brief update

Well, hello all! I have been away some time. This whole "having an eloquent and funny boyfriend who lives an hour and a half away" thing means that the evening hours I would normally spend with a book (or trashy TV) are now used for texting and talking. I'm not complaining, but my reading pace has slackened. I have been re-reading a lot of Peter Robinson's mysteries, too; I'm in the middle of The Night Circus and my inability to tell if I find it charming or dreadful is exhausting me, so I have been frequently setting it aside for three hours with a Robinson.   

(We need better words for thirty-five-year-olds than "boyfriend" and "girlfriend". Every time I say I have a boyfriend, all I can think of is Frau Blücher.)

I did finish Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard. It's an absolutely fascinating account of the assassination of President Garfield and the primitive medical science which killed him. The bullet wound wasn't fatal, but the horrifically unhygienic care he received caused massive sepsis and eventual heart failure. Interestingly, Guiteau used that as a defense in his trial, arguing that he didn't, technically, kill the President. (Didn't help.)

This book is as disgusting as it is fascinating, and you should be forewarned of that if you're considering reading it. The descriptions of the infection's progress through Garfield's body, and the fact that he lived two months after the shooting in agonizing pain, are quite upsetting. But I learned a great deal about medical care, politics, and science, and can recommend it.

In other news, I've got car stress going on right now, and it's harder than usual to believe that everything's going to be okay. So I thought it was a good time to revisit this post. No, this year isn't perfect. But I knew it wouldn't be, and it's had some delicious surprises, and I continue to be surrounded by amazing people and interesting books. When life gets tough, I can always leash up the world's most wonderful dogs, and walk two blocks, and there is the ocean. This is not a small thing.

Beauty is not a small thing. Love is not a small thing. And I have both. Everything else will find its own place.