Back on Track!

So yesterday, after what seemed like weeks and weeks, I finished the first of the fiction books in my list of 100, "Amateur Barbarians." I hated it. It was one of those books that doesn't go anywhere, the book jacket and the little excerpt from the New York Times both lied to me. I was expecting a seriously funny, witty, or sarcastic book like the back of the book promised me, or at least one that was serious about its subject matter. As I told you, I had a hard time relating to the main characters and I felt even less connected to them when they had their "big epiphanies" or whatever they had. These two middle-aged men, who's lives were terrible and just got more so. There were no answers and as far I as could tell, they had try to make changes and ended up going to exactly where they were before they started their journeys. I didn't see them as "barbarians." The one man went to Africa to save his pregnant daughter and ended up staying, going on a pilgrimage of sorts, and then going back to his hum-drum suburban life to his kids who didn't respect or need him, and his wife who had a very unsuccessful affair with the other sad sack man in the story. The story jumped around and jumped around badly. Plus, the big things in this book, the trip to Africa and the affair happened basically 50 pages from the end of the book. There was a lot of masturbating which seemed unnecessary to me, and a lot of feeling sorry for yourself. We all have pity parties from time to time, but these men lived them constantly. Yuck.

So, now, basically I only have 1 day of leeway left for the rest of the 98 books I have to read by the end of the year. I got the next two books today. "American Rust" by Philipp Meyer is the work of fiction. I'm already concerned because they say he writes like Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy, two very "male" authors. I don't like Hemingway. If this is another "man" read, I'm going to struggle to get through it. I hope not. But I'll let you know. I'm going to take on the fiction book first this time.

My non-fiction choice is "The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science." This is another long book, but I believe will hold my interest more than the quantum physics book did. I will also let you know on this one.

So, no more procrastinating, no more delays. 2 books a week, 50 weeks left in the year. I will do this. I will not end up like the pathetic characters in "Amateur Barbarians." I do not want to go on this journey and not get anything out of it.

Cooking WITH an oven!

After living with Eric for almost a year, yesterday, we finally got an oven. It was a Christmas present from his Mom and although they wanted to get it the Wednesday before Christmas, apparently Sears was very busy delivering all the other appliances people got for the holidays and we were put on hold until January. It was worth it. Friday night, Eric's mom called and told us that it would be delivered between 8:45am and 10:30am. Friday night, surprisingly, Eric was the one who had problems sleeping. I was confident and happy and didn't want to get too excited, but knew exactly what we were having for dinner on Saturday night. My mother's pork chop and rice recipe! A recipe I used to make once a week and now hadn't had for probably over a year.

Around 9:30 or so, Eric went outside for a cigarette and to help his Mom unload groceries from her car. Just as he was closing the trunk I heard the "beep! beep! beep!" of the delivery truck backing up! Even though I had awoken with a horrible toothache, I had a big smile on my face. The delivery guy came upstairs to see how to negotiate the stairs and where the oven was going and then proceeded back to his truck. Eric looked off the balcony and said "It's in a really big box." I assured him that they would probably take it out of the box before they brought it upstairs, which they did. This new oven is stainless steel and had some protective plastic on it, so when they brought it upstairs and we first saw it through the back door, Eric looked at me and said "It's GREEN?" I assured him that no, it was not green, we do not live in the 70's. They brought it in and placed it in its position. Then they connected it to the gas, turned on all the burners, explained to us that we needed to run it for 30 to 40 minutes before we used it to bake off a protective coating and that was that. The oven was home!

Eric invited his mom up to see it and we all just stood around the kitchen in awe. Then we kicked her out and headed to the grocery store for things to put into our new baby. We got a very large take home pizza from Dominick's to bake for lunch and we also got all the ingredients for pork chops and rice. I had also spent the morning watching Food Network and Tyler Florence had a great recipe for panko crusted, rosemary and garlic chicken legs that could be baked in the oven. So we got the ingredients for that as well. Plus Eric's birthday is tomorrow so we got stuff to make him a German Chocolate cake.

When we got home, I turned on the oven and let it bake off its protective coating for the alotted time and then slowly slid the pizza in. After 20 minutes we had an evenly baked, perfectly golden pizza. Yeah! Plus, since it came in its own tray, we didn't even get the oven dirty! I was very happy.

I moved into Eric's with a lot of stuff. I had previously lived in a 3 bedroom house inherited from my parents with a full basement, a 4 bedroom house in Florida, and a two bedroom, rather large apartment in Lake Zurich. So downsizing to an older, smaller two bedroom apartment in the city was a little hard for me. Luckily the apartment across the hall from us is empty and I was able to store all my stuff that didn't fit, which is quite a bit, over there. After lunch Eric and I went across the hall and I began opening my pots and pans boxes to find all my casserole dishes, my baking dishes, my cake pans, my bread pans and the rest of the things I didn't need while I wasn't cooking with an oven. It was like finding old friends. I found my dish towels, my Cuisinart mini-prep, my good cooking utensils and my immersion blender so I can make fantastic soups. I was so happy and excited. We started to bring all this stuff over to our apartment and realized that we didn't really have a place to put it. However, my parents not only left me the love and the joy and the recipes of their culinary lives, they also left me their french bakers rack. We moved the small table that the microwave had been sitting on, went back across the hall and moved the bakers rack over here. It looks really good. I now have a place to put my pots, my dishes, AND some of the hundreds of cookbooks I have. It was almost like bringing in the new oven brought us a whole new kitchen. (We also found my refrigerator magnets and put those up). It now looks like it is a kitchen people use rather than a place people pass through on their way to the bathroom or the bedroom.

