping into elusive territory here. One friend said, "Maybe that's 'cause going missing in the mountains is creepier somehow." I disagree. I think it's far scarier, far more menacing to go missing from your own home.

I'm sure that hundreds of people go missing each year, and the media become obsessed with one or two of them. We can make it our job to make sure they pay attention to both these Georgia women. Perhaps you can write a quick email to your news channel, even if it's just to direct them to http://findcayle.blogspot.com/ They'll find all the news articles and links there.
Below I've created a quick list to get you started. Won't you take a minute to do this? Thanks.

1. Here is an article on the 11Alive website. You can post a comment to ask them to cover the story more prominently. (I just wrote a comment--writing it took one minute!)

2. Here's the Fox 5 Atlanta article. Same ol', same ol'. Here's their contact form--why not ask them to feature it on the news and not just on the webpage?

3. Write The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ask that they make the story a feature. Their contact address is: newstips@ajc.com Be sure to send them the link to the blog with all the news articles! (http://findcayle.blogspot.com/)

The Average Debaters

Lord, I'm so happy I'm not the only one out there who's not fawning over The Great Debaters.

let the tipping begin! (or "karma chameleon")

A few weeks ago I caught myself making a grave mathematical error about five beats after the person I was selling two CDs to caught me making a grave mathematical error. Ignoring the error would have saved him $20 and lost the band I was working for that same amount. Luckily we both realized my mistake. (Trying to balance too many things at once--a conversation, selling CDs for two bands in the selfsame minute, and such.)

I was really hard on myself for this mistake. Truly, I beat myself up for these things much more harshly than I think most people do. Time, learning, reading, and a little degree in gifted education (in which I learned a lot about perfectionism and how it manifests) has solidified what I didn't want to believe: I am a perfectionist, and this is not entirely healthy. Though I'm pretty secure with myself and have a shiny self-esteem (ahem--some scholars/psychologists might say that I am not too much of an inwardly-focused perfectionist), I really take it hard when I make a mistake in front of someone else. Falling on my butt, flubbing my words, etc.--that's usually fine, because I can laugh at myself first. But making a mistake that may make the other person perceive me as dumb? Oh, boy. That is really difficult to take.

That man at the rock show, the one I sold the CDs to for almost-free? Wow. He probably thought nothing of our interaction, probably thought what I would have if I were in his shoes: "that girl done got confused, guess I'd better tell her what's what." But that's not what I imagined, and not what I still imagine he was thinking. Oh, no siree. You see, he was thinking about how this little young thing in a dress was hired to sell CDs but can't even multiply by tens and do simple subtraction. He was wondering how much money I'd lost the band thus far. He was trying so very hard not to roll his eyes, thinking I might have looked a little cute but was probably not all that smart.

Let's face it, kids. Very few people in this world are as harsh as the way I imagine(d) that man to be in that moment. In fact, he handled the situation gracefully and I probably did as well. I am well aware that I need to get over making mistakes in front of people. People don't need to know that I'm smart. It's just...

Oh, shut up.


Anyhow. Today I went to the soon-to-be-closing nursery on the East Side of town, Charmar. The drought is making it so this quaint and usually successful family-run business is closing its doors in 17 days. (I originally heard about the store after they made the decision to close while listening to a local NPR story. I think that's right, but perhaps it was the UGA channel or 100.7. Whatev.) It's really a shame. I'd never been in before this afternoon, when I dipped in between tutoring appointments in the hopes of scoring one of their pretty Christmas trees. (30% off, and the only Christmas trees I've seen in town, truth be told. There were only five left when I was there. I think I'm a late bloomer.) When I handed the woman at the cash register a twenty and a ten to pay for the tree, which was $28.45, she gave me a ten and change in return. I rewound time in my head to be sure and then said, "Oh, um. I think I gave you thirty, not forty." "No, you gave me forty." "I'm pretty sure I didn't. It's hard to tell by my wallet since all the cash is jumbled together, but my ten is gone." She looked in the drawer, and sho' nuff, there was a ten dollar bill in the space where the twenties go. She reddened a bit and smiled gratefully. "Oh, THANK YOU!" "No problem," I replied, handing the cash back to her. She must have said thanks four more times, blushing all the while. I threw her a bone, mentioning I'd done a similar thing recently. That cured any awkwardness I'd sensed (maybe I was projecting it all the while?) and we chatted for a moment.

While I was there, three ladies bought plants for their houses and talked to the cashier/owner as they did so. "I just can't believe it," one woman in her sixties said, referring to the imminent closing of the store. "It just makes me start to tear up!"

