Help me choose!

This?

Or this?

My iPod died. It MIGHT have something to do with the fact that I’ve dropped it a couple several oh hell I’ve lost count how many times. Which means they are very tough, especially in the nice rubbery case I have it in, because it still lasted over three years.

All I listen to are audiobooks and some music. Not thousands of songs. I don’t know how many songs. But I mainly listen to audiobooks.

And a cute little green Nano would be easy to wear around my neck.

I don’t care about video.

But the Resident Storm Chaser is absolutely positively definitely convinced I need the video iPod.

And now that I really think about it, I’m not sure 4GB is enough.

My old iPod was 20 GB and it never was more than maybe 1/3 full, but that always included several audiobooks that I wasn’t listening to any more but just hadn’t gotten around to removing….

Anybody got any experience with this decision? Regrets?

Audacity & Miracles

Hold on, it’s okay, even though the following bit is a flashback this doesn’t mean you’ve been eating magic mushrooms. (It clearly does not mean you haven’t been eating them, either. How would I know?)

I am listening to this book today and it is wonderful:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I am reading this book today and it is also wonderful:

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

But I must update.

I — no, we (the Resident Storm Chaser and I) — are still listening to Kingsolver’s book and this is one of those rare instances where damn it, there’s just too much to take notes on. We want to look up so many things, and track down resources (people make CHEESE in their own homes!) and I must have a copy. We enjoy listening to it together, but this is more than that; it’s a desire to implement and for that we need the text.

And the same is happening with Obama’s book. Well, we’re not reading it together. I am reading it alone. You see, Candace gave it to RSC (see above) as part of the Obama book project, not knowing that the RSC doesn’t read anything longer than magazine articles. (We have a stack of magazines in the loo that would crush through a weaker floor to the foundation, everything from Smithsonian and Outdoor Photographer and Arizona Highways to the Wilson Quarterly and Foreign Affairs to Sierra and Bicycling**. The only one of those that is mine is Bicycling, and he ordered it for me, isn’t he wonderful? Oh yeah, I forgot Texas Monthly***. And by the way, I have learned not to browse through Arizona Highways while sitting in the loo because I can’t help it, when I flip a page and see a rattlesnake**** I scream and throw the magazine in the bathtub. It’s a reflex. I’m not joking, and neither is the RSC when he threatens to do bodily harm if I shriek in that bathroom again, because the reverb kills his ears, and he’s not even in there.)

Wait. Where was I?

Oh, I’m reading Obama’s book with moleskine in hand, taking notes, then just writing down page numbers, and finally said, oh enough of this nonsense. I am now underlining and highlighting in it, which means I will be buying a copy of it to pass on down the line to continue the book project thing.

You will be seeing quotes from both books I am sure.

And others. I am not aligned to Obama yet and will be sharing other stuff as I run across it or read it.

But I’m very impressed and inspired by both of these books and recommend them to you.

* Does anybody know if Barack Obama has any connections to the Council on Foreign Relations?

** This is for Max:

*** And I’m still thinking of more magazines; does anybody have any ideas for storing all these things? I mean, they don’t stay here a month and then move on, you know. Oh no, not in our house. I mean, we don’t even have time to read them all in one month….

**** And don’t you dare complain to me if you clicked that link; anybody who clicked that llink deserved whatever they got! You didn’t turn the page expecting to see more wildflowers!

Good News, Bad News

The Cowboys won!

The Longhorns lost.

I got the green bowls I’ve been wanting on Ebay!

Somebody outbid me on the oak library drawers — three different times.

I activated Patrick Crayton and Marion Barber in time to chalk up some points for me in Fantasy Football!

I lost anyway.

I found my iPod!

Okay, I can stop there. How can a day be anything but good when I found my iPod AND the Cowboys won?

Yep, I’ve got strep. But the ‘Boys won.

Now I’m going to go on to bed and let George Guidall read me to sleep with American Godswhich I’m thoroughly liking, even if good ol’ George doesn’t hold a candle to Lenny Henry. I loved Lenny Henry’s reading of Anansi Boys beyond all reason. Not surprising, since Neil says he heard Lenny’s voice when he was writing it.

(But, three times? I mean, I only needed one, couldn’t they have let me win one auction? Sigh.)

Sweet dreams.

Photo: Louis DeLuca, Dallas Morning News

Podcasts, anyone?

I’m going to write a real post later, but in the meantime, what podcasts do you listen to and why?

