Nothing Much

I got home Wednesday night from South Carolina field work, sat down to write and couldn't think of a single point of interest. Same thing happened yesterday! Paul got home from Utah yesterday morning at 6:00 am, had an hour nap at home as I was leaving for work, and then he went straight back to work. Really, our state of affairs is at the maintenance level at the moment. We are in "Phase I of pre-moving prep" but not much prep is happening... and not many recipes being tried at the moment. Sorry to bore y'all.

One thing that I did want to share is that I went to Border's bookstore last night with Alyssa from work (and she was kind to take me and my bike home afterwards). I bought a book to replace the two that I have been trying to read at home and have not really enjoyed: "The Time Traveler's Wife" and "Onion Girl." The first has a good story but I lost interest in the characters, and the second book I found was not my cup of tea by the second chapter- too violent for my tastes.

I am starting to find that in general, I prefer classic books because I think the authors had a better talent for character development, and another key difference is that the characters they created had integrity and qualities to admire. So many modern books are about people without morals or courage, and represent what I get tired of seeing in society. There are exceptions and I do stumble upon a good book here and there that I really can get into. I love the Harry Potter books, for instance, because the characters have real trials (in the sense of jealousy, friend problems, loss of family, etc) and real faults, but they have many good qualities to admire, and are truly good human beings. Plus, the creativity is outstanding in those books. And there's the mystery aspect, the humor, and the violence is more my speed as the books are written for kids!

Anyway, so at Border's last night I picked up the second book "Duty and Desire" in Pamela Aidan's trilogy that corresponds with Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." The fun thing about these books is that they are written from Mr. Darcy's perspective and they are written very, very well. I was surprised to see how well a woman could write from a male perspective, including the humor, the character interaction between Mr. Darcy and his friends and also between him and his hired help. I really loved the first book, "An Assembly Such as This," and the second one is already proving to be very enjoyable (hence, no dinner was cooked last night).