"Well, don't start, 'cause then we start. We have eighteen days left now. Let's make them good."

A nice young feller carried my tree out to the car and lay plastic in the trunk so the needles wouldn't get everywhere. Feeling suddenly rich since I'd momentarily had a ten dollar bill and given it up so valiantly (ho ho ho), I whipped out a fiver and said, "Is it strange to tip? Is that done?" "It's not strange," he said, and I handed him some money and thought about holiday tipping and my blog and how much of a dork I am.

The end.

Go get yourselves a little plant or something.

candle in the wind

As I think I mentioned a while back, I'm reading Donald Spoto's biography of Marilyn Monroe. This 500+ page book is taking me FOREVER to read. It's full of facts, names, places, and sadness. It's not boring, though--not in the least. I can't quite get a grasp on all the names and faces, and that's my fault. What I want to grasp onto but almost hate learning about is how beautiful and fragile and funny and smart Marilyn was. I've rented two of her films while making my way through this book--I watched The Asphalt Jungle (a movie in which she has only a handful of lines and just a couple minutes of screen time) and Bus Stop. I wanted to see them for their own sake but also because I'd just read about her auditions, the other cast members, her agonizing self-criticism that caused her to ask for take after take until she got things somewhat right. A classic perfectionist (and not a narcissist, as it's erroneously believed), she would make and remake her face for hours before going out into public, terrified of any possible scrutiny, feeling as if she always had to look her best. The reasons for this fear were founded in her upbringing as well as her own temperament, I'm sure.

Donald Spoto's biography of her is well-revered for many reasons: it's well-written and very well-researched. He strips away layers of myth surrounding her, myth that was often created by people on her periphery (or even people who didn't know her in the least), people who used her name to make themselves some money. The whole JFK "love affair"? Yeah, that was one time. The two of them met exactly four times and shared a bed once. The way that story spun out of control is all documented.

Most of the book isn't made up of Spoto unraveling myths. On the contrary, he paints a beautiful picture of this vivacious, loving person who made her place in Hollywood and the world.

Right now my reading has slowed to a snail's pace. Look at me as we speak: I'm writing about the book instead of reading it. Why, you ask? I've reached 1962, the year of her death.

And I've just come to love her.

more fun (and occasionally painful) local stories

I'm not inspired to write, but I am inspired to share...

1. From the Oconee County Blotter:
Theft: On Nov. 23, deputy William Elrod was dispatched to the Waffle House on U.S. Highway 441 where a manager had counted the previous shift's cash register drawer and found it came up $83 short.

2. After I read the following little blurb, I actually sighed, "Oh, man!" aloud. Truly, I say!

From the Madison County Police Blotter:
Arrest: On Nov. 20, deputy Jason Luke was dispatched to a home on Cherokee Road, Comer where the dispatcher said a man was armed with a BB gun. When Luke arrived, he took cover behind his patrol car while he waited for backup. However, a woman and man exited the house and he asked them who had the gun. "This is him. He ain't got the gun now," the woman responded. Luke then patted down the man and secured him in the patrol car. The deputy asked the man what was going on and the man said he was "raising hell." The family said he had been drinking most of the day and earlier that day took a machete and damaged the kitchen floor and wall. Joseph M. Collins, 50, was arrested for disorderly conduct.

3. Police on lookout for window climber
(I didn't include link because it came with all these attached ads. Ew!)

A woman in an apartment near Lexington Road was awakened Friday morning by a man climbing through her bedroom window, Athens-Clarke police said. The man opened the unlocked window to her Woodlake Place apartment, and when the woman woke up, he told her he was looking for his sister, police said.

The man was polite and left without taking anything, the woman told police.

But after going back out the window, he tried the same thing at the window next door, again telling the woman inside that he was looking for his sister, according to police.

Police put out an alert for the unidentified suspect and were able to lift a fingerprint from the window, police said.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 120207

4. Pitched potato knocks out husband
(again, no link due to the ads--visit onlineathens.com to search for the article yourself, if you so desire.)

Jackson County sheriff's deputies were called to a Nicholson home early Thanksgiving morning after a 43-year-old woman knocked her husband unconscious with a potato during an argument, according to sheriff's reports. The woman told deputies that she and her husband started to argue in the kitchen about 1 a.m. Nov. 22. He had used an expletive to describe her, and she threw the potato at him, hitting him in the nose and causing him to pass out, deputies said. The couple told deputies that they been drinking.

