Hello, friends.
Coming to you live here, amid the racket of simulated gunfire in this Internet cafe!
[At least I HOPE it's simulated!]
How can people play video-games all night long?
It mystifies me.
But then again, I'm sure they would all ask me... "How can you read so much?"
Speaking of which, that is what I did tonight... sat at a Starbucks and drank a pail of coffee while reading a terrific book.
I wish I could at least post the image here but I am on a remote computer and cannot re-size photos and stuff.
I'm really enjoying John Irving's, A Widow For One Year.
I find him to be a fabulously engaging storyteller. This is my third book by Irving, and I have enjoyed the other two and I know that this one is going to be great.

1. The drive is often the best thing about traveling.
2. I love a good snuggle with my husband when I'm cold.
3. I often use pasta when I am cooking.
4. I'm reading Little Women right now; I love it.

Inspired by what Dorothy at Of Books And Bicycles did with her Nov.7th posting, I am going to do a meme-thing involving the letters of my blogname.
Here is the criteria, the rationale, the raison d’etre:

Last night I met with my three friends, fellow heretics all, [The Ents] down at the Chapters store and we attended the Irshad Manji interview.
She is fantastic. Lucid. Witty. Clear-headed. Eloquent. Cute as hell. BRILLIANT.
Irshad Manji is, and was, all of the above.

1. The last compliment I got was from my husband; he/she said I was doing great on a project I have undertaken.
2. I'm reading The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer.
3. I woke up today and thought T.G.I.F!!!!!!!

Just wondering…
Have you ever gotten involved with a book like for instance

← Me.
Actual recent photo!
Today is [was] my birthday!
Yayyyyy! Happy Birthday To Me!
What did I do on my birthday?
Ummm….. → WORKED!

Can someone, anyone out there, please tell me how it can already be the month of March?
No, seriously, though. In a matter of hours, it will be MARCH!
March?
What the hell happened to February?
Am I going senile? Did I sleep through January or something?
Even with the extra day here, the 29th, I’m sorry, but something seems mightily askew!
Why does it feel like I was just back home not so long ago, for Christmas?
Is this just a classic symptom of old age?
Is the rest of this year going to be just as fleeting?
According to Robert Frost… perhaps…. perhaps it is!

The sun was warm but the wind was chill,


I’m sitting at Chapters as usual, drinking a Starbucks Grande Bold. Just chilling out, reading this excellent autobiography of Eric Clapton.
I have always loved Clapton, and he has so many great LIVE concert DVD’S, I swear I could watch the guy play guitar forever.
His style fascinates me.
Not only his lyrics, but his vocal phrasings, have always made me feel that this is a man that knows much about life.

The sun sank, and they both felt its final shudder of warmth.
Turning, he looked into her eyes.
“I feel as though you are the one I have waited for, all my life. And now you are here.”
“I’m not even sure if I believe in such a thing,” she whispered.

Wow! I’ve had the most relaxing weekend
Ever. While winter has been frosting the
Windows and filling the driveway, my
Friend and I have been lazing about
In the hot-tub talking, reminiscing
About so many things. Listening
To a lot of terrific music. Also
Just generally catching up
With each other. Eating
And laughing 2 much.
At one point, I even
Wrote a poem, &

OK, let’s be serious here for about three minutes.
I AM THE WORLD’S WORST COOK!
Don’t even try to compete with me on this!
I CAN’T COOK STUFF!
And I’m OK with this.

It was such an awesome surprise to come home after work, well, after Starbucks, after work… and find something crammed into my mailbox in the lobby. I saw the return address and wondered, “Hmmm… what would that Torontonian Nutbar be sending l’il ol’ me?”
← It’s her new book, and it’s really great.

I could not wait. I ripped into the package there in the elevator.
Let me introduce you [as if you don’t already know who I am talking about] to the coolest chick in blogland → Patricia Storms.

