Thursday, August 28, 2008

warn your wolves to turn away

Today was a v. odd day. I attribute it all to waking up at 5:40a.m. At that point, it was still dark outside; by the time I left my apartment a little before 6:15am, dawn was streaking across the city skyline, which was quite impressive. It hasn't been foggy at all the past few mornings/evenings, which is a shocking (and welcome) change. I caught the 6:30 shuttle, which put me in the office by 7:30, well before my eight a.m. meeting. I think I shocked everyone in the room by walking in early, with coffee, and without my bag, which showed that I'd actually had time to make it to my desk and put it down before dashing into the room as I usually do.

At the time, I thought that I should try to do this every day; the city has a fresh feeling to it when people are just beginning to wake up, I was productive on the mostly-empty shuttle, and by the time my eight a.m. was over, I was already caught up for the day. However, by two p.m., when my energy was noticeably flagging and I just wanted to crawl into a corner and take a nap, I doubted that my morning self had really had such a lovely time that it could make a case for waking up early again in the future. So I caught an early shuttle home (although by the time I got home at a little before six, I had been involved in work activities for nearly eleven hours, so it's not like I was slacking), where I sat around and ate a sandwich and watched Shawn Johnson on David Letterman, which I tivo'd the other night (verdict: she's America's Sweetheart, regardless of what Nastia Liukin's shark of an agent thinks).

I intended to work on the book tonight, but I took a Dramamine to keep me productive during the shuttle ride home, and that + the 5:40am start made me feel a little fuzzy tonight. Instead, I started reading 'Twilight' - it's the first in that four-volume young-adult vampire series that created such a frenzy a month ago when the last book in the series was introduced. In fact, it was published during the romance writers' conference, and the conference organizers set up a special location where conference goers could buy/pick up copies at the conference at midnight, rather than walking three blocks to the Borders in Union Square. I've heard excellent things about it but hadn't read any of them yet -- until tonight, when I read half of 'Twilight'.

Verdict: so far so good. Her writing style and prose itself are clearly superior to JK Rowling's, and she's working with a vaguely epic storyline that I expect to get more epic as the series progresses. I can see why the book became a hit; but then again, there are many young adult books I read back in the day that I thought should have become bigger hits than they were (for example, anything by Robin McKinley, whom I adore -- happily she now blogs everyday, which gives me a fix, and her new book 'Chalice' is coming out in less than a month, and I already have it on preorder). So I'll keep going with them, and just hope that by the end of the four-book series I'll be satisfied rather than primed for more.

Tomorrow's another day in the office, but it shouldn't be horrendous, and then I have a three-day weekend! Yay! As one of the last two weekends before I turn 27, I intend to make the most of it. But right now, I'm going to make the most of my bed -- goodnight!

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