I break bones and laugh.

I read Shiver by m_stiefvater and I really liked it. It's like Twilight if Edward were a werewolf and Bella had friends and purpose and actually acted as a protagonist in her own life and oh yeah, they actually had sex. So...not so much like Twilight after all, I guess. It was a fun Y/A time and Maggie Stiefvater is a lovely person. Her last name is pronounced "Steve Otter," by the way. How I picture Steve Otter, below:



The book starts with Grace's memory of being dragged from her backward swing by a pack of wolves, which had the effect of dislodging a memory I'd misplaced. I was attacked by a wild dog when I was about six. It dragged me away. I had a bite print on my foot for the longest time. I say I misplaced the memory because it wasn't as if it were so traumatizing that I repressed it. Even at the time, I wasn't scared. [At first I was like, "Oh no!" but then I was like, "This is a story." And a good one.] But I hadn't thought about it in years until I read the book.

Now I'm reading Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow and watching Das weiße Band nervously because I know what Michael Haneke is capable of. I'm also planning to watch The Hurt Locker today (and maybe go Christmas shopping later), so apparently I'm also planning to have the most stressful day possible. Maybe I'll go see Antichrist, too. Or wrestle a bear. Play Operation. On a high wire. That's part of a Rube Goldberg device.

But first, a conversation that pretty much sums up my experience with Avatar:

My Mother Talks To Her (Male) Employee, A Play in 1 Act--

[This employee went to see Avatar with another male employee. They are not a couple.]

Employee: Usually [he] and I talk the whole time during movies [Editor's Note: Ugh], but we didn't say a word.
My mom: Did you hold hands?
Employee: No, but it was so pretty that I wanted to.

I was just reading Chris Rock's Top 25 Rap Albums (at his site) and I was very pleased to see that he listed Snoop's Doggystyle at #2. At the time it came out, its main competition was Dre's The Chronic (which also featured Snoop) but I always thought Doggystyle was the better album. It's one of the rare few albums that I can listen to in its entirety and in fact, have done so to the extent that I've had to replace copies* multiple times. I'm not saying it's for everyone and if you don't already love hip hop, I don't advise you go pick it up--I'm just saying that I'm glad to see it get the respect I always thought it deserved. It's made countless critics' top album lists but it seems like I never hear people talking about it like they talk about The Chronic. But like Chris Rock points out, it's held up better: "The Chronic is sonically incredible, but it's hard to drive around singing songs about [Eazy-E]. But I got a feeling I'll be singing 'Gin and Juice' when I'm ninety." And as he points out in one of my all-time favorite bits, not only can it be hard to find hip hop you want to listen to continuously as you get older, it's even harder trying to defend it [NSFW]:



EDIT: If you hit the fast forward on the video screen on Rock's site, the next video after the golf video is a chat with George Carlin from the old Chris Rock Show.

*See also: the (cassette) copy of Fear of a Black Planet that I listened to so much it snapped in half