Holiday

I am generally a very antisocial person.  Or at least I used to be.  I don’t really have speaking anxiety, for which I credit Russian education.  Over there, declarative reading, poetry and prose, is considered to be a talent and most Russian kids of my generation have recited poetry in class and often on stage.  If you can’t sing or play a musical instrument, you recite.

So, my social anxiety manifests itself in other ways.  A few days before an event, such as a formal dinner out or a signing, I start getting irritable and look for ways to weasel out of it. Strangely, I have no problems with going to dinner with friends or visiting to hang out and play cards.

I also get stressed out during the kids sleepovers, especially when our kids go somewhere else.

Apparently I’ve been cured of my anxiety.  We had four teenagers in the house for pretty much the entirety of the Christmas break.  Sometimes five.  I didn’t only survive, I actually didn’t put up any fights.  Sadly nobody offered to give me a Best Behavior medal.  I was pretty happy, actually, to have a bunch of kids over.  It seemed right for the holidays.

Birthday

This year both my father and Gordon’s aunt called me for my birthday.  My father always remembers it but doesn’t always call.  Gordon’s aunt never remembers it.  I usually get a card two months later, so I feel all special.

Gordon bought me The Relic, which is one of my favorite movies, Kid 2 bought me Gnomeo and Juliet (so I like anything even remotely Shakespearean, leave me alone), and Kid 1 gave me SWTOR, Star Wars The Old Republic Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game.  I promptly made a Sith warrior, Gordon made a Sith Inquisitor, so we could run around together, and we spent my birthday being evil.

Funnies

I was reading Shiloh Walker’s IF YOU HEAR HER – interesting romantic suspense, btw – and I got creeped out by the villain.  Usually I eat it up, but for some reason, I came to the part where there is a young woman who just got engaged and the villain grabbed her, and I just couldn’t take it that evening, which says volumes about Shiloh’s mastery of the creepy.  But anyway, here I was, in my bed with my Kindle Fire, looking for something to read.  Gordon is sick, so he had trouble sleeping and I wanted to stay awake out of solidarity.

I typed “something funny to read” into Google for the heck of it and came up with SPELLMAN FILES.  I read it in two nights and laughed hysterically into my pillow.

Here is my review from Goodreads.

A deeply hilarious book about Isabel Spellman, a PI in San Francisco, who works for her parents’ firm. The entire Spellman family is deeply weird but strangely functional. I loved it, the whole thing: the quirky anecdotes about the family, the list of ex-boyfriends, the younger sister addicted to surveillance.

One small warning: before you read this book, take the concept of plot, put it in a drawer in a closet, and don’t come back to it until you are done. It is a non-linear book, and it doesn’t have an ordinary crime-investigation-resolution progression. You just have to roll with it.

I really enjoyed it. As an aside, I really like Lisa Lutz’s website.  I can feel the redesign coming on.  :: listens to the screams of horror from the audience:: Aaaah, yes.  Your fear will make me stronger, for I am Sith, hahahahaha!

Well, I must work.