Making My Blog a Diary

Well, I originally wanted to have a book blog, but I don't read fast enough, nor do I tend to read anything particularly intellectual. Not that the books have to be intellectual for one to talk about them. It just ain't enough for me to make a blog out of. So I have decided to try making this blog more of a diary - you know, talking about the day to day stuff. I think it might suit me a bit better. Just mentioning the trivial stuff that makes life life, each day some good, some bad, some shallow thoughts, some deep thoughts. My Honey and I do a lot of very cool and interesting things so I have plenty to talk about. As you will find out. If this blog thing works for me. It might become more of a record for me, but what the heck - I don't have any readers yet anyway...

Yesterday was Valentines Day. I think the holiday is a big scam foisted off on the public by the media and by retail establishments. Actually, you may find out in the days and weeks and months ahead I think a lot of things are scams! Anyway, back to Valentine's Day. Guilt if you ignore it. Stress if you forget about it. Fun if you remember it in advance enough and plan accordingly. Nothing serious about it.

We had a wintery mix of sleet, freezing rain and snow in my area. Bad for the restaurants who were counting on some Valentine's Day diners. I heard today that in NYC only about 50% of the people showed up for their reservations. Haven't verified that figure. Anyway my Honey and I exchanged lovely romantic cards. I gave him a cool USB hub thingy that looks like the nuclear launch code button in the beginning of the movie War Games, and a set of "Key Shaped" knife spreaders for entertaining. He gave me a set of Valentine's Day salt and pepper shakers that are red and white man and woman hugging. We collect salt and pepper shakers. I guess I should post a picture of them. (I'll add that later). Also he gave me a Rubbermaid deviled egg storage container. This is the greatest invention since Devilled eggs themselves! I don't know why I didn't think they invented something like this. Makes it a heck of a lot easier to store the finished eggs in the fridge, and to transport them to a party. I am a big fan of deviled eggs.

I am trying to finish reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I have been very absorbed in it on the train (commuting to and from work), but haven't really been getting into it at home. The book is very strange. It annoyed me at first, but now I see how cool it really is. The structure is so complex, but it really works. The novel is built on a series of connected short story-fantasy versions of some imagined family history related to a Jewish town destroyed in WWII. The stories seem to me to be a spiritual interpretation of reality similar to something you might read in some Yiddish stories or perhaps something by the Bal Shem Tov. Or maybe not quite that lofty. I have only read that kind of thing in English translation so I could be way off on this. I am not a scholar of this kind of writing or story telling. The counterpoint is provided as a series of letters from a Ukrainian teenager who acted as a tour guide to the American writer who went to the Ukraine to try and find some of his family history. Comic relief is provided by the English words used in error by the teenager, as he practices his English. The story he writes is a story of the "tour" and the story of his family.

I know the book was made into a movie, so after I finish it I will watch the movie and see how it compares. I can't imagine how this book could have been captured in a movie.

More later...