Stuff and Books.

Earlier today, I had that sword-of-Damocles feeling in my ribcage, like I was forgetting to do something and at any moment could receive fiery retribution for it.

It's gone now, and all I did was take ojouchan to the dentist. Yay?

Before the paliative waiting-room extravaganza, I idnetified two things I feel like I should be doing. One is exercise. I'd been letting things slack, and then I got a new TV and I'm in a bit of a honeymoon with it right now, as I'm entranced at watching everything in Big. That's something that's going to have to change.

The other thing is writing. More on that below.

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Updating the last book post:

Currently Reading

• City of Quartz—Mike Davis. As I continue to push my way through this nonfiction book about Los Angeles, I'm finding myself more inspired to write SF/F fiction than ever before in my life. I feel like I've been trying to nudge myself into the right frame of mind to think about my city and suddenly everything is new again. Everywhere I turn now is a new utopia, except for the corners of dystopias, a perspective that's stretching back into my childhood memories.
  
• The Haunting of Hill House—Shirley Jackson. And the book is AWOL again. Hopefully I'll locate it quickly, as I think I can burn through the rest of it pretty quickly once I do. The book is definitely in the swing of things, though, because the last scene I read is vivd in my mind.
  
• The Einstein Intersection—Samuel R. Delaney. Another book I've tried a few times. My goal is not to get distracted by anything other than the two books listed above. I'm still only a few pages into it, but I think I just managed to edge out my previous attempts to break into the story.

Recently Finished

• How Did You Get to Be Mexican?: A White/Brown Man's Search for Identity—Kevin R. Johnson. The final chapters had an analysis of assimilation and diversity within the Latino community, going into detail about how different Latino groups do and don't assimilate into "mainstream"/Anglo society in America. Unsurprisingly, paler Latinos and Latino groups assimilate more readily and easily than brown or black Latinos. Overall, though i felt like the book didn't really tell me anything new, I still feel lik I needed some reminders.
  
• Spock, Messiah!—This is one of the books I forgot about in my last post. Ojou got it for me for Christmas as a stocking-stuffer out of the bargain room at our local used bookstore (5 for a dollar!); it's one of the early licensed Star Trek novels. It was really terrible. It starts off with a lot of really hinky sexual politics regardng a female scientist, which then leads to the central conceit of Spock having his mind taken over by a charismatic (and sexualy voracious) cult leader on a pre–First Contact planet. In many ways, I feel like the purpose of the entire book was to have Spcok become a sex fiend. The rest of the book has some wonderful set pieces that would probably would have looked great as the tent poles of a TV episode, but on the page, they mostly fall flat.