ellen_datlow: (Default)
( Feb. 20th, 2011 01:53 am)
Yup. I bought a new monitor for my computer Friday. I couldn't stand looking at the scratched one any more and decided to bite the bullet and just buy a new one--my neighbor's last email message said she was still talking to the claims person at the installation company.

I decided that I might as well buy a 23 inch one and Matt Kressel came with me to Best Buy to help pick one out. Bought a Dell, he lugged it home, set it up, turned it on and nothing. So...we hauled it back crosstown to Best Buy, told them it was defective and went to find a replacement. I swore I'd make them check this one out first to make sure it turned on before having him take it home again. No more of that model but the salesman this time was way more knowledgeable than the last one and persuade us that I should buy the LG instead. Which I did. And Matt set it up and behold, there was a huge screen that is so large that Matt had to reconfigure most of the type for me. It think it's going to take awhile to get used to.

Tonight I watched The MacKintosh Man,, a pretty terribly plotted movie by John Huston written by Walter Hill, based on a novel by Desmond Bagley. It's a cold war drama (which I hadn't realized till I began watching) with Paul Newman and Dominique Sanda (who I didn't recognize till I read the credits again at the end--I'm used to her with a chignon, I guess). I hope the novel made more sense than the movie because from the get-go the thing yelled "idiot plot" idiot plot" to me. A waste of time except for watching blue-eyed Paul.

Then I watched Sherlock: Series 1--the BBC updated Sherlock Holmes everyone's been talking about. Yes yes yes. I want more. I watched all three episodes and they ended wayyy to soon. I very much look forward to the second season.

It's updated to contemporary times and works remarkably well. Good show.
Why do I make this announcement? Because it is the first time I have been able to do so for at least ten years. (some of you know the rest so you can stop reading now or skip to the last paragraph)

Background: books books, everywhere books. I've been working at home since 1998 or so and at that point in my life I had to move cartons of books from my OMNI Office (where they had been collected inside my office and outside in the suite for 17 years) to my apartment and to storage.

I have been editing a years best anthology for about 25 years now. Books come in, most (maybe 95% go out) but that's still that means many books stay. And where do they stay? In my apartment until I persuade/cajole/bribe one or two strapping males to move cartons into my storage locker.

Anyway, incoming books start their journeys on my kitchen table, as they await for me to move them into my living room and bedroom where they will eventually get my attention and I will read them for the next best of the year. The horror books in the pile will be moved relatively quickly.

But some books --those that are not priority reading--ie not horror, or books that I've picked up (and actually even occasionally bought) that interest me enough to hang on to until I figure out what to do with them --those are the ones that start piling up on the kitchen table. And remain for years. *


So what changed you may ask.


Rick Lieder house/cat sat for me in early January. When I came home, the kitchen table was CLEARED!!!! Now those books did not disappear. In fact, they were all moved to a chair at the end of the table so he could work on his laptop. It was the first time I've seen the tabletop for, um....a very long time. As it happens, some new books made their way onto the tabletop but not enough to completely block my view of it.

Today: I've no idea what came over me but as I was making myself brunch, I suddenly got the urge to sit at the table. I gently shoved the small piles of books that have gathered in the past month creating enough space for me to eat there. (with enough room to read a magazine).

*I will admit that part of the reason I stopped eating at the kitchen table was the late lamented Dinah, who always insisted on eating from my plate and would drag food off when I wasn't looking.
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