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-- MDCII --

I think I'm going to try something slightly different.

I have a real problem getting through books very quickly. This isn't so much a problem of my reading speed or comprehension as it is a problem of distraction. There are just too many other things to hold my attention: particularly the Internet (LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook) and TV (thanks almost exclusively to TiVo). Honestly, Shobhit himself would have to be added to that list, as he constantly wants me to be sitting with him in the living room (which I don't do nearly as often as he wishes), and that always means watching TV -- there's no way I can focus on a book while the TV is on in the same room, no matter how terrible the TV show. I can't just ignore the TV.

I think there may be only one solution. I'm going to commit to reading -- an actual book, so online reading of any kind doesn't count -- for a certain amount of time each day. Today, I'm starting with an hour a day. I actually tracked how much time I spent reading on the bus on my way to work this morning (17 minutes). I'll get more of my hour done on the bus ride I'm taking downtown and then home from there, so once I get home, I'll force myself to sit and read a book until my hour is finished. After all the day's bus riding, there shouldn't be too much left of the hour.

I actually can make pretty significant headway reading for just an hour. My typical problem is in being distracted by too many other things -- including catching up on Twitter while riding the bus, when I should be reading my book!

I've had Kathy Griffin's memoir Official Book Club Selection checked out of the library for over three weeks and it's overdue now. I can't renew it because there are other holds on it, but I don't want to return it until I've read it, because it'll take way too long to wait through the hold queue again -- even on 34 copies, 207 holds takes a long time to move through. I've thought about just buying the book, as I did with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and I may yet. The late fees are only something like 20 cents a day, but when you're going on weeks late, that adds up! Okay, to $2.80 over two weeks, but still. I've already got over $8 in fees racked up! And I don't see the sense in owning the Kathy Griffin book; I probably won't read it again.

In any event, I figure if I commit to at least an hour of reading a day, I should get through the rest of Pride and Prejudice -- which I am actually very much enjoying -- fairly quickly. Much like the original novel, now that I'm halfway through the book, and Darcy has given Elizabeth his explanatory letter (which in this novel followed a physical altercation between the two of them involving the use of martial arts), the story is suddenly far more engaging and the pace picks up a bit.

-- MDCII --

In somewhat similar news, I've made a different commitment as well: not to snack between meals, indefinitely. I need to do that and actually stick to it, the latter part being where I often run into trouble. I ate so much crap over the weekend that I didn't even bother weighing myself this morning, because I don't even want to know. I'll weigh myself again at the end of the week after successfully eating only moderately-portioned meals three times a day.

Both yesterday and Saturday were ridiculous with the amount of sweets I ate. Yesterday alone I had half a caramel apple, a Snickers bar, two pieces of cake, and I'd say maybe three or four bite-sized candies from Dad and Sherri's trick-or-treat candy bowl in the morning. And that was tame compared to what I consumed on Saturday! (I wouldn't even be able to enumerate what I ate on Saturday. Although I do remember having a piece of cake that day . . . and a Snickers bar . . . and a pumpkin doughnut . . . and more candies from that candy bowl than I even know.)

I feel like it's kind of time for a bit of a Sugar Detox. Okay, so I'm only half a day into it so far. But I can do it! I believe in me!

I have to admit, I'm largely motivated by what Grandma Rhoda said to me on Saturday night. I was standing behind Dad, who was sitting at the dining room table, telling him about my Disneyland photos he was scrolling through on my iPhone. Grandma Rhoda was at the other end of the table, and she motioned for me to come over. I thought she might be gesturing at my belly when she first tried getting my attention, but I wasn't sure. But then I walked over to her, and she left no room for mystery, as she literally put her fingers on my gut and said, "Big belly!"

I laughed, admittedly a little nervously, and said, "Thanks for that!" -- sarcastically. Then I just walked back over to Dad.

But if an 81-year-old woman who has a really hard time speaking due to a long-ago stroke will make the effort to tell me I'm looking fat, well, I think it's time to get serious about doing something about it.

Now, arguably I'm actually taking her comment a little too personally, but I don't really care. Whatever works, right? I really want to be able to see her again at some point and say, "Look! No more big belly!" And that's not just a fantasy, god damn it! It can be done!

-- MDCII --



So does that mean it's got half & half?

-- MDCII --

Even though I slept until 7:00 in the morning even after the time change yesterday, the day felt longer than usual. I think this is because it wasn't bed time for another extra hour after it got dark. Strangely, I still ended up staying up rather late. We could have watched both Thursday's episode of Ugly Betty (which we haven't had time to watch yet) and last night's episode of Brothers & Sisters, except Sachin was over last night, and it was too much of a pain trying to listen to the dialogue over their talking, which meant Shobhit wasn't paying attention anyway.

Before Sachin left at the end of his visit, for some reason he stopped to ask me all these silly questions about online movie sites. He tells me he knows someone who is "the main guy" at imdb.com -- which is almost certainly not accurate, as a site that intricate is going to have many "main guys," each with a different area of focus.

He actually asked me how many other websites there are online that are like the one I have, where I post movie reviews. How the fuck should I know? I tried, in vain, to tell him I have no idea; he persistently asked me, "Throw a number out there. Ten? Hundreds?" I told him at the very least there are hundreds. For all I know, there may be thousands. I did tell him I feel that mine is better than most, but then he actually asked me if I thought mine was the best one on the Internet, or maybe second or third best!

Um . . .

He asked me about other sites online, and I did mention a site I really like, called Slash Film (which I follow mostly on Twitter; I didn't mention that to him). He asked me if I thought that was the best. I have no clue why he has it in his head that every single movie-related website can be generalized in such a way as to declare just one of them "the best".

He told me repeatedly, in his characteristic way that has me struggling to listen patiently while internally waiting for the conversation to just be over, to let him know if I wanted to hook him up with this imdb.com guy he knows. He said he's a great person to network with, and I suppose it could be an opportunity I don't want to ignore -- but I am deeply suspicious of the manner in which I'm getting the likely misguided information. I don't even know what the purpose would be of having lunch or something with this guy I don't know anyway. As I told Sachin, I really have no particular ambitions at this point.

With that statement, he finally seemed to get that I wasn't really poised to jump on this opportunity (if that's even what it actually is). It's interesting to me how people sometimes just assume a certain level of ambitious drive, even when there is no evidence of any. My writing for 'mo Magazine was almost a fluke -- Shobhit saw a Craiglist ad calling for writers and I responded to it, figuring I had nothing to lose. It was months before I was writing for it, and it was a gig that eventually paid me, without me ever even asking for money! (The guy actually offered at one point.) Then the magazine folded; I haven't bothered looking for a replacement gig; and Sachin happened to notice that I changed the dates I worked for the magazine on Linkedin.com. Sachin seemed to assume that, since I was no longer writing for 'mo Magazine (the only reason for that being that the magazine folded), I must be aggressively looking for someone else to write for.

Nope! I'm perfectly secure in my job and I have an active social life that I'd have to cut into with the time it takes to search aggressively for new work of any kind, particularly in this economy. No thanks! I'm perfectly content the way things are. I mean, don't get me wrong, a big change of some sort -- as long as it's positive -- would be welcome, as I do have periods of feeling slightly bored, but I'll take it as an opportunity staring me in the face. I just don't consider this conversation with Sachin to be that, especially given the ignorance displayed in the way he talked about how making a living at writing, particularly online, works.

Besides, things are always changing gradually at work anyway. My job now is similar but still largely different from how it was performed when I was first hired seven years ago; things will continue to change, and so far, I'm very much enjoying the direction things are heading in. When it comes to actually making money, my job here at PCC is really quite sufficient, at least for now. And "for now" can mean a hell of a long time, as I've essentially been saying that for several years now.

The conversation with Sachin ended, and I was finally able to finish recreating my Daft Punk playlist on iTunes.

-- MDCII --

In other news, Barbara went shopping with us at Costco yesterday on our way home from Olympia, then we all came to the condo to have leftover vegetarian chili for lunch. I later gave Barbara a ride home, and then had more of the chili for dinner. Exciting stuff!

The rest of my day was pretty much spent either recreating playlists -- there's a lot of them! -- or organizing, uploading and captioning my Halloween photos.

-- MDCII --


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Current Music: "Do You Feel Like I Feel?", Belinda Carlisle