Moves in Curves

Liking pina coladas and getting caught in the rain is optional, but must be prolific. An author who wrote one lovely book doesn’t do me any damn good.

I read fast. And I read a lot. I’ve now read every book in my capacious library (and have the public library) at least twice. Some quite a bit more than twice *cough*Discworld*cough*. And I need some new books.

I don’t like heavy literary crap. I don’t want to read about someone else’s depressing life wherein their child was born handicapped/parent died/they were widowed young or other assorted tragedies. That’s nice if you like that stuff, but I want humor. I like humor. If it’s served with a side of Regency romance involving various invented aristocratic titles, even better.

I’ve been poking around on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for some new authors. I think I’m going to have to branch out from Regency for a while. I did read a pair of books in Florida the other weekend that were quite cute, although not on par with my favorite Regency authors (Julia Quinn and Loretta Chase, I’m looking at you): “Just Perfect” and “Too Perfect” by Julia Ortolan, which I picked up in the library’s book trade area. The skiing one was definitely superior to the exotic-beach-island one.

I favor romance and lighter fantasy or mystery – the longer the series, the better. I’ve got every Amelia Peabody book in existence along with every Discworld book. Also everything Julia Quinn’s ever written, quite a bit of MaryJanice Davidson, all of Amanda Quick’s early stuff (I stopped liking her new stuff around 1997, but her books up to that point were excellent. “Ravished” continues to be one of my all-time favorites), quite a lot of Julie Garwood (another author who went downhill in the late 90s) and Loretta Chase.

There are two new additions to series I already have been reading which I need to pick up somehow – waiting for paperback to buy them, I think, but I might have to try to get them from the library to read straightaway – the latest in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs (of which I own all previous books and spinoffs) and #16 in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich.

Maybe those two will keep me busy for a few days. Maybe even a week if I stretch it out. I really need a few new authors, though.

I’ve been playing on foursquare a lot lately. It’s so pointless, yet so fun. Everywhere I go, I check in. I’ve checked in at about four or five local bridges, and am thinking of going up to the peninsula this weekend just so I can check in on the Monitor-Merrimac bridge-tunnel. I want to go to a cupcakery in Hilltop to see if it will give me the Cupcake badge, or if I need to visit a few more cupcake places (there are only two around here, sadly, and I’ve already been to the other one). I’m mayor of my house and my kids’ speech clinic. I have several badges and on the way to several more.

There really seems to be very little purpose to this thing, though, I have to admit. It’s sort of like a game. But now I want to go somewhere, so that I can check in to local places somewhere else. I keep thinking how fun it would have been to be foursquaring while I was in Hawaii or San Diego, or up in Maine. In two weeks, I’ll be down in Florida for Infinitus, and I’m going to be checking in left and right down there. I can’t wait. In the meantime, I’m looking for somewhere interesting I can go this weekend so I can get some new check-ins. I’m almost at the 25 check-ins badge.

I need a new author to add to my beloved list. Someone prosaic, cause I read fast. I’m in the process of re-reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, because Finger-Lickin’ Fifteen comes out next week (yay!). I’m getting back up to speed in Stephanie’s life. I sent the first book to my mom a few weeks ago, and now she’s also in love with these books. She says she lays in bed reading, laughing hysterically. Is it our Jersey background or does Stephanie just rock? Who knows. My mom’s a Jersey girl herself so she really loves the books.

I read everything Terry Pratchett writes. I love him. He’s incredibly brilliant. I’ve read all the Discworld books until I have them memorized. I like the Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin, but it seems unlikely that he’s ever going to finish it, and that annoys me. I do think he’s cool because I sent him an email a few years ago, before Feast for Crows came out, because he’s my mom’s age and is from her hometown in NJ, and he actually emailed me back personally and said he didn’t know her, but was pretty sure he knew my aunt Susan. Funny.

