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Hello, book-friends! Capping off my weird week, today I finally managed to defeat my car's idiot-proofing and lock the key in the trunk. (Literally every time I've locked my keys in the car, this has been how I've done it. Our current car has RFID keys and a system that senses whether your key is in the trunk; if you try to close the trunk with the key in it, it pops the trunk back open and beeps twice, like "Hey dumbass, you left your key in here." Unfortunately, it's not a perfect system - I suspect the aluminum water bottle in my backpack was shielding the key from the sensor.) Like the rest of the week's challenges, though, it was fairly easy to surmount - the AAA guy got the car unlocked without too much trouble, and it turns out Land Rover's warranty covers roadside assistance, so I'm only out the hour I waited for the service. And today I talked to the insurance adjuster about our claim; she seems pretty competent and was a little impressed at how much documentation I'd sent her. (Joys of being a lawyer's daughter/former admin; you learn to keep records, especially of things that're attractive targets.) At this point, my mood is somewhere between "Okay, week, what else are you going to throw at me? Bring it on!" and "...but for reals, can we get back to just the usual level of crazy?"
What I've just finished reading
Nothing this week, partly due to the craziness and partly how fragmented my efforts have been. I did make quite a bit of progress on Lamb, though - I've needed some goofiness in my life.
What I'm currently reading
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. I continue to enjoy this rather more than most of Moore's work; the dynamic between spiritually-wise-but-innocent Joshua and worldly-wise-but-spiritually-hapless Biff really drives the plot and gives Moore an excellent opportunity to both discuss and poke fun at all manner of different philosophical beliefs. I was somewhat less than pleased, however, with the episode involving the first of the Magi's Eight Beautiful Chinese Concubines, each trained in martial and sexual arts and given a ridiculous name and the personality of a sheet of toilet paper, and whom Biff sees no problem with deceiving into sex. I mean, I get what Moore is going for humor-wise, but there's just so much racism and exoticism and sexism and other -isms going on here that the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when there've been literally no other female characters with any kind of agency in the story, period. (You'd think Joshua would have something to say to Biff about lying in order to get into bed with the concubines, but apparently they're not really worth his interest.) It's not that I have any problem with jokes about sex, but when it's literally at the cost of the women involved...let's just say I had no particular sympathy towards Biff when the next of the Magi started beating him with a bamboo cane whenever he stepped out of line.
Yoga Sequencing, by Mark Stephens. As with a lot of yoga books (I'm finding), I'm alternately frustrated and engaged by the prose here. Some chunks of it feel more than a little self-aggrandizing; maybe it's just that I already went through my "yoga is amazing and everyone should try it!" stage and no longer have much interest in proselytizing, but that kind of rubs me the wrong way. What's maybe more frustrating is that I can't deny that the passages about the benefits (both physical and mental) speak very much to my experiences, so I can't say they're *wrong*; I just know they're not going to be everyone's experience, so listening to someone go on like they're Great Universal Truths just makes me kind of sigh. Also, there are some parts that could really use an editor - there's one paragraph in particular that talks particularly about what I want to do as a teacher...but it's smashing so many different concepts together that I just want to take a red pen to it and separate it out into three or four paragraphs. (Entertainingly, I sent it to a friend and she was quite enthusiastic about...a completely different concept than I had meant to highlight. Editing! It's a thing!) That said, I'm seeing quite a bit of value from it and the associated journaling I've been doing, so I'll keep going in spite of my frustrations. (This seems to be becoming my theme for this whole week, heh.)
What I plan to read next
I need another big long housework day so I can finish listening to Symphony of the Dead, haha. (I've tried listening to it in small chunks but there's enough going on that my brain does better listening to it when I have time to go on for an hour or three.) Other than that...my mother's been recommending Radical Acceptance, which I already have a copy of because she's like the fifth person to recommend it to me. She recently listened to The Body Keeps the Score (one of my favorites) and says she likes them as complements to each other, since one focuses more on the physiological and one on the psychological side of the same subject, but there's lots of overlap. So that's high on the list too!
What I've just finished reading
Nothing this week, partly due to the craziness and partly how fragmented my efforts have been. I did make quite a bit of progress on Lamb, though - I've needed some goofiness in my life.
What I'm currently reading
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. I continue to enjoy this rather more than most of Moore's work; the dynamic between spiritually-wise-but-innocent Joshua and worldly-wise-but-spiritually-hapless Biff really drives the plot and gives Moore an excellent opportunity to both discuss and poke fun at all manner of different philosophical beliefs. I was somewhat less than pleased, however, with the episode involving the first of the Magi's Eight Beautiful Chinese Concubines, each trained in martial and sexual arts and given a ridiculous name and the personality of a sheet of toilet paper, and whom Biff sees no problem with deceiving into sex. I mean, I get what Moore is going for humor-wise, but there's just so much racism and exoticism and sexism and other -isms going on here that the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when there've been literally no other female characters with any kind of agency in the story, period. (You'd think Joshua would have something to say to Biff about lying in order to get into bed with the concubines, but apparently they're not really worth his interest.) It's not that I have any problem with jokes about sex, but when it's literally at the cost of the women involved...let's just say I had no particular sympathy towards Biff when the next of the Magi started beating him with a bamboo cane whenever he stepped out of line.
Yoga Sequencing, by Mark Stephens. As with a lot of yoga books (I'm finding), I'm alternately frustrated and engaged by the prose here. Some chunks of it feel more than a little self-aggrandizing; maybe it's just that I already went through my "yoga is amazing and everyone should try it!" stage and no longer have much interest in proselytizing, but that kind of rubs me the wrong way. What's maybe more frustrating is that I can't deny that the passages about the benefits (both physical and mental) speak very much to my experiences, so I can't say they're *wrong*; I just know they're not going to be everyone's experience, so listening to someone go on like they're Great Universal Truths just makes me kind of sigh. Also, there are some parts that could really use an editor - there's one paragraph in particular that talks particularly about what I want to do as a teacher...but it's smashing so many different concepts together that I just want to take a red pen to it and separate it out into three or four paragraphs. (Entertainingly, I sent it to a friend and she was quite enthusiastic about...a completely different concept than I had meant to highlight. Editing! It's a thing!) That said, I'm seeing quite a bit of value from it and the associated journaling I've been doing, so I'll keep going in spite of my frustrations. (This seems to be becoming my theme for this whole week, heh.)
What I plan to read next
I need another big long housework day so I can finish listening to Symphony of the Dead, haha. (I've tried listening to it in small chunks but there's enough going on that my brain does better listening to it when I have time to go on for an hour or three.) Other than that...my mother's been recommending Radical Acceptance, which I already have a copy of because she's like the fifth person to recommend it to me. She recently listened to The Body Keeps the Score (one of my favorites) and says she likes them as complements to each other, since one focuses more on the physiological and one on the psychological side of the same subject, but there's lots of overlap. So that's high on the list too!
