Books I Read: 2021

Well this is bizarre. Looking back at my post from 2020 not a hell of a lot has changed. Practically nothing is different. We had another full year of staying at home on a locked down, minimized life. The only substantial difference is that I went back to work in June after one full year of bullshit maternity leave that was ruined by covid. But, as I mentioned last year, at least I still have books. What was it that ol’ Willy Wallace said? You can take my ability to comfortably navigate society and see the people I love without severe pandemic paranoia but you can’t take my books? Sounds right. It went something like that, I’m fairly certain.

Reading has always been my ultimate escape and I have needed it these past two years more than ever before. From January – May 2021 I was still on maternity leave so I did a lot of reading. When I went back to work in June, reading took a small hit, understandably. But overall I still managed to read a respectable 45 books this past year.

Here is the official visual of my list:

Followed of course by the official “easier on your eyes” typed list:

1. The Deer Park by Norman Mailer (January 4th)
2. Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier (January 7th)
3. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (January 8th)
4. City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg (January 21st)
5. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (January 29th)
6. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell (February 2nd)
7. Afterland by Lauren Beukes (February 12th)
8. Vicious by V.E. Schwab (February 19th)
9. The Chain by Adrian McKinty (February 23rd)
10. If It Bleeds by Stephen King (March 1st)
11. Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay (March 4th)
12. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah (March 9th)
13. The Other People by C.J. Tudor (March 14th)
14. Whisper Network by Chandler Baker (March 18th)
15. Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough (March 26th)
16. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (April 6th)
17. Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore (April 11th)
18. Thinner by Stephen King (April 18th)
19. The Only Child by Andrew Pyper (April 28th)
20. You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes (May 2nd)
21. When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole (May 15th)
22. Daring Greatly by Brené Brown (May 25th)
23. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (June 13th)
24. The Dirt by Mötley Crüe (June 20th)
25. Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren, Ph.D, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim (June 27th)
26. Inspection by Josh Malerman (July 4th)
27. Bossypants by Tina Fey (July 7th)
28. The Power by Naomi Alderman (July 24th)
29. Later by Stephen King (July 26th)
30. The Girls Are All So Nice Here by L.E. Flynn (August 5th)
31. I Know You Know by Gilly MacMillan (August 10th)
32. Made for Love by Alissa Nutting (August 17th)
33. Sunburn by Laura Lippman August 21st)
34. The Other Woman by Sandie Jones (August 23rd)
35. The Arrangement by Robyn Harding (August 26th)
36. The Store by Bentley Little (September 12th)
37. Looking for Alaska by John Green (September 17th)
38. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb (September 24th)
39. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (September 26th)
40. Believe Me by J.P. Delaney (October 14th)
41. It’s Kind of a Cheesy Love Story by Lauren Morrill (October 29th)
42. The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell (November 16th)
43. The Switch by Elmore Leonard (November 27th)
44. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (December 25th)
45. The Storyteller by Dave Grohl (December 28th)

My reading patterns are very similar to last year, lots of “pop fiction”. You know, the psychological thrillers about murder with dubious heroines that have completely dominated the market since Gone Girl sparked the craze of unreliable narration and “shocking” plot twists. It seems like every book now is marketed as having some shocking twist you won’t see coming that you can actually see coming from a mile away. Although I will say, a few of the books I read this year did wind up genuinely surprising me, so shocking readers isn’t impossible, but it has gotten harder to do well. Behind Her Eyes and The Other Woman did have genuinely shocking plot twists at the end that I did not see coming, so worth a look for anyone who still wants to read those pop fiction shock twist kind of tales.

Stephen King made three appearances on the list again, so good for you, Steve! I really liked Later but Thinner was a total chore. It hasn’t aged well, what with the gypsy vilification and all.

I read two books specifically to get myself back into the right mindset for my return to work after a year off: Daring Greatly and Accelerate. Both excellent books, but not exactly pleasure reading. I finally got around to reading Bossypants by Tina Fey. It was good, but didn’t really live up to all the hype.

I read some classic American authors, Norman Mailer and John Steinbeck. Shoutout to Elmore Leonard too, the O.G. of tongue-in-cheek mystery capers. The Deer Park was horribly misogynistic and lacked any purpose for me. But what else would you expect from someone who stabbed their wife at a party? Re-reading Of Mice and Men highlighted for me the difference between an author and a writer. Steinbeck is a fucking AUTHOR. So much of the trashy pop murder fiction I read is just entertainment, written by writers. Steinbeck is levels and levels above everyone else on this list. He’s in a class all his own, a true craftsman and wordsmith. A prolific, respected author of incredible American fiction. He fucking rules!

I’m going to mix things up this year and award superlatives to the books that need individual callouts for good or bad reasons.

• Heaviest Book on the List – City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
  This book was physically enormous. Coming in at just over 900 pages, it had some heft. I strained my neck and arms reading it, it was just such a bulky book. And kind of a letdown to be honest. I was excited about spending time with characters who were part of the punk scene in 1970’s New York, but it just got so tiresome as it went on. For all the space Hallberg was given to tell his story, he didn’t do a hell of a lot with it.
  
• Most Improved Protagonist – She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
  Oh Dolores Price, my heart went out to you so many times while reading! This poor woman, what an odyssey her life was. I loved it when she told her doctor to eat shit because of his fat-shaming. This was my first time reading Wally Lamb and it reminded me a lot of John Irving. The characters are just put through the wringer and you should never expect a happy, Hollywood ending for anyone. Just pain and the endurance of pain.
  