So, since it won’t take me long to read the new Stephanie Plum, and the new Disworld won’t be out until October, and the new ASOIAF may never be out, I need someone new to read. Sigh. I tried Charlaine Harris and didn’t care for her. I hear the latest Anita Blake only pretended for a minute to have a plot, then went back to hundreds of pages of how great Anita is and all the random sex she has, which is extremely disappointing. I enjoyed those books up until Obsidian Butterfly, and quit reading after Anita turned into the ultimate Mary Sue. I like MaryJanice Davidson’s books, even though she’s the queen of the Sassy Sue and the “good concept, bad execution” mode, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the last Betsy Taylor book.

I’m really not into vampires. I don’t know why suddenly everyone else is. Vamporn bores the hell out of me. Twilight made me want to vomit, I couldn’t even finish the first book. Awful. I’ve read better Dramiones than that, and we all know how I feel about Dramiones. So I need something new. With funny bits. I don’t mind sex, heck I love romance, but I need a plot too. What the hell am I going to read next?

Despite spending almost the entire day outside yesterday, my kids seem to have cabin fever. I blame this on us not having traveled enough lately, especially since this past week was spring break. They had an intestinal virus though, so we’ve been stuck at the house until they got over it. We went yesterday to the International Children’s Festival, which they managed 3 hours at before becoming so whiny and fussy we had to leave. A half hour nap in the car followed by a stop at Dunkin Donuts perked them back up though.

This morning has been spent crying over why we can’t go to the water park (it’s not open until Memorial Day, and it’s only 65 degrees out today anyway!). I think we need to get out of the house again. The hubby suggested buying them one of those battery-powered ride-on toys (a Jeep that seats 2 and costs two hundred bucks, ouch), but the initial charge time is 18 hours, so it may be best to buy it tomorrow morning, plug it in and hide the Jeep until the battery is charged up, otherwise they’ll just be crying to ride on it right away. The box may be too big to fit in the back of my Cruiser without laying down the back seats anyway. So that’s out. What to do today? I want to go somewhere. I’m pretty over the house and this area.

I brought up fernweh a while ago in my old blog, and I think we’re having a case of it. I know I am. Fernweh is a German word meaning “the longing to be far away.” I’ve pretty much had this every day since I was five, so it’s unsurprising that my kids often want to go somewhere too. We should all be Sagittarians! But no, I’m a Pisces and they’re Virgos. Anyhoo, I’m feeling antsy and ready to go somewhere. Trying to convince the hubby that we should move somewhere new, but he just wants to buy a house here out in the country (yuck). Often when I get the urge to GO like this, I try to buy stuff to fill the void. It generally doesn’t work.

I could spend some money on the house right now. I need to do some landscaping and paint the living room, but I can’t seem to get motivated to do either. The lawn needs some weed & feed in a bad way. With the hubby traveling so much, yardwork has gone by the wayside. I finally hired a guy to come mow, so at least the grass is a reasonable length now. I really hate buying plants and gardening, because I kill everything. The only plants that have survived more than a single season are the ones that were already here when we bought the house, and the ones that the hubby planted (he can grow lots of things).

I suppose I could put together the bike trailer-slash-kiddie seat and take them for a ride before the rain starts. Thunderstorms are due and the sky’s already getting dark, so that may not work out so well… We need to go somewhere.

Next month we’ll be doing some traveling, to go visit Chez Tarty for Mother’s Day, and the week after that to go to Baltimore for my sister’s graduation and spend a few days hitting the DC area with my mom (as if I haven’t seen it a hundred times – we lived in DC for three years when I was young). At some point in the near future I am plotting a trip to Florida to visit Inner Beach‘s crew before they move to Arizona, but I haven’t nailed down a date yet for that, since it’s a 15 hour drive, and the thought of making that drive alone with two mostly-potty-trained four year olds was making my ass twitch, to quote Kevin Kline in “French Kiss.” Need to find out when the boys’ next three-day weekend is, maybe we can head down there then.

Overall, I need to get my ass in gear and get these kids out of the house today, one way or another. Much I should be doing around the house, yet I have the urge to get out of town. Maybe we can just go out to Virginia Beach somewhere. I don’t know.

Really this is 750 words to say I’m bored as hell. Let’s hop in the car and drive to New York!