She told deputies that she didn't mean to hit her husband and called police as soon as he fell unconscious. The man, who suffered from a large knot on his nose, told deputies he did not want to press charges. The woman was not arrested and no charges were filed.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 120607

5. Okay, I admit I'm getting on a roll here. But the following little snippet from the Madison County blotter is pretty funny. It's very small-town Georgia.

Arrest: On Nov. 23, Lt. Steve Kimbel was patrolling on Neese Commerce Road about 11 p.m. when his radar showed an approaching Toyota Corolla traveling at 69 mph. When he turned to catch up to the car, it continued at a high rate of speed and suddenly turned onto Dillard Road. Kimbel caught up to the car when it stopped for a stop sign at Martin Griffeth Road. The driver, Ashlei Elizabeth Baker, 23, denied attempting get away and explained she was going to visit her father. Kimbel told Baker he knew where her father lived and it made no sense for her to take a longer route. At this point, she admitted she tried to elude the officer. She was arrested for speeding and attempting to elude and taken to jail.

6. The person writing the Madison County blotter has got to be having some fun here and there. Despite some challenges he or she faces when it comes to grammar and how to make words plural, the little tales are pretty convoluted and funny. Perhaps a stenographer writes down exactly what the officers say? I'm not sure. I like how the writer seems so sure of the characters' actions and feelings in this real-life drama.

Assault: On Nov. 25, Lt. Steve Kimbel and deputy Jason Ring responded about 8:15 p.m. to a dispute in Danielsville where a young man's father engaged in a fight with his son's in-laws. The young man said he and his wife went to visit his parents, but his wife doesn't like to visit there and often finds an excuse to leave early. When she wanted to leave this time, the man's father confronted her and she became upset. The woman and her father-in-law argued and when she pointed her finger at his face, he slapped her finger. Afterward, the couple left and drove to a nearby convenience store, where the woman's mother and sister also arrived. The wife said she would ride home with her mother. But as they left, the husband saw that they were returning to his father's home. He followed with the intent of trying to keep the peace. The father came outside and met the three women. When he called his daughter-in-law an uncomplimentary name, the sister hit him in the face. The father then pinned the sister against a vehicle and as his son tried to pull him off, the mother hit the father on the head with a flashlight. They eventually separated and left. Kimbel questioned the father, who said he only was trying to defend himself after the sister hit him. The father had some knots on his head and a cut under his eye. The deputies told all those involved to stay away from each other and if they wanted to take out warrants, they explained the court procedures.

yelp me, yelp me!

I didn't feel inspired to write a blog post today, but I have written a few things on my homepage here at yelp.com. I know I've put a plug in for it before, but I again encourage you to visit this handy-dandy website. There are more and more people posting reviews about Athens places, and if you're getting set to travel, it's a great resource! Find places to eat based on customer recommendations and
not advertisements. What a novel concept!

Nighty night.

Mitch Hedberg & his widow

For those of you who don't already know it, let me say it to you now: I adore (adored?) Mitch Hedberg. He died in March 2005 and I sincerely wept upon hearing the news--for several months there, I wasn't able to listen to his comedy CDs at all. It was just too unbearable.

Clearly my grief is nothing compared to that of those who knew him. I ain't claiming that in the least. But it is strange when someone whose words you've laughed at uproariously and memorized for their wit and humor is suddenly gone from the world. His wife Lynn Shawcroft was one of those left behind to mourn him, and just tonight I stumbled across her blog. I don't necessarily recommend it unless you're really curious about her as a comedienne or wondering what her life (or life as Mitch's widow) is like. In my few minutes of browsing, I did come across a few particularly candid entries dealing with her loss and grief--in these particular entries the writing was really bare and unflowery. It made me scared for the time when I will begin to lose those who are close to me because she tossed neither herself nor her readers the smallest morsel of comfort. If I knew her, perhaps I'd commend her on the bravery it took to put those words to paper (or screen, as it were). What does it say that she then posted them to the internet? I'm not sure.

In any case, now I'm thinking about love and loss and Mitch and what it must be like to lose your partner when you and he make your living as comedians. You must perform and make others laugh if you are to succeed in the business--but how do you do that when you're mourning? I suppose it's the quintessential question all actors face. Truly, it's probably what most people face whenever they're going through a period of loss. I would guess that most people struggle to maintain a somewhat normal facade to cover up what's going on behind the scenes.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.

The end.

true love is...

...a shared myspace profile.

I know this guy who is in a couple, you see. And he and the now-wife have a COUPLE profile on myspace.com. Does anyone else find this to be strange? There are blog postings to each other on there. This is what the blog headline proclaims: "A diary for just us to share our thoughts and feelings with just us. So Honest, So Open, So Exposed. No Hiding, No Walls. Just us Free with each other."