• Book Most Likely to Get Under Your Skin – The Chain by Adrian McKinty & The Store by Bentley Little
  It’s a tie! The Chain was an intense, thrilling read but not for the feint of heart. It’s about this fucked up ring of blackmailers who make regular every day parents abduct children in a horrible chain letter way. Your child gets taken, you’re told to pay the ransom and then abduct another child or you won’t get yours back. Only when the parents of the child you’ve taken have gone on to abduct the next child on the chain will yours be released. As a parent, the premise alone is unthinkable. But it was unputdownable, so if you think you can hack it, give it a try! The Store was a good creepy read too, it’s a slow build to the end. It’s upsetting just because of the disgusting, stomach-churning ending that I’m not going to spoil.
  
• Wildest Ride – The Dirt by Mötley Crüe
  These guys don’t hold back, they share every fucked up intimate detail of their journey as one of the hardest partying bands of the 80’s. I’m honestly amazed that they’re all still alive based on the sheer volume of drugs and booze they’ve pumped through their systems. There were so many memorable stories and outlandish antics. Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is an understatement, you’ll get more than your share of all that and then some! A must-read for anyone who loves Mötley Crüe, or just wants to spend some time living that rock star life.
  
• Most Likely to be Thrown in the Trash – The Only Child by Andrew Pyper
  I’ve really had it with this guy. I heard about him for the first time a few years ago when I picked up a copy of The Damned at the used bookstore, which was an awesome read. I was so excited that I’d found a great new person to read, but every other book of his has sucked major balls. And this was the worst one yet! The most laughable moment was when the main character got on a flight to Europe and claimed to have read all of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde while on their flight. Fuck right off, there’s no way in hell any one person could do that. Or would even want to! This is a book about an immortal vampire trying to reconnect with his child, but I lost the ability to suspend my disbelief over someone reading three old timey books back to back on a plane. Utter nonsense.
  
• Darkest Reality – The Power by Naomi Alderman
  In theory I love the idea of women having a sudden and terrifying power that they can use to subjugate the male population and give them a taste of their own oppression. But there were some truly terrifying moments of societal uproar, terrorism, and war in this book that caused this beautiful utopian reality to lose its lustre real quick.
  
• Class Clown – Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
  By far the funniest, silliest book I read this year. A lot of the great wry humour and quirky wit I expect from Gaiman. Never been a Pratchett reader, but safe to assume all the portions of this book that used humorous footnotes can be attributed to him. Though I’ve never read him, I do know that Pratchett liked him some footnotes! Lighthearted apocalyptic fun, if you’re into that, then give this book a try.
  
• Life of the Party – The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
  The last book I read this year, and what a way to finish my list! You get a lot of great stories about Dave’s life from the early days right through to the current Foo life. I couldn’t put this one down, I blazed through it in three days. One thing I will say, just as a general observation not a criticism, is that while I found the stories Dave told to be entertaining and amusing sometimes it did feel just a little bit name-drop-y and like it didn’t give me anything deeply personal that I could empathize with. The part where Dave talks about Kurt’s passing is the closest it gets to cracking through Dave’s chill easy-going dude vibe. He never tells you anything meaningful about his relationships, how he met his wife, failed marriages, etc. And the prose does start to feel too formulaic by the end of the book. Here’s how almost every chapter goes: start with a gotcha sentence, something sudden or shocking to hook the reader and then detour by starting the story at the beginning eventually making your way back to initial setup. Every chapter was like that. It’s the book equivalent of that filmmaking technique that uses narration and the whole record scratch/pause video “Hold Up” moment. “You might be wondering how I ended up in this crazy scenario. Well let’s go back to the start and I’ll tell you.” Very that, you know what I mean?
  
• Major Oddball / Misfit Energy – Made For Love by Alissa Nutting
  Did not know this was a book until after I’d already watched the show. D and I really liked the show, it was a bonkers watch. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about a billionaire tech company founder whose newest invention is a chip that can be implanted into your partner’s brain so you can achieve a truly intimate connection based on biological and neurological data. But it’s actually much more nefarious than even that sounds. It’s really about the obsessive level of control you can have over another person and how you can use that data to keep innovating. Sound like anyone you might know? It felt very on the nose having this megalomanic tech mogul trying to push his insane ideas onto society with no regard for their actual desire for it. Considering the headlines we see nowadays about companies like Facebook and Amazon it felt entirely too believable as a premise. We particularly enjoyed Ray Romano’s role as the crass, bereaved father engaged in a new relationship with his “companion”, a sex doll named Diane. The source material though? Way more fucked up than the show ever got at its most unbelievable plot points. I’m really glad the people who adapted the show decided to drop the whole dolphin fucking sub-story. That shit was completely unreadable. I almost gave up on this book several times. I don’t recommend it unless you like to get weird. Reeeeeal weird.
  
• Most Likely to Disappoint – My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
  This is a book I’d seen lots of people recommending online, mostly women. So I thought I’d check it out and see what all the hype was about. It’s just a gross, creepy, sad read. The main character never grows or learns from her experiences being groomed and raped by her english teacher who she fancies herself in love with. The whole thing is just shock value rapist apologist crap. I hated it and I don’t recommend it. It let me down the most out of everything I read this year.
  
• Most Likely to Succeed – Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  Classic. And classic for a reason. It’s a simple, tragic tale of friendship told beautifully and everyone should read it. It’s been challenged and put on banned lists for numerous reasons, but that’s just typical Whiny McWhiners trying to censor art. If you were never made to read it as required school reading, or you just pretended you did to get through English class, you should give it a genuine chance.
  
