If one condition describes my summer vacation so far, it seems to be my inability to settle.  Before break, I was longing to have time to read, but now I can't seem to decide what to read or to stay on one book long enough to make much progress.  Like many women in America, I'm making my way through the Shades of Grey trilogy, but those books are, aside from the steamy parts, kinda sucky.  They don't hold my interest.  Recently, a couple of authors I respect recommended a the romances of Caroline Linden.  So I bought two historicals, then she recommended a contemporary set in a tropical island so I bought that, but I haven't actually started any of these.  I actually have lots of books piled up that I wanted badly to read during the semester.  I'm right in the middle of two books set in magical Arabian-type lands that are great inspirations for my D&D campaign, but I haven't gone back to them now that I can.  Also, the main characters of the Mageworld series are annoyed with me.  I've left them in dire straights.  I need to get back to them.

And then there's audiobooks.  I'm almost done with The Power of Habit, so I was looking around for more to listen to.  I now have downloaded not one, but three nonfiction books, one a is a behind the scenes on TV story and the others are comic memoirs that I heard about on one of my pop culture podcasts.  I've listened to a bit of each and then gone back to Power of Habit.  I can't seem to decide on any one audiobook.

Speaking of TV, I have a lot of backed-up DVR'd TV that I didn't have time to get to during the semester, most of which I can't watch while Dad is actually awake.  Don't get me started on netflix movies.  I guess this embarrassment of riches is a good problem to have, but when people ask me what I'm doing now that I'm out of school,  the temptation is to reply:  "flailing about like a mayfly on caffeine, you?"

This will be a long and winding trail around my neural pathways, but bear with me.  I was thinking this morning about there being only two Beatles in the land of the living--I have no idea why--and this got me thinking about Ringo Starr, which brought up his small role as a snark-tastic con-man/professional hanger-on in the 80's miniseries Princess Daisy.  I love, LOVE this show.  It is a soap opera that has everything, movie stars, royalty, secret twins, brooding half-brothers with dangerous obsessions, fashion photographers that are up to no good, yachts, handsome self-made millionaires.  I mean, really, what more could a girl want?  

It occurred to me this afternoon to wonder if this show is available anywhere.  And indeed, there are a few used copies on amazon for lots of pocket money.  The weird thing is that Netflix has only the third disk of the three-disk set.  Did someone steal the other ones or what?  Anyway, I'm glad my memories of this show are so strong, since it may be a long time until I see the whole thing again.

Everyone knows that basement-rated NBC needs serious help.  If smell-o-vision existed, my living room would be redolent of flop sweat every time I tune in.  However, there were three NBC shows that were not only worth watching, they had the promise of greatness, and the network has managed to destroy all three. 

SMASH had a terrific pilot, everybody agrees on that.  Everybody also agrees that it became un-watchable quickly.  What could have been a wonderful exploration of the joys of the musical theater world became a really, really poorly executed soap opera with occasionally good songs.  The fact that I, one of the biggest Bernadette Peters fans you will ever run across, bailed before her episode even aired will tell you something.  It also says a lot that this show started the twitter trend of "hate watching" as discussed here.

BENT was a very cute Rom-Com show about a woman who begins to have feelings for the less-than-competent-but-undeniably fetching contractor she has hired to redo her kitchen.  It had lots of charming performances and it was perfect for a HGTV addict like me, but NBC buried it, gave it little promotion, and killed it after four episodes.  At least there was no cliffhanger.

AWAKE was a really high concept show about a detective who, after an accident, finds himself living in two worlds, one in which his wife is alive and his teenage son has died in the crash, and another in which the opposite has happened.  He switches back and forth as he falls asleep at night, and so has no idea which reality is the dream, or if both are real or what.  This show managed to be a really compelling examination of grief, which really spoke to what I'm currently going through.  It seems to have been too tough for people though, in spite of a lot of critical praise, especially for lead actor Jason Isaacs (aka Lucius Malfoy).  NBC, which you would think could use some buzz, has cancelled the show.  There are two episodes to go before the official end.  I hope we fans get some closure.

NBC is not in a position to alienate me as a viewer, but that's just what's happened.  If they don't wise up, they'll never climb out of the hole they've dug themselves.  Must-See TV was a long time ago.

I really need to update this thing at some point.

I've been listening to The Power of Habit, and it is a lot more enthralling than I expected it to be.  At first, I didn't think the stories in the book would be of much help to me, but then I get to the part about how important craving a reward is to forming habits.  I realized that one reason I have a hard time sticking to any of my resolutions is that I haven't been able to think of compelling rewards.  Most just aren't compelling enough to overcome my hatred of exercise, not to mention my ability to rationalize and procrastinate--and if they are too compelling I just cheat.  :)

Then I thought of this new Web site I've gotten addicted to--GetGlue.  Users get virtual stickers when they "check-in" and let friends  know what TV shows they are watching, books they are reading etc.  You wouldn't believe how much I already want to require certain rare stickers.  Here we have the perfect reward, so I have decided to make a rule that I will not check-in to the site unless I've exercised.  I'm starting with once a day, but I will up that.  The beauty of this is that my friends on facebook and twitter get notified when I've checked-in, so I can't fudge without at least one friend calling me on it.  

So, here we go!  I've done my exercise for today, so I'm off to the site to see what stickers I can claim.

I had a really unhealthy breakfast consisting of reheated pepperoni- mushroom-olive-tomato-pizza, a cutie orange, and an almost-stale piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  

I have a dear friend who lost her father recently.  Please pray for her.  Some of my other friends are also going though stuff.  He knows them, but I still like to bring their names before His throne as often as I can.

I finally got well enough to go back to work.  After five weeks of sick leave, I am so deeply buried in essays I need a snorkel to breathe.  This week is spring break, so I'm trying to catch up.

Unfortunately, I also have a lot of new books that I had pre-ordered on kindle that are arriving.  It's taking a lot of fortitude not to chuck it all and just read. When Maidens Mourn is finally out, for example.   I also found a free mystery set in Hawaii.

Since the last time I updated this journal, I managed to see some of Fringe.  To be brief, I find the show stomach-churning.  I can't hack its gore at all.  I'd love to get to season two, which is supposed to have a lot of alternate universe goodness, but I couldn't make it past episode three.  I had nightmares, really.

I just don't think I can do dark anything after the last six months of my life.  No dark or tense TV dramas, no sad, or even challenging, movies for me.  I'm all about comedies, romances, and action.

My Dad has had a hard time too, and is recovering from his own health problems.  He's needing to sleep on the couch right now, which means a lot of the shows I wait to watch until he's in bed will have to stay on the DVR for a bit.  Still, he doesn't mind The Mentalist or Big Bang Theory, so I'm counting my blessings.

I'm doing that about a lot of things, actually.  Health is good.

PS:  I had quite an adventure learning to feed myself while Dad was in the hospital.  I can report that I now know how to make toast and how to heat up stuff in the microwave.

I was really upset when I read Ralph McQuarrie died.  If you have no idea who that is, go here.