Friday, May 3, 2013

little bit of baseball, little bit of books

I went to a game at Fenway Park the weekend before last. It was fun, albeit bone-chillingly cold. I also got there late because I was on the slowest train in history, and every time it stopped in a tunnel and just sat there all I could think was that the station ahead of us had blown up. (The couple next to me were also going to the game, and the man helpfully pointed out all the large backpacks in the train to his wife and, by extension, me. Also fun to think about when you're on a train stopped in a tunnel.)

So by the time I arrived I was shaky and hungry and, besides, it was a Sunday night and so I should rightfully have been in my pajamas about half an hour ago, and when I saw Berowne I said, "This is why I don't like doing things."

We didn't stay the whole game, and they weren't playing all that well, but I'm still very glad we went. It felt like the right thing to do. Although the crowd launched into a "USA! USA!" chant at one point, in which I simply could not participate. Just... no. 

I've totally been slacking about updating this blog. Allergies are kicking my butt and now they have morphed into a full-blown cold. My reading, in brief:

A couple more Tess Gerritsen, and a couple more Elizabeth George. Both are decent distractions without being challenging. In the George ones, there continues to be nonsense about Lynley's girlfriend being pretty much useless at existing in the world without people waiting on her hand and foot (apparently she literally can't make food for herself, not even pasta, and this is supposed to be adorable), and offensive extrapolations from her to all women (instead of saying that Lynley had to occupy himself for ninety minutes because that's how long it takes Helen to get ready in the morning, George says, "while Helen did whatever takes women ninety minutes to get ready"). Obnoxious though this is, it did put my occasional* fretting about Not Doing Things in perspective. I feel like every other woman out there knits and gardens and bakes organic bread and climbs mountains, and I will never be good enough, but I somehow get by without servants, which puts me one up on the oh-so-desirable Lady Helen. True, my dinner last night was a hunk of Brie, a tamale, and grapes, but I washed those grapes all by myself. Where's the wealthy earl willing to put up with all my nonsense?** 

My Early Reviewers book this month was Anne Frank: The Biography, by Melissa Müller. It was interesting, and I'm willing to chalk any awkwardness in the writing up to the translation, but I felt as if it was written for people who had virtually memorized Anne Frank's diary. I've never read her diary; never been interested in it, and, honestly, I'm still not. So reading a book which was almost a companion to the diary wasn't ideal: the list of people the Franks knew is dumped on Müller's readers as if we are already intimately familiar with all of them, and I lost track of who was who early on. The fates of everyone mentioned are detailed in a long epilogue, by which point I'd completely forgotten who the minor players were. But I did think this was a good book, and appropriately depressing. It would probably be fascinating for those who do read it as a companion to the diary. 

*by which I mean "constant"

**note to universe: I do not actually want my boyfriend to be swapped out for an earl, thanks

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