Writer's Block: News development

[Error: unknown template qotd]The assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. I don't remember news of the actual shooting, but I did watch part of the funeral on TV. My folks were Republicans, but we had a copy of Four Days, the commemorative book about the assassination of the President and the murder of his assassin, and when I was seven my mother shamed me into going back into class with a bandage on my face from a cut by telling me that if little John Jr. could salute his father's coffin, I could take being stared at for a few minutes.

Change jar

Didn't have time (or change) last week, but this week I put in $2.09.

Update, plus figure staking nostalgia

Many, many things over the past few days...

- Went to the dentist on Saturday morning (ugh) and had a filling replaced. Dentist was very pleased that I came in *before* the tooth went nuclear and I needed another root canal, and my dental insurance picked up about half the cost.

- Followed up with a little shopping at Macy's. Picked up new jeans (deliberately a size large to allow for shrinkage in the wash), a summer top, and a Jones New York sweater for about 80% off.

- Replenished supply of cosmetics and skin care products at Sephora.

- Napped. Twice.

- Did much laundry and began switching out wardrobe.

- Watched my NCAA picks go down in flames. *wince*

- Went to B and T's on Saturday night to celebrate her birthday a couple of days late. We went *back* to Macy's, where she scored a gorgeous new blouse. We also watched much NCIS, which T is now addicted to.

- Reread Lynn Flewelling's Tamir Triad, a *very* interesting fantasy series about a princess who has to be raised as male to save her life. Very dark, but still hopeful, and quite well written. The villain gets his comeuppance in what I found a very, very satisfying way :)

- Changed cat box. Ugh.

- Grocery shopped.

And now, as I wind down a weekend of rest and quiet, here's a little something I found on Youtube: British figure skating legend John Curry performing "Scheherazade" for a TV special in 1980. Stunningly beautiful, and beyond the artistic reach of any male skating today except possibly Johnny Weir if he decides to go Art Nouveau instead of Lady Gaga:

Literary classics I was supposed to like and hated

We all know them: books we are supposed to like and actually can't stand, for various reasons. Here are five that I particularly despised:

1. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I still remember a friend of my mother's urging me to read this because I allegedly reminded her of the protagonist. It was only much, much later that I realized how insulting it was to be compared to Esther Greenwood, who was mentally ill, self-pitying, and did one stupid thing after another. There's a couple of very striking images, but why anyone would suggest that an intelligent teenage girl read this is beyond me.

2. Jude the Obscure and pretty much the whole of Thomas Hardy's works. Horrible, depressing books full of horribly depressed people living in grinding poverty and ignorance, suffering from horrible (if unrealistic) events like drowning in ponds, having an entire herd of sheep shoved off a cliff by insane collies, and flinging themselves out of windows to avoid having sex.

3. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Boring, boring, boring. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I'd read this when it was first published, but man oh man was this disappointing. Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return is a much better look at the Lost Generation.

4. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. As I am not a mathematical genius, dislike clever word puzzles (or, why I fantasize about killing Will Shortz DEAD DEAD DEAD for those asinine puzzle sequences on NPR), and am not a Victorian maiden willing to pose naked for the kindly maths don, this book left me cold. Never finished it.

5. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Can someone please run over Holden Caulfield with a bus? Please?

BONUS:

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Heathcliff is a sadist, Cathy is a fool, and the whole book left a nasty taste in my mouth. It's a shame, too, since Jane Eyre, by Emily's sister Charlotte, was flat-out brilliant.

Anyone else have a Great Book they'd love to shove down the literary shredder?

It's not perfect. Not even close

But Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama just did what none of their predecessors had managed to do.

And I will never, ever again have to worry that I will be forced out of my job because of a medical condition that I did not choose, could not have prevented, and that will not kill me.