It's that time of the year again when Major League Baseball hands out its annual awards. On Monday, the first two awards will be announced, and that is the AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards.
Here are my choices for the awards and the days they will be announced:

Nov. 12: AL Rookie of the Year: Dustin Pedroia
NL Rookie of the Year: Ryan Braun

"I love film. But it can't in any way do what a book can. In the first place, a film has only two hours to make you fall for it. Not much time."
A Bookpuddle reader sent me the above comment.
Movies vs. Books.
We have wrestled with this subject before, haven’t we?
Anyone who argues that movies are superior, [how do I say this?] umm… their campfire is not one I want to warm my cold hands at.
Last weekend, I watched The Door in The Floor, hoping to see something worthy of John Irving’s A Widow For One Year. [Movie was re-named, and only went to Part One of a three-part novel].
I was very disappointed.
I agree with the above reader’s statement, which was in reference to the same movie.

Potato chips are about my only real vice, when it comes to junk food. Don't do candy bars. Don't drink pop.
Unless hamburgers are counted as junk food…. which to me would seem sort of a bit blasphemous, since I am convinced that hamburgers are proof of the existence of God.
I could live quite happily on a planet that had only hamburgers, as food.
I wish that all hamburgers were as large as the cows they came from.
They are made from cows, aren’t they?

Tonight, I finished what I consider to be an essential book.
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath.
A novel about a woman who lost it!
As in, her mind.

Wonderfully written, even though I still do not know what a bell jar is?
My research has only unearthed that the title referenced the fact that a bell jar essentially traps something to keep it on display. And supposedly, Plath used the bell jar as a metaphor to talk about the repression of women in American society.
See… I did not get that last point at all.
But, I seem to never see feminism when it is supposed to be there.
For instance, I love Margaret Atwood.

The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & The Taliesin Fellowship
By Roger Friedland & Harold Zellman.

I hate being too busy.
Really hate it.
And lately I feel that I have been too busy to write anything about the great books I am reading.
For instance, I just finished reading Ken Follett’s World Without End.
Loved it. Did I write about it? No.
Before that, Laura Kipnis’s The Female Thing: Dirt, Envy, Sex, Vulnerability.
Terrific book. Did I write about it?
NO!

Yesterday I was a dog.
Today I'm a dog.
Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog.
[Sigh!]
There's so little hope for advancement.
-- Snoopy –

Have a great Wednesday!

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
-- W.S. Merwin –

Absence sometimes makes the heart grow ANGRIER, I say!
I have so missed being able to blog, and to converse with my great blog-friends.
But I think I am back in business now!
The MAC is fixed!

Have a great Thursday!
**********

-- Montreal --

Some of you may be wondering where I was all weekend.
The Bookpuddle has been silent of its usual ripples.
Montreal.
That’s where I was… oh yes, now I remember.
Montreal is a nutso place!
And while there, I discovered something I had not known about this city.
[Girlfriends, listen up. →] Montreal has the largest interconnected underground shopping system in the entire world.
That’s right. Not just Canada.
No.

Seldom will I flagrantly endorse a book.
Seldom will I compel you to RUN to the store and buy a book.
Seldom is one as god… I mean as good as this one is, though.
And, it has just been issued in paperback format, [not only in the U.S., but also here in the Great White North, I saw it just tonight, in all of its shiny paperback glory, at Chapters…] so…. now you have no excuse.

Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some -- or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.

What new books are you looking forward to most in 2008? Something new being published this year? Something you got as a gift for the holidays? Anything in particular that you’re planning to read in 2008 that you’re looking forward to? A classic, or maybe a best-seller from 2007 that you’re waiting to appear in paperback?

← Why is this man smiling?

I’ll tell you why!
He’s smiling because he just found out he can buy that mansion that is twice the size of his current mansion!

I just finished reading it!
Good Granny / Bad Granny.
It’s fabulous.
I, [an old guy] love children’s books.

And as such, I am not sure who will love this book more, the kids being read to, or the adults that are reading it to them!
The latter will be snickering, and alternating between nodding and shaking their heads. The kids will just be giggling.

I have been holding back from blabbing about how much I have been enjoying the His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman.
I’m now on the third book, called The Amber Spyglass, and I am thoroughly enthralled with the series. I think it is fabulous, and I highly recommend it to ye all!
When I am done with this volume, perhaps I will write an essay on my assessment of the trilogy.

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass.