makin’ werk more interesting
“psst…Maigen!”
“hey, what’s up?”
“did you find your vibrator?”
“um. whut?”
“your vibrator, did you find it?”
“…” <furious blushing> “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I was reading your myspace page and that journal about the vibrator was hilarious!”
“oh god, right! I thought you meant I had left it at work and I was wondering how I had managed that…”
Filed under daily, werkin' | Comment (1)some thoughts on good reading
I was writing a post in response to a thread on the Intrepid Media forums, and thought I’d copy it over here. I jotted down some quick, disjointed thoughts on some of my favourite books. Here they are:
- Tad Williams’ Otherland series.
- Dave Duncan’s The Great Game trilogy.
- Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry.
- Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.
- Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy.
- Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart Series (soon to be sextology) (is that a word? I have no idea.)
***
Spoilers and my thoughts below
***
Mkay. Tad Williams I loved the start of. Written before virtual reality was a reality, this is how I wish the internet would actually work. Took way too effing long – four books is quite a commitment. Soft-ish ending. I mean, I LOVED being dragged in and I loved wondering who the killer was and I loved the side story OUTside VR, but SHEESH. Four books, man.
The Great Game trilogy is still fighting for number one trilogy in my life. I’ve got three other trilogies that I LOVE and re-read a lot but this one is by far the most thought-provoking (for a novel). It starts at the beginning of the first world war in England. Then, we get introduced to a quite dashing young man who almost immediately visits a parallel universe and is introduced to several local gods. The underlying theme here is freedom of religion and I LOVE IT.
The Fionavar Tapestry is the only set of books I’ve read that tug at my heart. I was in Barnes and Noble last week with Adrian and I spotted them on the shelf whilst looking for something else. I immediately was flooded with feelings – all I could do was put a hand on my heart and sigh. The age old story of Arthur and Gwenivere (and Lancelot) is just…heartbreaking. This story, amongst other stories, tells it well. My favourite line is repeated a few times over the trilogy and tells of King Arthur and the ‘stars falling and falling in his eyes.’
Phillip Pullman’s trilogy – the first of which is The Golden Compass (a movie I can’t wait to see, but am waiting for Adrian to finish the books) – is a fantastic story. Again, the parallel universe does things for me, as well as the introduction of the I Ching (which I’m learning, because it’s so fascinating) and the one little thing that stuck with me: Electricity, Lyra theorizes, comes from electrum because in her world Anbarium (their form of power/electricity) comes from Amber. (I could also be totally out of my mind the way I remember it, but the child’s thought process style was something I really identified with. “If this means this, then this must mean this, right?”) The trilogy also has a soft ending, I think I read it was because he felt ripped off because Harry Potter came out at the same time and while his book was read, Harry Potter was REVERED. I also liked this because he made no bones about the fact that it was written to be anti-religion, in direct contention with CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia relgion-fest.
The Black Jewels trilogy I have read – not even kidding – at least 20 times. It’s a fantasy trilogy, set in a world where women are the stronger/dominant sex, magic is dark and sex is a way of life…in a way. It’s very dark. It’s quite erotic without being a bodice ripper (at all, I promise). My favourite ideal is the sense of honour instilled into the lead men. My favourite character isn’t the heroine, though I love her. I really really (REALLY) love Saetan, the High Lord of Hell. He’s charming, imposing, intelligent, honourable and ethical. Also, sexy. But that’s my opinion.
Jacqueline Carey’s books are very sex based. Sex and intrigue. And spying. And sex. It was amazingly, flowery-ly told. VERY in-depth world. Very relgion and politics based. Very sex…you get the idea. It’s very well told, Adrian enjoyed it nearly as much as I did with the exception of “she kept saying ‘it is not given to us to know the number of the living’ or something. it’s driving me crazy!”
Whew. I think those are my favourite books. The second favourites number into the thousands, I think.
Filed under 'spection, to read | Comments Offso here’s how it’s gonna go
I’ve made my decision. I’m going to check out this flight attendant thing. Mostly I decided because I want to be selfish for a little while. I haven’t held down a quote-unquote real job for over two years, and I want to do something I really enjoy. Flying, I love!
It’s been tough making that decision, because I LOVE working at Muzak and because they LOVE ME. I fully and completely ROCK at Cash Applications (also known to normal people as Billing). I LOVE taking a totally effed up account and finding where the discrepancies started happening and straightening it all out. I LIKE NUMBERS! They make sense to me.
Who knew?
But, I did make the choice to fly, and I think it’s a great choice with a lot of flexibility and benefits (free travel for hubby and parents!) and I don’t think I’ll do it for more than a few years and very likely not after I have kids, so there you go.
Anywho, I just wanted to let all ya’ll know what I’d be up to. I’ll be in Atlanta for six weeks of training starting March 4th. After that, I’ll be based out of NYC – all three area airports. This is where my family is all “are you getting a divorce?!” because I don’t sound at all concerned about my life in Vancouver/husband/job/etc.
Not worried about my life because my life is wherever I make it (my family is very old school. For the most part they all grew up in Charlotte and live there…’gallivanting across the country’ is way out of their realm of comfort). Not worried about job because I’m actually going to have one with a real paycheck. Not worried about husband because he’ll be joining me in NYC within six months, continuing to work with the stuff he’s been doing – sound editing/mixing/design and will be learning some video editing. Fun!
The six months is only because he has to go through the work visa process like everyone else.
We’ve put the immigration stuff on hold for now, because while we have the opportunity to live and work in an amazing city, we don’t need to (immediately) worry about immigrating. It is still in the line-up of things to be done, just further down the list.
So there we are. That’s the update. Here’s the new direction.
Filed under life, whatnot, werkin' | Comments (2)