I practically sang when I put a pat of butter in the middle of my saute pan and it didn't slide to one side of the pan. I loved the smell of the pork chops and rice coming from the kitchen. It probably wasn't my best pork chops and rice, but it had to be one of the best times I had preparing it and eating it. Today the oven has been used to bake biscuits for breakfast and to make Eric's birthday cake. It will get a rest tonight when Eric gets taken out for his birthday dinner, but tomorrow, I can guarantee you I will be punching the button to heat it up, setting the timer and putting something inside it and smelling the wonderfulness that comes out of it.

I am truly happy.

As for my book progress, unfortunately I am still on the second book, "Amateur Barbarians." I really don't like it. The story doesn't interest me, the characters don't interest me and the man who wrote it, obviously doesn't know how teenagers talk because the scenes in the book with the younger characters are very poorly written. Also, this book was advertised as a book where two middle aged men's lives intertwine. Well, I'm about 50 pages from the end and they are only now getting intertwined. I will finish the book today probably and still don't have my next two yet so I am falling a bit behind on my goal. Ok...I am falling far behind on my goal. But all of you who know me, know how determined I can be and I will succeed. I'll let you know in the middle of the week how I'm doing.

10 Days In and There May be Others

Ok, so I am 10 days into my 100 books in a year, I should, mathematically, and in order to realistically finish, be on my third book right now, or maybe finishing my third book but I am not. I am still working on "Amateur Barbarians" book number two but the first fiction book on my list. It's a good book, I'm reading through it at a good pace, but have not finished it yet, due to not feeling so hot and one of my original passions--football. I will probably finish the book today and that is fine because I do not yet have the next two books on my list. The first one "The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science" is not available at any library, local or within short driving distance, and "American Rust" is not published in paperback yet, which seems to be the only way I can order it on Amazon. It will be released on Tuesday, which gives me plenty of time.

When I discovered that the non-fiction book was not available in any library, it made me wonder if I am not the only person in the Chicagoland area with this idea. Maybe others are planning on reading all 100 books as well, and if they are...then I am behind, for last Sunday was only the 3rd. Could it be that they read a book a day? Could it be that they cheated and started reading the day the list came out which was back in mid-December, one-week earlier online than in print? I'm not sure, or maybe I'm just paranoid but I am also not panicking. I am as determined to complete this goal as much as I was to finishing the first book I read or reading the 7th Harry Potter book in one sitting, or determining not to like the "Bridges of Madison County" and being pissed that I got sucked into it and cried. No matter if I am alone or in a group in my endeavor, I will succeed!

Now, back to "Amateur Barbarians". This book is a "guy" book. It's about two middle-aged men unhappy with their suburban, boring lives and trying to find some way to fulfill what is missing or to evoke some sense of excitement that seems to be lacking. These men's lives will intertwine, yet there has only been a hinting of it in the first 100 pages. This book has some incredible lines that make me stop and say "Wow. That was a good line" My favorite so far being "He tried to collect a coherent impression of himself from the shards of reflection he glimpsed in other people's sunglasses." But in between the good lines, it is a story that I really can't relate to. I'm not a guy. I can't relate to hoping someone notices my erection at a party, or going into the bathroom to masturbate at same party because the cat bit you and no one is sympathetic to your invisible fang puncture wounds. It's interesting and maybe that's what middle-aged men do. In my younger days, I know that my boyfriend at that current time (who was not Eric) would go into the bathroom with his friends to smoke weed or snort coke, pretending they were clever in hiding it. But men are not like women, they don't usually need to go to the bathroom in groups. I'll be interested in seeing how this turns out. I can't say I dislike this more than Hemmingway because so far, the testosterone seems to be lacking but it is, again, a "guy" book.

As I've said before, this is a good goal for me. Teaching me new things, opening my eyes to new experiences, new authors and books I probably wouldn't normally read. I feel this after only reading two books. Just imagine how I'll feel in six months!

99 books to read on the wall, 99 books to read...

Yes! Last night I stayed up past my bedtime and finished my first book. "The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics was Reborn" was closed, probably for good. I did enjoy it, but wouldn't put it on my Top 10 list. Probably not even on my Top 50 list. It was interesting It definitely made me think--so much so, that my brain hurt. Towards the end of the book, one of the young physicists says that physics should be so easy that we can explain it to any junior high or high school student. I will admit that the author did a good job of that. There was nothing complicated about her approach, and you could always turn to the glossary if you needed help. The funny thing about the glossary though was that she defined every term in the book the first time she wrote about it, so you didn't really need the glossary. What really interested me about the book though was that all the physicists basically spent their lives arguing about the same thing, siding with one or another and then a few years later, changing their mind. Even today, the younger scientists, physicists, theorists, experimentalists or whatever you want to call them, are arguing with Einstein, trying to prove Bohr or Bell wrong. It doesn't change from decade to decade. Someone will always challenge what someone else says. Especially in a field like Physics where things aren't based in reality anyway. Working with particles so small no one can see them and then deciding what they are going to do while no one is watching is what these men spent all their lives trying to prove. I suppose, in a way, we are all "entangled" with each other. Even though it seems improbable that two items that have nothing to do with each other and will never cross paths, are somehow entangled with other items that will.

