25 Random Things...

Since I did this for facebook, I figure it should get posted here too although I modified some of it and fixed some errors in reason (thanks sissy!)

1. I have a small library in my office which is meticulously organized and cataloged...the only part of my house that is.
2. I cannot throw away my old floppy disks, even though we don't have a computer that will read them anymore.
3. I am slightly obsessive about list making.
4. The tape dispenser from my parents house is on my desk. It might be older than I am.
5. Current reading selection: Paradise Lost
6: Current music selection: Mozart's Mass in C Minor. If you haven't heard it...hear it...awesome.
7. Am either a very liberal republican or a very conservative democrat. Or something else entirely.
8. The four most populous authors in my book collection are Orson Scott Card, Raymond Feist, Dean Koontz and L.E. Modesitt Jr. So far haven't read much by those guys that I didn't like.
9. Am a member of the laziest book club ever. Originally formed to give moral support while we tackled books we were too scared to read on our own. Unfortunately, we have been giving each other reassurance and excuses not to read the selection.
10. Love snow, love cold, love Indiana, hate vacuuming
11. Love bandannas, wear them every chance I get
12. I am really not as grouchy as everyone seems to think I am
13. Correction on number 1, my pantry is a lesson in classic OCD behavior as well, closet too. Pretty much anywhere that you cant see when you walk in the door is meticulous. The main areas are a disaster.
14. I find paperwork very overwhelming. My mailman is lucky if I empty the mailbox twice a month. I'm really not trying to drive him crazy, I just forget until I realize I haven't paid bills in a while.
15. I wish Indy had a better recycling program
16. I have never gotten my Christmas cards out on time
17. I love Indianapolis. It is the perfect size city. Very little crime comparatively. Traffic is awesome for a big city. It has cultural activities and eccentric ones as well. It also has a sledding hill with a concrete strip at the bottom of it. Kinda sick if you ask me.
18. I wanted to be a trucker for a year in college.
19. I bite off more than I can chew regularly. I wouldn't know how to function any other way.
20. Last year after spending a winter in Alabama, when it snowed for the first time, I wrapped up in a comforter and took some tea out on the balcony and watched it snow for two hours.
21. I feel with the amount of mood swings and intense feelings I have, I should have been a poet or an artist or something angsty.
22. I am supposed to be writing a paper on economic forecasting for a Fortune 500 company of my choice. Sigh...
23. I love my parents and siblings and miss them like crazy. Sometimes I get angry with the nature of adulthood, how it separates us from loved ones.
24. I am terrified of dogs, but want a really really huge one someday, Malmut probably.
25. I think it is funny how disturbed my parents are by my sleep schedule, especially considering that I probably sleep far more hours than they do.

Dante and Krugman

My pleasure book selection for the week or day or month depending on other factors is one called The Dante Club. It is about the four poets who translated Dante for the new world. I have no idea if this is based in fact or completely fiction but it is definitely a topic I will be looking into. The unfortunate side effect is that I wish I were reading the beautiful copy of the Divine Comedy that I picked up over Christmas instead of Paradise Lost. Smells like book, gilded pages, beautiful navy and gold leather etched cover.

Instead of curling up with a book tonight, I wrote five pages on one of the Nobel Prize winners in the Economics category. I picked Paul Krugman, last year's winner. Turns out economics is incredibly fascinating when written about by a person with a sense of humor that lacks the cryptic gene most economists take pride in cultivating. If you have time check this guy out. He writes twice a week for the NY Times and is responsible for modern trade theory. He also coined the New New Deal phrase that Obama's economists are throwing around. I haven't yet figured out if he is helping Obama develop his economic policy or not, but if he is, I would feel a little better about the immediate economic future. I guess this class hasn't been the total wash I was expecting. On the fun side of things, I apparently picked the perfect company to do my SWOT analysis on. I seem to have sparked a lively debate by choosing Microsoft. Seems everyone has an opinion on that particular company.

Books and Monica

I love reading. I hate finishing a book. I cannot not be reading a book, so every time I finish a book, I immediately pick out a new book to read. I hate finishing books because it is always so hard to decide. Do I want to get anything done in the next two days? Am I going to want to ignore the world for a couple days? Will this book provide that escape? Do I want funny? suspense? history? different cultures? all of the above? Is this book written in verse (apparently I have to read those types of books out loud or I miss a lot of content)? I think we are sort of on hiatus from the book club thing. We are both reading Paradise Lost, but it isn't one you just sit down and read for four hours straight.

I just finished Couch, which was interesting. It was about three roommates who end up floating out to sea on this couch, has adventure, betrayal, heartbreak, then at the end of their quest they discover that this supernatural couch has the seeds for the destruction and rebirth of mankind. Turns out to be a more interesting couch than any that I have ever owned. What should I read next? The new Orson Scott Card book, the new Kathy Reichs book, one called Gods Behaving Badly about twelve Greek gods sharing a London townhouse? I think it may take longer to decide than to actually read the book.

On a completely different topic, Monica (sister) is coming to town tomorrow. We had mentioned sledding this weekend, but there is a limit to how cold it can be and me still voluntarily stay outside. We have passed that point. I think for me to want to go sledding it has to be at least double digits. Maybe we will stay in and bake the recipes I didn't get around to making for Christmas. Maybe we can make No-Spit candy! (Andy, I cannot tell you how excited I am to have that recipe...) I have a recipe for apple soup I have been meaning to try too... I always enjoy her visits and I think she will be excited...the last time she was here the toilet was in the guest room and our bathroom just had a hole in the floor. We are a little more high-class now, we have a toilet in our bathroom and everything! Fancy!

Lazy Mondays

Which, incidentally, follows lazy Sundays. Syra came over so we could help each other Tonight we had Pad Thai, attempted to be productive, failed miserably and are now both playing on our blogs.

Found an awesome quote for the new year
What reinforcement we may gain from hope.
If not, what resolution from despair.
-Milton, Paradise Lost

Current reading selections include Paradise Lost and a book called Couch about three roommates and their couch that will not let them put it down. Just read the Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy that reveals a very distorted philosophical view...abstinence even in marriage?...children just propagating human misery and abnormal behaviors? What a difference in his outlook from the beginning of his life to the end. The Kreutzer Sonata was written just a couple years before his death. Interesting.

Motivational Tools

My friend Tom and I have formed a book club. The unnamed book club functions as follows. We picked five books off our bookshelves (except neither of us could narrow it down to five) that we had purchased because they were classics or we were overly ambitious, one or the other but had not read because they were too intimidating. The premise was that we would read them together. To give you a little background, I love to read, I read all the time, I don't get anything else done because I read all the time (Hint: when you go to school full time, this is a bad thing). I start a book and can't put it down (it's a disease). Anyway, Tom and I pick for our first selection The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. We set a reasonable goal of 120 or so pages in two weeks. Almost two months later, neither of us has hit that mark. That our book club is not functioning properly is not the point. The fact that I promised not to read anything else until we finished that book is the point. I have turned in projects ahead of time, worked extra shifts, gotten around to stuff around the house I thought would never get done, run errands, etc. I think that Dostoevsky is the best thing to ever happen to me.