What the hell...?

Here's one of the two blog entries that's not set to private. Perhaps you, like me, will wish instantly that it was while also feeling a strange sense of mysterious glee while reading it:

SUBJECT: whatever

I'm sorry baby..

There are just some things I cannot forgive nor should I forget. Vengeance. Retaliation. Retribution. Big words with a simple, common meaning -- that good will always prevail. She will pay.

Perhaps I'm just not hip to all that is cool for internet-savvy couples these days. I mean, Liz and I had to force our beaux to make myspace profiles after all--clearly my relationship is not ready for his-n-hers romantic profiles and utterly candid blogging.

Why did I go to this page in the first place, you ask? It has everything to do with the fact that I decided to log into my Friendster account for the first time in a month or three. If you so choose, you can turn off the "anonymously view profiles" function when on the Friendster site. I turned off this function long ago, which means everyone whose page I visit can see that I've visited; in turn, I know when people have seen my page, so long as they've not made it so their visits are anonymous. The wife in this hyper-web-love-dyad-delight has looked at my profile recently, so I looked at hers. There's a link to the myspace page there.

Anywho. The myspace page in and of itself is nothing to be that entertained by; the concept of it is really what I'm trying to wrap my head around.

Does anyone else have a couple's page out there? Am I crazy to think that this is freakin' nutso? A little invasive? When I'm on their page, I feel like I'm in the middle of a coffee shop, wedged immobile between couples whispering loudly in incessant babytalk. (Maybe that's because they repeatedly refer to each other as "my baby" on the page--it's mainly written in first person, but there's clearly a dialogue between Baby 1 and Baby 2 going on. Who's who? In love, it doesn't matter, don't you see??)

It's horrendous for me, yet I look anyway.

Luckily for us all, it's time to head out the door for more tutoring. Adieu.

the strike continues

The more I learn about the television writers' strike, the more irate I become. It is scandalizing, ridiculous, horrific, terrible, insulting, etc., etc. that the writers aren't paid for DVD sales and internet viewings of shows they've written.

Reading the articles and blog entries on this site is pretty useful, and watching videos online of the strike are pretty entertaining and informative. (One featuring The Daily Show writers is here. A couple with Sarah Silverman & friends are here and here.)

I'm sure I'll miss my TV shows once they stop soon (some, such as The Daily Show, already have ceased for now), but this is so important. The only way to figure out what's really going on with the strike is NOT to watch coverage on TV, of course. Whether or not you're a frequent TV watcher, it's important to keep yourself informed. Unless you've never rented or bought a DVD of a TV show or watched a TV show online, I shall not excuse you from visiting the official writers' union blog and some independent news source that will give you a relatively unbiased take on the goings-on.

The end!

I scream absurd! (or, I care about what strangers think of me)

I have loved listing all the books I've read (and want to read) on goodreads.com. There are other sites similar to it--librarything.com, shelfari, etc. For me, Goodreads had the prettiest and most coherent format.

Most of the books I finish I like. Many of them I love. (See my Goodreads books page here--most of my reviews are 3-5 stars.) Am I too kind in reviewing books? I think not. Perhaps one could argue that I am too specific in choosing them in the first place. But I can read whatever the hell I want, right? Who's to say I have to force myself to muddle through a book I'm not enjoying?

And speaking of that, let's get back to the topic, shall we? Awhile ago, I finally got my hands on a copy of Wigfield, a book I'd long since wanted to peruse. To my dismay, I didn't enjoy what I read of it. I posted a brief review about it online. (The link follows.) Last night, an email appeared in my inbox: "Notice: Shannon has posted a response to review on Goodreads.com! Click here to read it!" So I did, and I ended up feeling rebuffed. Here it is.

Why am I ever-so-slightly upset by this stranger's feedback, you ask? Because I am absurd! I scream fairly-deep-sense-of-absurdity-instilled-within! I understand her comment, as the book is goofy and strange--hey, I mentioned that in my review. But my not liking the book has noth....

Okay. I don't need to defend myself.

Let's rewind to the late 80s for a minute, for just a little context. A gangly, outgoing girl named Janet attends Huntley Hills School. Happily surrounded by friends in this very small elementary school right outside of Atlanta, Janet enjoys reading, playing outside, creating imagined worlds, bossing her next-door neighbor Jeffrey around, and writing novels whose heroines are either thinly disguised versions or herself or cats (one of her more lengthy stories was called "Ginger Kitten"). Slowly but surely, she has begun realizing that the way she thinks is markedly different from most kids and adults she encounters. Her reactions to situations, her answers to questions, her inability to pick just one "right" answer on a multiple choice test. Though she tends to remain well-liked throughout her school career, this is the age when some fellow students start pointing out that she is, in a word, weird.

