So…. Yeah…. I’ve been faithfully carrying Orfeo around for the past couple of days. Bedroom to living room and back again. Today I even took it to my parents’ house. Have I read a word? No. Am I considering giving up and moving on to something else? Absolutely. My plan is to give it a good try tomorrow when I have no plans other than laundry and reading, and if no progress is made, I’m giving up and reading the next Outlander book, in honor of the second half of Season 1 starting on Starz last week.
In the picture above you will see Orfeo, in its place at the top of my book pile. The next two are the second and third novels in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Trilogy, The Story of a New Name and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, followed by Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State, my boss’s Kindle, and my Kindle. I have the first Neapolitan Trilogy book, My Brilliant Friend, in my book room with its Europa Editions brethren. These three books were purchased on Amazon last week following the ending of The Morning News Tournament of Books. An Untamed State and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay made it to the Zombie Round and the semifinals, respectively, before being eliminated. If you want to know what the heck a Zombie Round is, I strongly recommend checking out The Tournament of Books. It’s fun in a bibliophile kind of way. And the Kindles are pretty self-explanatory. And those papers under that are Bethany’s most recent couple of chapters of her novel. No one gets to know anything about that until she says I can talk about it. But it’s definitely more riveting than Orfeo.
But I promised you a list of what’s been keeping me from reading Orfeo since Tuesday. Here we go.
- Still working. Today is the first day of my weekend, though, so thankfully I get a break. Five days is a long time to be working 10+ hour days.
- Discovered the cure for my fatigue yesterday in a bottle of Coca-Cola brought to my hospital by the fabulous Erin, our Royal Canin rep. I will be eternally grateful. I haven’t drank Coke with any regularity since 2002, and generally I try to stay away from carbonated beverages, but yesterday I don’t know what I would have done without it.
- Went for a hike with my parents and my friend Jenni today.
- Went to brunch after said hike.
- Went to the mall in Roseville after said brunch.
- Bought some things at the mall, some of which I needed, some of which I “needed,” and a gift for my friend Kendra whose bachelorette party is this weekend. (PS, I’m not going to get much reading done over the weekend either.)
- Drove home.
- Started laundry.
- Made that awesome picture above on one of my photo apps on my iPhone. I love it, don’t you?
- Now I’m doing this so I don’t fall asleep in front of my laptop later tonight without writing anything.
I hope you are enjoying reading about me not reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing these lists the past couple days. I promise that one way or another I’ll write something resembling a book blog soon.
Postcards From Purgatory 
Multiple thoughts:
1. I was just thinking that this would be a good time for you to read Dragonfly in Amber, but I wasn’t planning to say anything because that would be pushy. But we’ve definitely had an upsurge in Gabaldon-related blog viewing since last weekend. Dragonfly in Amber is good – I think you’ll like it!
2. More riveting than Orfeo? Really?
3. We should plan a board meeting sometime soon. Sometime in May, maybe?
Multiple responses:
1. I think that it’s a good time to get a new Gabaldon review up too. I’ll read that one next.
2. You try reading Orfeo and you’ll see. Your novel is much more approachable. And it has page breaks, which i appreciate.
3. Yes! May sounds good to me. I’ll be down in the city for Bay to Breakers but I’ll be with many Mikovich’s so that won’t be a good time, but let’s figure out a day for a board meeting.