A Short, Motely Post

The thing with having a new job is this: you no longer get to complain about how messed up your old job was. And on a blog like Sonnet 87, which thrived on the indignities I encountered in my last three years at the old job, that leads to little content.

That’s a lie, though. I have plenty of things to say, but since my schedule’s changed and my routine is sort of still falling into place, I haven’t devoted much time to writing. Even my reading has slumped off a bit, and what I’ve done lately has been prescriptive, so that’s why the review category has been more or less silent. However! Remember the book I had to read for my book club that had me in a tizzy, and I promised I’d admit to liking it if, in fact, I did like it?

Well, I hated it. It was exactly the kind of book Stephen King described in the wonderful quote I used in that blog post—no nourishment whatsoever. We’re discussing it this week. I can’t wait to (gently) rip it to shreds. When you choose to write in the first person, but then decide you need to do some third-person limited exposition, and it transitions within the same chapter? Fucking lazy and jarring, man. Make it work with the narration you’ve chosen. And don’t even get me started on the improbable plot, the unsympathetic and flat characters, and the oh-so predictable outcome that is going to turn this one book into a series. This book went immediately onto my So Terribly Bad list on Goodreads. You can rest assured that I will do my best to block any attempts to read the follow up when it emerges from the unholy cocoon in which it’s currently incubating. This author is going onto my Picoult list.

So there’s that.

In other, more important news, IP and I have recently celebrated our second wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, then enjoyed some anniversary cake from a local baker (who did a good job in imitating the cake’s design; taste wise, the cake was fine, but not as delicious as our wedding and first anniversary cakes). We reminisced about what we were doing on the days leading up and including the wedding—right now we’re hiding at Dominick’s, remember? Now we’re setting up centerpieces the night before the wedding, you trying to calm me down when the stanchions wouldn’t hold up our table name plaques. Now we’re at the cookout on the day after, wrinkling our noses at the idea of cheese-filled sausage. Even though I’ll forever say that wedding planning was a pain in the ass and tell brides of my charming, sob-filled breakdown a few days before leaving for Michigan (“Are you crying because you’re overwhelmed?” “No, I’m crying BECAUSE I BROUGHT IT ALL ON MYSELF!”), there are many, many amazing memories from those few days, and we continue to make them as time passes. So a happy anniversary to my husband, who is always there no matter what I’ve recently brought down on myself.

And so it goes. Perhaps one day soon I’ll get a routine set down and start doing some blogging again. A book review here and there would be nice, as well!