• Most Enjoyable Read of the Year – Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
  A chick lit romp through time, I live for it! This is a new take on the time travel story and I was so into it. Premise: on the night of her 18th birthday, Oona faints and wakes up suddenly thrust years into the future in her 50’s in the year 2015. There’s a letter from herself to read when she gets there that explains from the age 18 onwards she’ll be living every year of her life out of order. So instead of living life in a linear timeframe like the rest of us, 1982, 1983, 1984, etc. her life becomes 1982, 2015, 1991, etc. All the while she’s still the same age spiritually. So even though she just turned 19 she’s 19 in a 51 year old body and life. I thought it was such a cool twist on time-travel stories and I loved it.

Of the 45 books I read those are the ones that stand out the most and are worthy of callouts, for good or bad reasons. Maybe you’ll want to check some out? If I can get someone to read at least one book because of this post I’ll feel just fine about that.

It’s been a slow start to the 2022 reading list. I’ve got some decent things waiting on the shelf for me to pick up, but I’ve been feeling a bit of that “reader’s block” I get sometimes. You know what I’m talking about. That feeling when the crushing amount of work it takes just to exist saps your will to do anything other than lay on the couch with Netflix and Doritos at the end of a long day? That’s the one. Because all the days are so long and exhausting. So very long and exhausting. But it’s wicked to wish the time away so I just focus on getting by instead.

I’m sure I’ll feel a bit more like reading again when the snow melts, when work stops being a total pressure cooker every day, when Woody goes to college. I’m nothing if not hopeful. Until then, take ‘er easy pals! I’ll see you next year when I recap the 2022 list, if not sooner.

Books I Read: 2019

The reading adventures continue!

Although, there were fewer adventures this year. I did not cover nearly as much ground as I did in 2018. This past year I read a modest 24 books in total. I had every intention of keeping up the pace of the year prior, but I think I may have been feeling a bit burnt out. I intended to focus my 2019 on reading all of Paste Magazine’s 50 Best Horror Novels of All Time. I’d already read a few of the books from this list in the past, basically all of the Stephen King and Joe Hill stuff, and I read another 15 from this list at the end of 2018 as well. I think going into 2019 I had about 25 books on this list still to tackle. And some of them I just felt like I probably wouldn’t read because they were harder to find through the library and online. Some of them just by cursory review of the subject matter alone I felt might be better left unread, you know, for personal preference and psychological preservation.

I sort of meandered this year, and only wound up reading 7 of the books from the horror list. When I found out I was pregnant the first time, back in the spring, I obviously lost steam because I started reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting and spent more of my time researching all kinds of pregnancy shit. So, to be fair, that was a pretty reasonable disconnect from the goal. Then there was a whole flurry of activity around selling our place and moving, so I simply did not have the time to dedicate to reading. There was a brief lull in the summer between the condo sale and the move in June and July when I got to indulge a bit more. At that point I didn’t want to be bound by a required list and instead preferred to read whatever caught my eye at the library.

Anyways, here it is. Here’s the list of all 24 books I read in 2019:

1. Vox — Christina Dalcher (January 6th)
2. Ring — Koji Suzuki (January 13th)
3. Night Things — Michael Talbot (February 13th)
4. A Head Full of Ghosts — Paul Tremblay (February 19th)
5. At the Mountains of Madness — H.P. Lovecraft (February 24th)
6. Educated — Tara Westover (February 27th)
7. Sleeping Beauties — Stephen King & Owen King (March 17th)
8. An Object of Beauty — Steve Martin (March 24th)
9. Food: A Love Story — Jim Gaffigan (March 26th)
10. Dad is Fat — Jim Gaffigan (March 30th)
11. Revival — Stephen King (April 8th)
12. Supermarket — Bobby Hall (June 7th)
13. Disappearance at Devil’s Rock — Paul Tremblay (June 14th)
14. The Sisters Brothers — Patrick deWitt (June 20th)
15. Let the Right One In — John Ajvide Lindqvist
16. Final Girls — Riley Sager (July 5th)
17. Alice Isn’t Dead — Joseph Fink (July 9th)
18. Tell the Machine Goodnight — Katie Williams (July 24th)
19. The Hiding Place — C.J. Tudor (July 31st)
20. Rabbit Cake — Annie Hartnett (August 5th)
21. Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens (August 28th)
22. The Outsider — Stephen King (September 10th)
23. Little Star — John Ajvide Lindqvist (September 26th)
24. The Exorcist — William Peter Blatty (October 4th)

I’m still very much obsessed with fiction, reading anything with the slightest hint of action, adventure, and intrigue. I’ve never been one for non-fiction. I get enough real life in my real life. When I read I want to be transported somewhere I’ve never been, live vicariously through someone else’s exploits. I want things to be outrageous and zany, intense and thrilling! I need strong, complex characters overcoming challenges and triumphing over evil. I think I got a fair amount of that this year. But I did have a few uncharacteristic real life detours, with the Tara Westover memoir and the two Jim Gaffigan books.

I enjoyed everything I read this year too, there weren’t any major disappointments. The Bobby Hall novel Supermarket was bizarre, but I liked it. The Steve Martin book, An Object of Beauty was alright. I don’t think I’d recommend it, but I didn’t hate it. If you’re wondering, yes it was written by that Steve Martin, the one we all know and love from SNL, Father of the Bride, and other comedy favourites. Vox was fantastic, it was hard to put down. Night Things was a read from the horror list that I actually liked way more than I thought I would. It had horribly cheesy cover art that wasn’t encouraging, but it wound up being a fun read. Reminded me of those quirky books I was always drawn to in the 6th grade like “My Teacher’s an Alien!” because they featured such outlandish cover art.

Stephen King naturally makes a few appearances as well. It wouldn’t be a reading list without him. The Outsider was awesome, I liked it a lot. Looking forward to watching the series when it starts airing. I think Jason Bateman is a great casting choice for this story.

My reading came to another long pause towards the end of the year. I started reading a book called Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky which started strong and then just couldn’t hold my interest. I finally picked it up again with the intention of seriously finishing it at the end of December, but that one has slipped on through to the 2020 list.

Of this list, here are my Top 5 Picks for Best Reads of the Year:

1. 1. Rabbit Cake — Annie Hartnett
      This book caught my eye because it was bright yellow and had an illustration of a cute rabbit on the cover. I immediately sensed that it was going to be unique and quirky. It did not disappoint. The main character is a little girl named Elvis who is very matter-of-fact and scientific in her approach to processing all of the grief and fallout in her family after her mother dies. It showed how people grieve differently, but through a hilarious lens. I needed this book. It was exactly what I needed to read after my miscarriage. Every word went right into my soul and I was so grateful it called out to me from that dusty library shelf. You can judge a book by the cover!
   2. Educated — Tara Westover
      I mentioned I don’t often read non-fiction, right? This book was actually gifted to me by a co-worker in a Secret Santa exchange. It’s not something I would have chosen for myself, but I am so glad I read it. It blew me away! This is a truly amazing story of a real life person who overcame insurmountable odds to get a formal education, something most people take for granted. School is just something we’re all accustomed to as a part of life from a very young age and I don’t know if many of us would have the same wherewithal to pursue an education if it wasn’t something we were forced to do. Tara Westover is an impressive and inspiring person and I’m so thankful she shared her story with the world.
   3. The Sisters Brothers — Patrick deWitt
      All the laughs! I loved this book so much because it was witty and wry. Much like Inherent Vice, there were multiple times I laughed out loud while reading. A good old fashioned cowboy romp with humour. Great characters, great story. The brothers were so real to me, I felt like I was on the trek with them. I could practically smell the cracked leather, dusty trails, and stinky boots as I read. Maybe that was just me though, who knows? I loved this book from the very first sentence through to the last.
   4. Tell The Machine Goodnight — Katie Williams
      Imagine someone ran a simple diagnostic test on you that resulted in clear directives you could follow to be happy. They could be easy enough to do, like go to yoga. Or they could be utterly absurd, like cut off your pinky finger. Would you do it? What wouldn’t you do to be happy? The premise was really intriguing and I enjoyed reading this story. It did feel like it could have unfolded in a more satisfying way, but overall the characters kept me interested.
   5. Alice Isn’t Dead — Joseph Fink
      Right from the start this book wasn’t fucking around. You’re thrust into a bizarre scenario in the first chapter and it just keeps getting weirder and wilder as you read. You feel compelled to uncover the conspiracy alongside Keisha. This book is actually the novelization of a podcast. I think that’s what made it so interesting. You’re reading a book, yes, but it reads differently. There are moments of fast-paced action, but also long stretches of inner turmoil while Keisha is on the road that make you feel like you’re on the same endless road trip. I still don’t even know if I fully understand how everything connected in the end, but it was an entertaining ride no doubt.

Even though my output wasn’t as prolific as last year, I’m amazed I managed this many reads at all, given what an absolutely insane year it’s been. As appealing as it can be to escape reality, sometimes you just have to face it head on instead. I might seek out adventures and epic struggles in my reading, but I realize that my life isn’t entirely devoid of its own adventures and epic struggles. It might not be to quite the same extent, but there are challenges to rise to, little evils to overcome, zany pals to provide amusement and support along the way. I have all the makings of a great story right here in front of me. Wherever my story may take me, I’m ready for it. Armed first and foremost with a good book to help me get by.

Books I Read: 2018

I decided to continue this habit I started in 2017 of keeping a record of all the books I read throughout the year. And for 2018 I decided to up the ante, considerably. I saw this article promoted on LinkedIn about how most CEOs read 50 books a year that piqued my interest. Did you know that Bill Gates reads anywhere from 50-60 books a year? Damn, son! That’s some impressive numbers. Afterwards I thought to myself that I’m a bad boss bitch myself, there’s no reason I can’t go toe-to-toe with ol’ Gatesy on this. I love to read! And I’ve heard that the more you read the better you write. (That’s some wisdom from Stephen King, who also reportedly reads anywhere from 50-70 books a year!)

The math on this checks out. There are 52 weeks in a year, so 50 books is an attainable goal. Those extra 2 weeks would give me the same supportive comfort I’ve come to expect from the finest pair Costco stretch pants money can buy. I decided that 2018 would be the year I read a minimum of 50 books.

And you know what? I fucking did it! I did it so hard. I read a whopping 63 books in 2018. And I loved every minute of it. In 2017 I only read 18 books, which I feel is a totally respectable number as well. I was questing for the Dark Tower during the last half of the year and truly savouring those stories.

But knowing that I was able to triple my reading made me feel good too. I read so many books I needed 3 pages in my notebook to list them! I also have this darling 12-pack of multi-coloured fine point pens that I used to spruce up my list. Because, yay pretty! I also started recording the date that I finished the book, which I hadn’t done the year prior. It allowed me to better track my trajectory.

Check it out dudes, here’s my reading list!

Here’s the complete and comprehensive list of all the books I read in 2018 so you don’t have to squint read it from the photos:

1. The Fireman — Joe Hill (January 6th)
2. Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury (January 10th)
3. The Bat — Jo Nesbo (January 17th)
4. Heart-Shaped Box — Joe Hill (January 23rd)
5. Oryx and Crake — Margaret Atwood (January 30th)
6. The Year of the Flood — Margaret Atwood (February 12th)
7. MaddAddam — Margaret Atwood (February 17th)
8. Love is a Mixed Tape — Rob Sheffield (February 18th)
9. The Chalk Man — C.J. Tudor (February 19th)
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — Ken Kesey (February 26th)
11. Lord of the Flies — William Golding (March 2nd)
12. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children — Ransom Riggs (March 13th)
13. The Damned — Andrew Pyper (March 16th)
14. The Man in the High Castle — Philip K. Dick (March 29th)
15. The Rosie Project — Graeme Simsion (April 4th)
16. The Killing Circle — Andrew Pyper (April 10th)
17. Marathon Man — William Goldman (April 15th)
18. Sharp Objects — Gillian Flynn (April 22nd)
19. The Westing Game — Ellen Raskin (April 24th)
20. The Executioner’s Song — Norman Mailer (May 13th)
21. The Couple Next Door — Shari Lapena (May 14th)
22. In a Dark, Dark Wood — Ruth Ware (May 19th)
23. Luckiest Girl Alive — Jessica Knoll (May 27th)
24. The Road — Cormac McCarthy (May 30th)
25. Lost Girls — Andrew Pyper (June 10th)
26. The Woman in Cabin 10 — Ruth Ware (June 17th)
27. Neuromancer — William Gibson (June 30th)
28. The Silent Wife — A.S.A. Harrison (July 2nd)
29. Slaughterhouse Five — Kurt Vonnegut (July 3rd)
30. Misery — Stephen King (July 6th)
31. The Bell Jar — Sylvia Plath (July 9th)
32. The Heart Goes Last — Margaret Atwood (July 18th)
33. The Demonologist — Andrew Pyper (July 25th)
34. The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald (July 28th)
35. The Girl Before — J.P. Delaney (July 29th)
36. Roadwork — Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman (August 3rd)
37. The Running Man — Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman (August 9th)
38. Truly Madly Guiltily — Liane Moriarty (August 19th)
39. Anasi Boys — Neil Gaiman (August 26th)
40. Dying Scream — Mary Burton (August 31st)
41. Inherent Vice — Thomas Pynchon (September 6th)
42. On Writing — Stephen King (September 9th)
43. We Were the Mulvaneys — Joyce Carol Oates (September 17th)
44. A Stir of Echoes — Richard Matheson (September 19th)
45. Gerald’s Game — Stephen King (September 25th)
46. My Best Friend’s Exorcism — Grady Hendrix (September 30th)
47. Duma Key — Stephen King (October 12th)
48. Coraline — Neil Gaiman (October 13th)
49. The Other — Thomas Tryon (October 22nd)
50. Gwendy’s Button Box — Stephen King and Richard Chizmar (October 22nd)
51. The Shining Girls — Lauren Beukes (October 30th)
52. Broken Monsters — Lauren Beukes (November 5th)
53. Strange Weather — Joe Hill (November 10th)
54. Something Wicked this Way Comes — Ray Bradbury (November 12th)
55. The Girl Next Door — Jack Ketchum (November 14th)
56. Bird Box — Josh Malerman (November 18th)
57. Rosemary’s Baby — Ira Levin (November 21st)
58. The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson (December 10th)
59. Hell House — Richard Matheson (December 14th)
60. Audition — Ryu Murakami (December 16th)
61. The Devil in Silver — Victor LaValle (December 24th)
62. The Woman in Black — Susan Hill (December 27th)
63. The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved — Joey Comeau (December 29th)

So first off, I’m obviously not reading a bunch of business or tech books like Bill Gates probably is. My tastes are apparently quite murderous. Funny story actually, I was walking to the library in the fall and I had Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls in my hand. While I was waiting at the cross walk the woman next to me noticed my book and asked what it was about. I told her it was about a serial killer who stalks women through time and the one woman who survived his attack trying to hunt him down. She looked horrified and said to me “You must not read these kinds of things! The mind is so sensitive and these terrible things make such an impression on it. You don’t want to take all that nastiness with you into the next life.” I was genuinely taken aback by that response. It was so unexpected and unnerving. At that point in the year I’d already read my fair share of gory murders and heinous crimes to be solved by plucky heroines that I was starting to think this was the beginning of my very own real-life story! An ominous warning from a stranger is a classic horror trope and the people who buck those warnings are always in for trouble. I brushed it off though and continued on, next reading Lauren Beukes’s Broken Monsters which was even more fucked up than The Shining Girls. But I loved both books. Both are well-written and riveting, I would recommend them to anyone who doesn’t mind having terrible things imprinted on their brain.

There are a few books here that I’d read before but wanted to reread like Fahrenheit 451, The Great Gatsby, and Lord of the Flies. All three are excellent reads that I would also recommend. Looking back I see that I had quite a few little binges throughout the year where I just gobbled books up. There was a long weekend in February that was horribly cold and snowy so I literally read all weekend long, finishing up three books in three days. It was so lovely, and so needed. There’s nothing I needed more this year than solitude and books. It was good for my soul.

It’s amazing how much time there really is for reading if you make the effort. I was reading in bed late at night, on the subway when commuting, in waiting rooms at appointments, on my lunch break even. In the summertime I was reading in the park and it was absolutely delightful. I hit my goal of 50 books on October 22nd at 11:47pm EST when I finished Gwendy’s Button Box. October 22nd is special because I finished two books that day. I finished Thomas Tryon’s The Other on my Monday commute, then started Gwendy’s Button Box around 9pm as my nighttime read before bed. It was a quick read, and totally engrossing so those 171 pages were easily devoured.

