Collected Thoughts

I'm back from the beach. It was good. It was bad. It was hot.  There were mistakes.

The big mistake was made by Grandma E and she gets a pass...one of my cousin's in laws were having a 4th thing and we were invited. But Grandma E was sure it was today. Except it was yesterday. And a bunch of people were supposed to come over afterwards. And of course they didn't.

Dad bought a bunch of food and sodas. Sandwich stuff, cookies, trail mix, cherries, grapes, watermelon, pretzels, etc. He never buys stuff like that. EVER. And it turned out only Grandma E, my aunt, and an uncle came over. But it was cool. We had tons of stuff left over so I have food for lunch. Of course Dad got weird about bringing the cookies and pretzels and stuff home --- he made a few comments that weren't directly at me, but I felt were kinda. I mean I know my dad and he's got a hang up about fat. I normally don't care but today my brain went to damn annoying places.

So, um, the good. Hung out with my cousin A. Read read read. I was reading Moby Dick,Middlemarch,Master and Commander. And a fluffly mystery. Basically I was rotating my way through the books. I've already read Middlemarch, but I wanted to read the last part again. Moby Dick has been interesting and pretty easy to follow since the idea seems to be that the reader knows nothing about whaling so Melville is going to explain things. Plus Melville (or at least the character) thinks that whaling is really really cool so there's an enthusaism about it.  I'm having more trouble with Master and Commander, because I know jack about the Royal Navy and ships and the way things work and so I get lost. Also sometimes it's hard to tell that time has passed or how much time. Maybe I'm not reading closely enough but a few times I've lost track of people's movements and have had to go back and track them down. But I like the characters so I keep reading.

Of course in both books I keep seeing subtext. I was trying not to but I gave up and just went with it. I'm sure there is Master and Commander fic out there because of the books and the movies. But I also want Moby Dick fanfic.

Also July 3 was in Comic book day. And I got NONE of the comic books I'd seen were going to be free. I think they did a Kid's pack and an adult pack. So I ended up with a book with The Shield, CSI, and 24. Frankly I have no desire to read about tv shows in comics (which is why I never read the Buffy comic), Dungeons and Dragons, some other thing, and The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty, which I like and I'm looking forward to the next issue. It's a Western retelling of Sleeping Beauty and the publisher is Beckett I think. I really liked it -- not just the story but the art work.

The truly bad was seeing Dad's reaction to a relative's car that had a John Kerry bumpersticker on it. He says "John Kerry" with such disgust.

And my aunt, uncle, Dad, great Aunt, and Grandma were talking about various things (and I should have left, but I ended up accidentally insulting my aunt) but someone ended up telling this story they heard about Howard Dean and I'm wondering if it's true or some urban legend thing. The story is supposed to be an example of how little Howard Dean knows the Bible and anything about God. Supposedly when questioned about religon or the Bible or something Dean said that Job was his favorite book in the New Testament because it tells the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale and fighting his way free and this illustrates how man can over come anything.

And then Dad laughed and said that it would be even better if they could attribute this to Kerry.

Oh and I bought The Killing Joke. Which I also read several times this weekend.

Now I have to go and dig my backpack out of the car and go to bed.