Once Upon a Day

Five random Monday thoughts:

1. I finished cooking for the week late last night (I make all of our dinners for the week on Sunday), so this morning I smell like garlic and dish washing soap. I've become a pretty good cook over the last year, but I doubt that I'll ever become a great cook, because a) I almost always measure everything within an inch of its life, and b) I don't taste as I go along -- don't even have the desire to do so. There's just no poetry in it for me. Still, CH thinks I'm a great cook, but I think that's the warm fuzzy talking.

2. I wonder sometimes if my blog isn't quite vain, because I mostly talk about myself. Then again, I don't really blog about politics or anything like that, b/c I don't really think I have many thoughts in that regard that haven't already been blogged or spoken about (better) by others. The best I've been able to come up with is saying "But there's no such thing as global warming, right?" whenever someone from back home in the Midwest says that it's been an unseasonably warm day during the winter. Talking politics used to be so much fun, but nowadays, it feels like nothing less than a deliberate blood pressure spiker. I just get mad, and that's no fun. Anyway, I worry that blogging is just a vain endeavor in general, as I do no particular service. How do other bloggers deal with these feelings?

3. I still miss TV, but I got so much done this weekend, it's kind of scary. I mean I hit ALL of my weekend goals. And I never hit all of my weekend goals. Nobody does. That's the nature of weekend goals. You promise to do all sorts of stuff, and then you watch TV instead. It feels very weird to be in this good of a place on Monday.

4. Yes, Audley Yung is oddly young to be making fire bombs. (For further explanation, see thought # 2 re: my ability to talk about real issues).

5. I miss TV, but I miss Once Upon a Day by Lisa Tucker more.

This book is really hard to logline, but it's basically about a Hollywood couple that has something really bad happen to them, then he kidnaps their two children, and the three become serious isolationists in Arizona. This book is mostly about what happens before and 20 years after the kidnapping. I listened to Once about a month ago, and even thought it was an audiobook, it hit all the cliches about reading hard. It was a page turner, I didn't want to put it down, I didn't want it to end, I could have stayed with these characters forever -- all that good stuff. But I did eventually finish it, and now I'm trying to forget it, so that I can move on to other books without always comparing them to Once. Still, I supposed it's better to have read and lost, than never to have read at all.

I know all the puns and metaphors in this post are pure genius. You don't have to thank me.