So, clearly...I'm back. I figured this to be a really, extra-long week, since I'm pulling double shifts to make up for time lost last week. But it's actually fine. I love Neil waking me up every morning--he gives the most soothing morning back-rubs. And puttering around doing my morning ablutions is so much nicer crossing paths with my cutie here and there. And how cute is Sean going after those crickets? Neil gave him ten big ones this morning, instead of twenty little ones--much faster and hoppier than they had ever been. Sean had to hunt and stalk a bit more, but he got 'em and wasn't giving up.
He really did grow while I was away, too. I know bearded dragons grow an awful lot in their first year, but I didn't expect to see so much difference in just a week. Last night, while Neil was at the ARC, I played with him and gave him some greens, which he ate from my hand. But when I went over to watch "Idol" after putting him back, he totally looked at me like he wanted to kill me. I know that a three-inch lizard can't do much to me, but I could see myself getting freaked out of I let my imagination run wild.
In other reptilian news, I held Phoenix last night for the first time in a long time! He's quite the pretty snake, all dark and light oranges and that same cute little head from the day we took him home.
I've kept up with NYTX since coming home, but it had to take a backseat in California. I was way too bushed every day to do any major thinking, and never really got the quiet and privacy I like when tackling them. I also didn't get much of any reading done, though I finished two audio books (unabridged, of course!), both enjoyable in their own ways:
Nights of Rain and Stars, Maeve Binchy
Pleasant as usual, set in an idyllic Greek island with a cast of different characters thrown together, as is tradition for Binchy's novels. But I prefer the individual chapters for each character, a la Evening Class or London Transports, which she hasn't done for awhile. Without this cutesy gimmick, her books are kind of like any others--for me, okay to listen to on the way to work, but I'd never go out of my way to read them when I could be reading something else. And I hated the last line: "It rained a little, but not enough to obscure the stars" (or something like that). The way Donnelly read it was too loud and forced-meaningful, and it was a pretty stupid line. I never realized how important last lines are to a book, but I think I'll start to analyze them as well. I generally groan at them when it's the end of a cheesy romance or Harlequin manuscript, even when I've fairly enjoyed the story thus far. Maybe it takes a really good writer to think of a truly good last line?
Sellevision, Augusten Burroughs
I chose this from its back cover summary alone, and couldn't wait to delve into it. I am not as obsessed with QVC as others (Oh, RO-ger....), but I've watched my fair share, and it's gotten me through more than a few naps (such an even cadence can't be found in other channels. I know what you're thinking--Food Network, right? But Emeril's teeth-gritting, kill-me-NOW "Bam!"s aren't so soothing), so I'm fairly familiar with this world.
And oh, how Burroughs nailed it. I wondered what research he'd done for this--it was so true to life, yet disgusting. No one can write this realistically about home shopping channels without spending an awful lot of time studying them. It was cynical, dark, disturbing, madly satirical...but deliciously so, because this guy knew his stuff. If someone is going to socially comment on a cultural phenomenon like this, I can't take them seriously unless I feel they have seen all sides to it. And the reader was truly great. She had those HSN voices down, especially Adele's.
There were plots that I grew tired of; Peggy Jean Smythe's increasing looneyness got pretty old, for example. But I found about every other character's journey intriguing and was happy to get back to each story. But what ever happened to Leigh after she aired her affair with Howard Toast on live television? Where did Adele wind up?
But all in all, a great read (listen?), and a last line that made a slow smile creep across my face like nobody's business when I realized what was going to happen when the newly groomed main host leaned over too far in her bra-less shirt, echoing the first line in the book about what happened to poor Max. Now that's good-last-line!
I've been trying to get into Gregory Maguire's Mirror, Mirror in the car for the past couple of days, but I don't know how long that will last. I think that sort of escalated language is, for me, best read on paper, so I can reread passages that confuse me at first. It's annoying to have to rewind every time I'm not clear on what was just said, and I do that enough with books read in modern language. Which reminds me--I want to try Wicked again. (Though I'm sure seeing it in person would help me get into the book more effectively.) I'll give Mirror another try today, maybe tomorrow, and re-evaluate the situation.
The house, a wreck when I unloaded the car on Saturday, is beginning to look okay again, though there are still piles here and there. I found out this week that I won't be working this summer, and I'm bound and determined to get some major housecleaning accomplished then, and list a majority of the rest of my Oz things on eBay. On one hand I'm sorry we won't be getting my added paycheck for 2 months....but another part of me is like "Aw yeah, summer break!" I haven't had one in so long, I won't know what to do with myself! 
I should set up a schedule so I'll actually look back on it and say I did something--like swim daily, devote a couple hours to cleaning/purging the second bedroom, read some hours a day, really start cooking from scratch, scrapbook every day...etc.
Plus, I have that little wedding to plan.
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