I’m looking for some to listen to.

I ride longer and more easily when I have something interesting to listen to on the iPod. I don’t listen to anything that is complex or requires a lot of concentration — mainly “light listening” types of audibooks like light British mysteries.

I’ve read the Agatha Raisins for years though I can’t figure out why because I find Agatha Raisin to be so annoying and unbelievable a female character I assumed MC Beaton (the author) had to be a male who had never lived with a female, much less thought much about being one. But no, it’s a pseudonym of Marion Chesney who wrote over 100 romance novels before ever venturing into mystery … well, I’m befuddled. And I do find them kind of addictive in an annoying way.

Anyway, I was thrilled to find Agatha Raisin at audible because they’re just the kind of light, mindless things to entertain me without distracting me while I’m riding. (I highly recommend audible if you like audiobooks, and I also highly recommend that you tell them dallaspooks sent you if you sign up.)

Then I discovered the Daisy Dalrymples on audible, and had the same reaction to them. Light listening, easy on the ears, something to keep me from focusing on, “Oh my thighs hurt, I’m thirsty, I wonder how far I’ve ridden, would I be a wimp to stop now, why did I wait until 11:30 to drag my boom onto the bike?”

Plus, they’re not Wodehouse but they’re set in the same time period which is always fun.

I don’t listen to music because I’d be inclined to turn it up too loud and 1) hurt my hearing, and 2) not hear traffic.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you want to recommend a podcast don’t stress over whether I will find it light enough or whether it will distract me too much from cycling. I listen at other times, too.

And besides, I need somebody to sue next time I fall.

(I think I just wrote a post.)

(And it’s 11:42 and I still haven’t ridden.)

(Goodbye.)

Edited to add: Agatha and I rode 45 minutes/6.6 miles in 93 degree heat. I do realize that that was a very slow pace (bite me) and that if you live in Arizona you are scoffing at me for noting the temp (bite me), but all I can say is it’s the longest ride I’ve done yet and oh by the way, bite me. (Agatha has that affect on me.) (Which maybe is supposed to be effect, I never can remember.)

Bite me.

Resolutions and Revolutions

I have such a bad history with resolutions that I’m considering making some very easy ones just so that I learn how it feels to be successful at them.

The first one I considered was: Breathe.

Okay, I resolve this year to breathe regularly and well.

EXCEPT.

I have such a bad history with resolutions that resolving to breathe seems an unnecessary tempting of fate.

Last year I think I made only one, and it was a fun one, and something I anticipated with great enthusiasm. I bought a Moleskine so that I could be one of the cool kids, like Hemingway and Picasso and Diane.
Mind you, I hate writing by hand because I hold the pen funny and my fingers and joints cramp and my writing is illegible, even to me. I am not someone who keeps diaries or any kind of written records much (except for BUSINESS RECORDS if anyone from the IRS is reading and gets any wild audit-ideas). So I have nothing to write IN a Moleskine.

But then I got this absolutely great idea! I decided I was going to use it for a book/movie journal. List every book I read, or listened to*, or movie I watched, for the entire year. Maybe with thoughts/comments. Maybe just a list.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to have finally found something I might actually follow through on.

Well, you may think you know where this is going. And you would be wrong. Sort of.

It’s not that I forgot to list stuff. It’s not that I didn’t bother.

It’s that I got hired onto a writing project that swallowed up all of my time for weeks, and then those weeks were followed by minor-but-annoying illness, and then our trip to the UK –

I am thinking there was never a 3-month period in my entire life (well, since I was 6, anyway) where I didn’t read a single book, or see a single movie. THIS is what making a resolution does to my life!

My Moleskine gathered dust. I’d started it proudly on Jan 1 with the notation that I was reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and when we went to the UK in March I was STILL READING IT.

I eventually started reading and watching movies again, but by then who the hell knows where the Moleskine is? (sigh)

You see why I was worried about the “I resolve to breathe” thing, right?

But somehow, I still feel the desire.

So I will ponder them. I will think of something. Hey, clearly failure doesn’t deter me! There’s something good in that, isn’t there?

In the meantime I am making one resolution for today.

Today I resolve to fill one black trash bag with “stuff that needs to leave this house” and make it, um, leave the house.

Tune in tomorrow to see if a one-day resolution will defeat me, as well.

* Audible rocks. Tell ‘em dallaspooks sent you.