Gah. I feel subject-less, blocked, empty of title and content and meaning. I can’t make up another meme, can I? Well, I suppose I could, but credibility, wherefore art thou?
What I really want: another day to sleep in, a 3-day weekend, maybe some vacation. A dark den for hibernation. Everyone at work is talking about what days they will be taking off during the holidays but I just grimace: none. My colleague is going on his honeymoon over Christmas and New Year’s and I am working. If my mom decides to come, and if she does, if my brother also decides to come, I will have to try and figure out a way to either work from home or finagle a few days off.
Something I don’t appreciate: being asked, whether consciously or not, to defend the entire American system and way of thinking. I don’t think that I am a typical American, although I guess I am, when I’m the only one some people ever really meet or get to know. I don’t like talking politics or ideologies with ANYONE, much less feeling like I represent any sort of stance because of my citizenship. I know that every expat faces that situation at some point during their overseas tour but it still gets my goat, every time.
Lots of people spend their online time and build their online presence by getting very passionate about causes and injustices and beliefs. Not me. My causes and injustices and beliefs are my own business. I may choose, once in awhile, to air something here, but most of the time I keep such things to myself. I don’t expect my friends and readers to do the same, but I do expect them to respect the fact that I don’t wear my heart on my blog, such at it were. What I think about the news headlines and hot button topics and topical issues is what I think about them. I don’t feel any need, most of the time, to comment on them or engage in debate.
I thought flannel sheets would be cozy but too warm, but I find that I like them more and more the longer I use them. It’s not really all that cold yet in the house; temperatures are supposed to be dropping this week, but so far I have found them not only cozy but quite comfortable and suspect that as it grows colder I will appreciate them all the more.
The urge to Christmas shop is upon me, but I have yet to receive ideas from my first family. I have lists (very long, expensive lists) from both my children, and the usual one-item list (very short, expensive list) from my husband. I am feeling the urge, for some reason, to get all my shopping over and done with so I can relax and spend my energy on not making and eating a million Christmas cookies this year.
The leaves are mostly off the trees now. Yesterday, while in town, the kids and I parked the car at Davidshallstorget and walked over to the Science Fiction Bookstore through the most beautiful carpet of small yellow maple leaves polka-dotted over darker, wetter shadow versions of themselves. All this and cobblestones, too. Now we can see though hedges and trees are assuming that stark outlined silhouette state that will be with us until the ice and snow hits, when they transform yet again into fairy-sparkle padded pillow versions of their summer selves.
I finished the book group book this morning, by giving up at 300+ pages and skimming the rest of it. I couldn’t take any more. How A Confederacy of Dunces ever won the Pulitzer Prize is beyond me. Or any prize for that matter. It’s unfathomable that it shares a prize with books like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath. Actually, when I look at the list of past Fiction winners for Pulitzer Prizes, it seems extremely uneven, so maybe it’s just me. Did anyone like this book? I mean that is reading this and could answer me? Thankfully, the book I started this evening is already, after only a couple of chapters, scrubbing Dunce’s excrescence from my mind, so no harm done.
For someone who had no idea what to write about when she started, this sure got long quick. Off to read in bed. Alas for not being able to sleep in tomorrow, though!