25.3.06

Things I Discovered While Not Reading: The Annotated Short List

  1. Deciding what to make for dinner usually involves reading a cookbook.
  2. When you decide not to read for a week, the new Martha Stewart Living and your wife’s Am@zon order featuring three new cookbooks will arrive to taunt you. (a)
  3. You’ll decide “screw this” and look through A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen for Tuesday’s dinner. (b)
  4. The one e-mail that you decide to answer while breaking your non-dissertation-reading ban will come back to bite you in the ass. (c)
  5. Marking homework is boring. (d)
  6. I’m lazy. (e)
  7. I can sleep as much as the neighbour’s cat.
  8. I have a very active imagination.
  9. I’d make a lousy cop on a cop show (see number 8). (f; g)
  10. I can still avoid writing without the internet (see numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9). (h)
  11. I have a lot of work to do before I’m happy being me. (i)

Annotations

a. I have since devoured the magazine, all of A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, and Martha Stewart’s Baking Hanbook. I. Am. Hungry. Mangoes and Curry Leaves is still untouched because it arrived shrink-wrapped and Ptichka hasn't opened it yet.

b. Dinner was twice-baked sweet potatoes with coconut milk, Thai curry, and spianch. They were deeelish!

c. I am going to be doing the final page in a lemon-lime deco by Kelli so my truancy is her great good luck.

d. Oh god, is it ever boring. My bookbag is about ten pounds lighter now, though. I really should assign less homework.

e. No, really, I’m laaaazy.

f. Some girls daydream about being a princess or something. My daydreams always vacillate between being someone in an Armani skirt suit and hot knee-high boots with a gun who can kick ass and a theatre director.

g. I’m the person who always yells at the suspect, who is usually poor and often a visible minority, to “Get a lawyer!" or "Make the cop get a warrant!” when the cop on any variety of cop shows tells the person that if he/she had nothing to hide, it couldn't hurt to let the cop look through his/her apartment/car trunk/DNA. Seriously. That line always pisses me off. I always skip over the interrogation parts in my law-enforcement-related fantasies because they make me feel so dishonest. Hmmm...maybe I need to consider being a spy. They're sexier anyway...

h. I am that awesome at procrastination.

i. This is the point when I post this and then get my butt outside. I need some corn tortillas and poblano chiles. Kensington, here I come! And then maybe I'll stroll down Spadina and buy some sequins. I want sequins!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't forget #12: Your online friends missed you! Welcome back.

Zhenia said...

Awww. I missed you too!

Anonymous said...

I say bravo! Judging by the list, you accomplished exactly what you were supposed to accomplish. Discoveries are always good things. I can proudly say that I have not touched a cookbook in years. Of course, that means we eat a lot of mince&tatties in this house, but what the hell!

Zhenia said...

J: The best thing about this week was that it demonstrated just how much I use reading as an escape. The second day or so, I caught myself grabbing the CanadaPost stamp catalogue to thumb through while I ate lunch. Why? Because I didn't want to be "bored" while eating. Overall, it's made me that much more aware of why I'm doing things when I do them.

Ptichka and I have tonnes of cookbooks. We collect three things: art supplies, bowls, and cookbooks. I love thumbing through them and trying something new but that's just me. And we all know that I'm a freak. :-D

Anonymous said...

My father one Christmas decided to write a cookbook for my stepmother. It included NOTHING but his favourite meals. I now own my own personal copy of my father's favourite meals. Being raised however, knowing how to prepare those meals have made the cookbook sort of redundant! But, I shall pass it on to my kid like any good daughter would do.
I think it would be oddly interesting to keep a journal of everything one read over the course of a week...I wonder if I could actually keep track of it all...
Are you planning to follow with more from The Artist's Way?

Zhenia said...

Once the diss is over, I think that I may just go back and give The Artist's Way a shot. While I disagree with the externalization of inspiration, don't believe in synchonicity, and am disturbed by some of the more consumerist aspects of the book (Sad? Go buy something!), I think that most of the exercises are pretty useful.

It would be interesting to keep a reading journal. I don't even want to know everything I'm reading.