Ok, so I'm on OpenOffice on the new computer. So far so good. I also had this weird lightheaded spaceout thing about thirty seconds ago. Not sure what that was about.

So how are you, dear blog readers? I'm ready to get back into groove on the new computer. I'm getting used to the keyboard action and I'm not tethered to the somewhat weird and frustrating google docs. I'm ready to put some more time into the blog. Should that be a resolution? That and leg weights?

So Christmas went well. The boys got an Xbox. T is playing some hyper-violent game on it right now. N is upstairs on Wii Lego Indiana Jones. They've been offline for a while, shooting marshmellows at each other, so I can't complain if they get electric for an hour or so.

I didn't get much for Christmas, but I'm ok with that. M got me a donut maker and a well-intentioned but hastily returned clothes rack she wanted me to use as a cooling rack for whatever I baked. Oh, she also got me a cool Mexican nativity set. I got her those Reebok workout shoes she wanted but said she couldn't afford along with some fleece pullover with headphones attached and some warm socks. I don't suck at presents, I think.

This winter has been ok. We're almost to the first of the year and, while the temps were cold earlier in December, they're hovering in the upper twenties and low thirties now with promises of the forties by the end of the week. I remember a few years back when the last week of December and the first of January were extremely cold, so this is a bonus stretch on which we can lean, I think, to get us past middle winter and toward the worst stretch with the knowledge that the worst ends by the first of March.

What else is going on? I made a cake for N's class on his birthday and frosting for S's class's cookie decorating project. I've slowed down on working because my body seems to be telling me that I should pull back and relax. I think this is healing, really, as now that I'm learning to transcend “flight or flight” every second my body may take a long-awaited rest. Dr. L. told me to monitor the “fight or flight” thing every few minutes or so. I'm trying, and I think I'm getting better. Slow progress. As I heal more memories and flashbacks emerge. I can count on rough nights after session afternoons. Like I said, all part of the healing.

I also found out the rank and tenure committee turned down my associate professor application. This was a serious punch in the gut. Most people, I think, including myself, took for granted the designation. Five years ago this news would have decimated me. I'm still pissed off but not wrecked. I'll write an appeal, since the backroom news indicate some changes on the committee fucked a few people (including one of my best friends) and move on. My identity transcends my job. And I mean that, way more than I would have five years ago.

What else? We hit Discovery World yesterday. That was fun. A few weeks back we also moved the upstairs furniture around so our room is what used to be called the Wii room. T's room is our old room, and N and S still share the same room. The closet's open, too. I need to clean upstairs tomorrow.

We might have people over for New Year's Eve.

Ok, that's it for now. More tomorrow.

Here's my 2010 booklist, by the way:


1. Rampant, Diana Peterfreund
2. The Exterminator!, William Burroughs
3. End of the Affair, Graham Greene
4. 86’d, Dan Fante
5. Dead Until Dark, that Sookie Stackhouse lady
6. Best Travel Essays 2008, edited by Anthony Bourdain (I think…I get the editions mixed up)
7. Let The Right One In, John Ajvide Lindqvist
8. Beat the Reaper, Josh Bazell
9. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
10. Big Machine, Victor Lavelle
11. Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson
12. Grifters, Jim Thompson
13. Hard Rain Falling, Don Carpenter
14. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
15. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
16. Sum, David Eagleman
17. Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell
18. Stories: All New Tales, Edited by Gaiman and Sarrantonio
19. The Wind-Up Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
20. Vernon God Little, D. B. C. Pierre
21. Cheesemonger, Gordon Edgar
22. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
23. Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain
24. The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares
25. Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Louis-Ferdinand Celine
26. Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia/Marcia Stohl
27. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
28. Zero History, William Gibson
29. The Hilliker Curse, James Ellroy
30. The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris
31. An Abundance of Katherines, John Green
32. Rock and Roll Can Save Your Life, Steve Almond
33. Woodcutters, Thomas Barnhardt
34. Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

I think I’ll finish Bryson's book on Australia and probably one more before the year’s up. I had a couple false starts this year, which is rare…I never finished a re-read of Moby Dick.

My favorite book this year was To the Lighthouse, but I also loved the Faulker and the Barnhardt, along with the Woodrell, Lindqvist, Thompson, L’Engle, Cather, Celine, Gibson, and Green. I liked a lot of books I read this year, maybe more than ever before in a single year. I also read, however, Dead Until Dark, the worst book I’ve read. And the Ferris and Greene were both disappointing.

Let’s do the stats…

• 27 of 34 books were from the library.
• 29 of 34 were fiction. Usually I mix fiction and non-fiction in a more balanced fashion...not sure why that changed this year.
• Taking out the two anthologies, only 6 of 32 were written by women. I need to work on that.

I always feel like I’m missing a book on the list, but this is what my records show. Good year.