Of everything I read this year there was only one real dud. It was Dying Scream by Mary Burton. What a shitty fucking book that was. I bought it off the 2 for $15 paperback rack at Indigo because I assumed it was another basic serial killer, crime solving caper. Buyer beware, amiright? I didn’t notice the “Romantic Suspense” label on the spine when I bought it. D’oh! It was also apparently the second book in a trilogy, and not having read the first book made it that much worse. But I powered through nonetheless and checked the rest of my book spines thoroughly to mitigate risk of another stinker like that one.

I would also say that The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum is a psychologically traumatic read, so please don’t read it. As someone who regularly faces down spooky, gory, and macabre stories without issue, this one genuinely unsettled me. It’s in a class all its own of awfulness. Any time I tried to convince myself that the situation couldn’t get any worse, it always did and went to levels of depravity that I couldn’t even fathom. It hurt my heart reading this book, truly.

Overall though, this is a list of awesome reads and I’m proud of myself. If I had to pare this list down to the Top 5 Best of the Best, it would be:

1. Marathon Man — William Goldman
   Such an exciting read! I loved every minute of it. This is pure entertainment.
2. On Writing — Stephen King
   The only non-fiction I read this year and frankly, long overdue. You know how much I respect and admire Mr. King, so learning about his approach was endlessly fascinating. Truly, this is a must read for anyone who writes. Any genre, any kind of writing, you have to read this book.
3. The Fireman — Joe Hill
   First book of the year and it set the bar. A post-apocalyptic type of story with well-rounded characters that you care about and hope survive.
4. Inherent Vice — Thomas Pynchon
   So many laughs! This is the wittiest writing I’ve ever encountered and I actually laughed out loud while reading, numerous times. Pychon is devious and masterful. Nobody writes like this, he’s divine.
5. The Shining Girls — Lauren Beukes
   This one is a slam-dunk. It’s got a fresh, interesting concept, a perfectly vile villain, and is so fast-paced you can hardly stand to put it down. It’s fantastic.

Boss bitch status achieved! 2018 was one for the books alright, heh heh, pun intended. I proved that I could continue to live my normal life as a career obsessed woman who wants it all while reading just as much as the average CEO reportedly does. For 2019 I’m already underway tackling Paste Magazine’s 50 Best Horror Novels of All Time and I can’t wait to tell you all about it next year.

I leave you with this final thought: READ.

Reading is good for you. Do it. Make time for yourself, for stories, and for adventures or learning. Whatever it is you like to read, make time for it and do it.

Books I Read: Inaugural Year 2017

Sometime in April 2017 I decided to start keeping a list of all the books I’ve read since the start of 2017. I can’t remember why, but I did. It was easy enough to remember everything I’d read as of January because I’ve long run out of upright storage space on my bookcase and started keeping two distinct piles stacked on the shelves: books I’ve just read and books in line to be read. I got the list up to speed based on the books I’ve just read pile and then from there, whenever I finished a book, I wrote an entry for it in the list aptly titled Books I’ve Read This Year. 

Riveting stuff, surely.

And now I present to you, my readers, said list:

1. What Alice Forgot—Liane Moriarty
2. End of Watch—Stephen King
3. All the Missing Girls—Megan Miranda
4. Ready Player One—Ernest Cline
5. Never Knowing—Chevy Stephens
6. God-Shaped Hole—Tiffanie DeBartolo
7. N0S4A2—Joe Hill
8. The Good Girl—Mary Kubica
9. The Perfect Stranger—Megan Miranda
10. Horns—Joe Hill
11. The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger—Stephen King
12. The Dark Tower 2: The Drawing of the Three—Stephen King
13. The Dark Tower 3: The Waste Lands—Stephen King
14. The Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass—Stephen King
15. The Dark Tower 4.5: The Wind Through the Keyhole—Stephen King
16. The Dark Tower 5: Wolves of the Calla—Stephen King
17. The Dark Tower 6: Song of Susannah—Stephen King
18. The Dark Tower 7: The Dark Tower—Stephen King

I was hoping to get the list to 19 before the year was out, it’s a Dark Tower thing, but alas, my quest for the Tower took me right through to December 30th and I didn’t feel up to starting a new book so soon after that epic and heart-wrenching journey was done just for the sake of 19.

So 18 it is, not too shabby. That’s exactly 1.5 books per month. For someone who worked a very demanding job and has a lot of other varied hobbies, I’m glad I managed to find time for some good stories.

The year started out relatively light, with some Liane Moriarty. I like her. You might know her best as the author behind Big Little Lies, the book that the Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman HBO mini-series was adapted from. What Alice Forgot gave us a woman experiencing a Dickensian epiphany of sorts. She loses sight of what matters in life and a bonk on the head resulting in amnesia helps her revert to a decades younger version of herself, reliving the past decade secondhand, learning how she stumbled and gradually grew into an abhorrent version of herself. Then of course lessons are learned and Alice gains perspective. At least Ebenezer Scrooge only lost one night of sleep. Poor Alice lost a whole decade!

End of Watch was awesome, the final instalment in Stephen King’s Bill Hodges Trilogy. I liked the second story of that series best, Finders Keepers, but this one gave us a fitting end to the trilogy.

I got sucked into the Megan Miranda books by the Indigo hot-sellers displays and they were okay. Quick, entertaining summer reads. All the Missing Girls is the better of the two, with The Perfect Stranger feeling like a repetitive, watered-down contractual obligation by comparison.

Ready Player One seriously kicked ass! Man, that book was so cool and endlessly entertaining. From the very first page right through to the last I was hooked. Classic nerd sci-fi/80’s nostalgia mashup fun galore! I was excited to hear that it would be a movie in 2018, but then I saw the trailer and well… BOOOO! Just based on the trailer alone, there’s no way that movie is going to capture any of the awesomeness of the book. Read the book, get wrapped up in it, enjoy it. Afterwards, let’s all agree to pretend that a movie version doesn’t even exist.

Never Knowing is officially the worst fucking piece of garbage I’ve ever read. It is the current leader in the “How the fuck did this even get published???” championship bowl. For real. Whoever wrote the summary on the book jacket deserves a prize for being able to polish that humongous turd just enough to make someone like me, who has an exceptionally honed eye for bullshit, purchase it. I want my $6 back Indigo value bin. The concept was intriguing, it could have been good. A woman who was adopted goes looking for her biological parents and finds out that her mother was the only survivor of a violent serial killing rapist, who is still at large. Sounds like it could be really good, right? Unfortunately, all of that potential was spun into shit, not gold, by the most hackneyed excuse for a writer since E.L. James. Does this woman even understand how people actually talk to each other in long-term relationships? Here’s some free insight for you, Chevy Stevens: men and women in their fucking 30’s in a committed long-term relationship don’t call each other “baby” every single fucking sentence they speak to each other. Unless they’ve been lobotomized. And if you interact this way with your partner, you need to stop. Like, right now, because I guarantee you are annoying the absolute fuck out of everyone in your lives.

God-Shaped Hole was an emotionally draining read, but in the best possible way. I got deeply invested in Beatrice and Jacob’s relationship and loved that Tiffanie DeBartolo provided a recommended playlist for this book. My love for Jeff Buckley was reignited and I spent most of May and June listening to his album Grace on loop as a result of reading this book.

The Good Girl was another inconsequential thriller with a hyped up “you-can’t-see-it-coming-plot-twist” that was easily predicted within the first quarter of the book. Meh.

This year I discovered how fucking awesome Joe Hill is, and so much like his dad, Stephen King. Even if I had no idea who he was, his writing would immediately feel eerily familiar to me, having read as much King as I have. N0S4A2 is dark, creepy, thrilling, and exciting. Charlie Manx is as vile a villain as there ever was and the imaginative plot is immediately enthralling. Loved it, would highly recommend to anyone who wants a good spooky, action-packed adventure. Horns was stellar too, I read it the week we were in the Dominican, and while it might not be the general population’s idea of a “vacation read” I couldn’t put it down. I relished every minute spent with Ig while his newly sprouted horns compelled everyone around him to express and enact their innermost fucked up thoughts and desires on his path to uncover his beloved Merrin’s true killer. Read Joe Hill, he rules!

Then, towards the end of July, I felt compelled to finally start my quest for The Dark Tower. I bought the first four books a long time ago and they sat on my shelf, idling. I don’t think my heart or my mindset were in the right place to start an epic journey until the second half of 2017. The movie was coming out in August and I stupidly assumed it would be an adaptation of the first book, that it was going to be a Harry Potter kind of deal, 7 books = 7 movies, give or take. So I finished The Gunslinger, and I was halfway through book two, The Drawing of the Three, when D and I went to see the movie. Imagine my complete disappointment when I left the theatre after a 90-minute oversimplified, boiled down glimpse of the entire series.

That fucking sucked. As a standalone movie for D, who was never going to read the books and just wanted to watch it with me, it was fine. There were cool scenes, and good action. But there was no heart. There was no time to even get a sense of who Roland Deschain is, one of the greatest tragic anti-heroes I’ve ever come to know and love. That sucks, man. Most sacrilegious of all there was no ka-tet! No Eddie Dean, no Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker/Susannah Dean, and no Oy! We didn’t get to gear up for an epic quest at all. Shows over folks, make sure you put your garbage in the bins on your way out.

I carried on with my quest to read the rest of the series by the end of 2017 and I succeeded. I loved and cherished every single second of it. I know it gets a lot of flack from fans who read the series in painstaking real-time, waiting years between books for another instalment, but I especially loved book 4 Wizard and Glass. That was my favourite book of the series. People who complain about how it didn’t advance the quest because it was all Roland’s backstory disappoint me. Roland is our dinh and we get to experience a deeply insightful, formative period of his early life firsthand. We get to know his first ka mates, Alain Johns and Cuthbert Allgood personally! We get to experience his first love with Susan Delgado, and his first heartbreak. We get to learn more about how Roland strategizes, how he plans, how he outsmarts his opponents. What an absolute privilege to have a writer give you that rich backstory. If you’re not going to enjoy the journey, why are you even questing in the first place? That’s the reason guys like Stephen King take on these epic storytelling endeavours, because they have rapt readers who want to get immersed in the story right alongside them. We don’t care how long it takes, hell they can make it last even longer if they want and we’ll gladly savour every delicious morsel of tale they can provide. If you’re just reading something to know how it ends, I don’t think you understand the point of reading to begin with.

So there you have it, the list of books I read in 2017. I didn’t really start the year with a plan or a direction, I just read what appealed to me and added it to the list when I was done.

I’m going to start a list for 2018 as well and see how it goes. I think this year I’ll add a note for the date I finished each book, just to see how that looks. I love reading and doing this allows me to look back on a year of reading and appreciate all the adventures I had.

Rat-patootie

I’ve recently mentioned that I’m trying to up my cooking game, yes? I’m making meat pies, stews, soups, pastas, all kinds of crazy shit up in here. This is just a quickie today. Usually I’m ever so blah-blah-blah about all the things I do. But today I just want to share what I’m currently most proud of producing in the kitchen.

This amazing and colourful pile of ratatouille!

There’s eggplant, red bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, loads of olive oil, garlic, and black pepper all tossed in the roasting pan. It baked until the consistency was heavenly. And then it was garnished with a liberal sprinkling of torn basil.