The author did try to add some interesting stories, taken from letters and, even in her own admission, made-up from several different sources. So the science was true, but the story surrounding it may or may not have happened. Just like quantum physics.

I am glad I challenged myself on this first book, but am also completely relieved that I now get to read a work of fiction. I started "Amateur Barbarians" this afternoon on the train and already devoured two chapters. This is more my style. More descriptions, more imagination needed and no glossary! This book should be a fast read. I don't believe I will make the 2 books in 7 day deadline, but considering I have to go to the doctor tomorrow, I may get more read than I thought. So, I'm starting a little behind in my goal, yet feel like I've already succeeded for not giving up on the very first book. And that will inspire me to keep going.

I will update you soon and if anyone wants a very slightly used copy of "The Age of Entanglement" I'd be more than happy to share.

Entangled Already

So it is January 4th and I still have 145 pages of my first book to read. I will probably not reach my goal of 2 books this week. I do have a little leeway, but as someone who likes to achieve my goals, I am getting frustrated that it may not happen. Am I breaking my resolution so soon? No, just having to take a bit more time. "The Age of Entanglement" is a little bit of a tougher read than I thought. I can't just read a page, or a chapter and then move on. It's causing me to think about what the author is saying, wonder about quarks and electrons and nuclei and all these famous dead scientists and physicists arguing about what reality is. On the train this morning, there was a passage about poison and a cat in a box and some atomic reaction that may or may not happen and how the cat was in the superposition of both life and death, depending on if the box was really a box in the first place. Ummmm......ok, come on, you have to think about that! Plus now, work has started back up and I have to spend 8 hours doing my job. My commute on the train is only about 20 minutes, which gives me a chance to knock out a few pages or a chapter, but not much more than that.

I probably could have or should have started with the fiction book, but I'm glad I gave myself a challenge. I will not back down. A couple of times Eric has said "if you don't like it, you don't have to finish it." It's not that I don't like the book, I am finding it interesting, I am just having a more difficult time than I thought getting through it. It's not that I don't understand what I am reading, I do...it's just that this book is one that makes you stop and ponder. But I cannot stop and I will not stop. I am hoping to be finished with this book by tomorrow night. I will let you know and give my full review at that time.

Let The Wild Rumpus Start!

2010 arrived today, not with a wild rumpus, but with a kiss and a hug and falling asleep before midnight. Eric and I watched the ball drop in Times Square though, so that usually means it's officially the new year, no matter where you are in the US. It was quiet in our neighborhood at the stroke of midnight. I could hear distant fireworks but no one was shooting off guns or yelling wildly or honking car horns. I like it that way. In my younger days I used to love to wait up and have a champagne toast, wear a silly hat, or as I did in Florida, jump into a pool sans clothing. Now I appreciate the quiet evenings at home, watching a movie or a football game or playing a game of Scrabble. I also appreciate not having to watch the Tournament of Roses Parade with a hangover.

So on this first day of 2010, I awoke with the sun. Usually I am up before the sun, so it was nice that we got up together today. Then I went grocery shopping, came home, watched the parade, watched some football, made some homemade chicken noodle soup, and began my resolution of reading the first of those 100 books I plan on getting through.

I had two choices. My fiction choice was "Amateur Barbarians" by Robert Cohen and my non-fiction choice was "The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics was Reborn" by Louisa Gilder. I chose the non-fiction book because I figure you should always start the new year out with the truth. Plus, I was never big on physics, quantum or otherwise, so I knew I would struggle with this book and figured it would be a good challenge. I was a little concerned that the end of the book contained 100 pages worth of glossary terms and notes, but got over that after looking at the glossary and realizing that I knew more about physics and scientific terms than I had remembered. Living with my mathematician step-father for all those years probably had something to do with it.

I am two chapters into the book and am finding it interesting but also realize that I still am not big on physics. The book contains excerpts from letters, interviews and conversations between all sorts of scientists including Einstein and Bohr. It has charts and footnotes and the author is doing her best to keep it an "easy" read rather than making the reader have to stop and look up every other word in the dictionary. But for me, this is a book where I am only going to be able to read a chapter and then will have to put the book down, think on it a bit and then pick it up again. I don't think this is like "Harry Potter" where I can read it in one sitting, nor do I want it to be. Part of this resolution is to introduce myself to new experiences, new authors, new ideas, and to maybe learn something or a lot of somethings in the process.

So even though the "entanglement" is sort of a "wild rumpus" in the quantum world, I'm going to take it in quietly, like my New Year's Eve celebrations.