This throws her into quite a state at first. Should she try to be normal? Should she pretend that the thoughts racing through her head are not actually there? Should she just pick answer b and pretend that she can't make an argument for a, c, and d as well?

This confused state doesn't last long, for Janet has an answer: she will embrace her oddities. She will let the world call her weird and smile back at them. Rather than insulting herself first before others can, she will consider this complimenting herself first before others can. Then another idea hits her oft-obnoxious mind: she will TELL others to call her weird! Aha! She tells friends, neighbors, and classmates, "Hey, call me weird, 'cause I'm weird!" She goes so far as to tell teachers (most notably third grade classroom teacher Ms. Jackson), "Ms. Jackson, call me weird!" She has now unwittingly set in stone a nickname for herself, one that will last for at least two decades to come: Janet "Call me 'Weird' " Geddis. (Only one or two friends, one of whom has a birthday in 6 hours, calls her this in the year 2007, but hey. It stuck.)

So this is why I am ever-so-slightly irked when I am called not absurd.

The end.

young ones, beware!

I was looking at Christa's ceaselessly entertaining blog tonight and, as usual, felt as if I'd come across a little wonderland of treasures. Some websites I visit every day: gmail, myspace, facebook (gotta check those Scrabble games!), and the news. But people's blogs, especially the blogs I listed on the links to your left (look somewhere to your left now), are sites I go to every week or so. And by the time I do, I'm almost guaranteed to find something new and exciting. That is, of course, unless I've clicked on the pages belonging to Joe or Amy or Kate. In that case, one is almost always met with disappointment, as they NEVER (okay, rarely) update their pages.

Back to the illustrious Christa T. Look at her blog, and look also at the Atlanta ladies' blog she writes for, Pecanne Log. It, too, is really well-written and interesting.

This particular entry by Janet Geddis is not, so I'll stop.

I did click on a link to determine my website's reading level. That was pretty neat-o.

So beware, those of you who are under the age of 18! I may be confusing you with my multisyllabic words or my run-on paragraphs. I dare you to read on. Challenge yourself. Ha.

some books

I was snooping around Liz's blog and came across a website she recommended, a friend's blog. I don't know this friend, but the girl's most recent posting (one she claims to have taken from another girl's site) piqued my interest. So I, in turn, am taking it upon myself to steal it again!

What you do is take the following list of books (the top 106 marked most often as 'unread' by LibraryThing’s users) bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you started but couldn’t finish, strike through the ones you really sort of hated, put an asterisk next to the ones you’ve read more than once, and mark in green the ones on your own personal To Be Read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* (didn't like it as much the second time around)
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (I read the first little bit while staying with someone, as I always need to read before bed and hadn't brought a book. I really liked it and wanted to hold onto it. This reminds me that I must start it again!)
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex*
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales (We just read excerpts in high school and in my English lit classes in college)
The Historian : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man
Love In the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead (I started this 2-3 times when I was in high school and college. It never stuck.)
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (I tried to read this in French. Noble goal and all, but it took longer than I thought to get through a few pages. I gave up.)
The Corrections*
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved*
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake (I can't remember if I read this or not! I think not.)
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road (to Jim's dismay, I recently reported to him that I did not like this book when I attempted it several years back. Maybe I'd like it more now? I'm thinking not.)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of A Multiple Murder and Its Consequence
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

another jannygirl! + a book recommendation

I know that Jannygirl is not an uncommon nickname for anyone whose name starts with Jan. (Jan, Janet, Janice, Janise, Janiqua, Janith, Janicia, you name it...) But I just came across a girl who had a blog with a web address that almost matches mine. Hers is jannygirl.livejournal.com--and obviously you know mine if you're here. Two people with the same nickname, chronicling their lives day by day. Interesting. Or not. Somehow I feel infinitely more boring now that there's another one out there.



I finished Anne Lamott's book on writing, Bird by Bird. If you've ever written anything, or thought about writing anything, or thought maybe you could be a pretty decent writer if only you'd put your mind to it, or have been told that you had talent but were too lazy to do anything about it, I highly recommend that you read this book. It is, by far, my favorite book I've read that focuses on the writing process itself. Lamott is really funny, really personable, and completely realistic about the entire enterprise. I had hoped to quote a few excerpts here, but I already returned the book to the handy-dandy Athens Regional Library.

Most sincerely yours,
The other Jannygirl