Before:

After:

It was fantastic. I’ve never loved eating veggies so much in my entire life. I want to eat this all the damn time. But only if D is around to take care of all the chopping. So much chopping required.

It’s easy and I strongly recommend. I can practically smell the basil now.

Uncharted Territory

I like to eat. A lot. To be clear, when I say “a lot” I mean it both ways. I like to eat a lot of food and I like eating as an activity a whole lot. It’s pretty much my favourite thing. Food is happiness. I don’t care if people tell you it’s not good to eat your feelings. I do it all the time and it’s the fucking best. The mere act of crunching down on something tasty and mashing it into oblivion with my vice-like jaws makes me feel like I’m right on the cusp of divinity. Eating rules.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I like to cook. Traditionally, I’ve preferred to play more of a supporting role in the kitchen. If someone else wants to expend their effort slaving over a hot stove, I’ll gladly scarf down a plate when it’s ready and show my gratitude by providing the praise they sought. I grew up in a big family, my mom always cooked enough to feed an army and she’d had her shit all figured out. She didn’t need me to help. She needed my appreciation. Which I was more than happy to show, by reaching for seconds, and sometimes even thirds. Unless of course she made something totally disgusting, like lasagna or scalloped potatoes. Bleeugf. That’s how disgust sounds, by the way. Bleeugf. Like you’re about to have a hairball on the dining room floor. There was nothing more disappointing than coming home from school famished and finding out that dinner was going to be something you hated. What a waste of a mealtime… But I digress. Cooking just wasn’t my bag.

Eventually though, you grow up and fly the coop. And you’ve gotta feed yourself, gotta eat to live. Luckily for me, I found myself a man who loves to cook and doesn’t mind one bit that I’m a total slouch at it. I’m wildly independent and I’ve always charged through life without ever wanting to rely on a man for anything. I’m just crazy like that, I guess. But cooking is really the only way I’ve ever thrown up my hands and let D provide for me. I love eating so much, but don’t really have the drive to make good food for myself. But D does. It’s a great fit, he loves to cook and I’m happy to let him. Who’s it really hurting anyways? He needed to find a way to make me dependent on him for something and I need to eat.

We’ve lived together a few years now and we’ve had a handful of exploits in the kitchen. D does the majority of the cooking, and once in a while I come along and turn something into a pizza. So I do manage to contribute in my own way. And up until recently, I’ve been happy to carry on playing my supporting role. “Mmm, yum! Great job, babe!” I know my lines by heart. But I’m somebody’s wife now. Bit of a game changer that is. I don’t want to be a slouch anymore, I want to step up my game. I see a learning opportunity and I think I’ve finally uncovered some motivation. I want to make my husband happy.

I can do anything, I just have to want to do it. And I think I do now. Plus, I got a whole shitload of new gadgets for the kitchen as wedding gifts. Use it or lose it, right?

Feeling inspired, I decided to try something different for dinner tonight. I wanted to make something really scrumptious that D would love. But I’m not completely ready to fly solo yet, so I still enlisted his help. We’re a good team, and he does love to cook, so I don’t want to take that away from him. As an aside, I’ve decided that I’m going to pursue pies, as a hobby. I want to make lots and lots of pies. And I want to get really fucking good at it. I may as well get two birds stoned at once while I’m at it, right? So I decided to make steak and ale pie for dinner tonight. A chance to hone both my cooking and baking skills at the same time!

We grocery shopped this afternoon, gathering up all of the necessary ingredients, and got to work as soon as we got home. D chopped mushrooms, onion, and garlic.

Then we browned the stewing beef, using our fabulous new Le Creuset french oven. A wedding gift from my darling friend, The Ladybird Magpie that I’m forever grateful for.

And before long, we had an intoxicating concoction simmering on the stove top. With a little bit of thyme, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, beef stock, and some Downtown Brown Ale it all came together in a snap.

D popped out to grab us a few beers to enjoy with dinner, and when he got back to the apartment he told me he could smell our dinner cooking in the hallway and it was starting to drive him insane with hunger pangs! I started to feel really great about this cooking thing. I’ve got this. I can do anything I want, and I can totally kick the shit out of it.

But that feeling didn’t last long… Not once I got started on topping the pie.

The pie dish was way bigger than I remembered, and we didn’t quite make enough filling for it. We made enough filling to get it half full, and I was starting to feel a lot less cocky. But I charged ahead anyways. We’d already come this far, and I wasn’t going to let this stand in my way. I started preparing the crust for the pie. It sagged pathetically inwards. And then when I tried to brush the crust with some egg, I totally fucked up and spilled my cup of egg onto the pie. It was a total egg flood! We tried our best to soak up the spillage, but the results weren’t good. There were little pools of egg all of the top. My beautiful pie sat there staring up at me like some kind of disgusting eggy crater and I flipped out. I just totally lost it.

I got really upset and started shouting angrily at everything around me, naturally. I was so mad at myself, and anger is a knee-jerk reaction kind of thing for me. Stupid, so stupid! Why didn’t you make more filling? Why did you hold the cup of egg on such a precarious angle, you clumsy butterfingered fool? Arrgrrgrhhhhh! Frustration! This whole thing is a total fucking waste. Why don’t you just fling yourself off the balcony and end it now?

…

I broke down for a minute there, guys. I’m not proud of it.

But D was able to talk me down from the ledge eventually. He always does. He told me to stop putting so much pressure on myself on my very first try. It’s just dinner, it’s not such a big deal. And he was right. But I have such a nasty tendency to do that. I put so much pressure on myself and I have totally unrealistic expectations of greatness. I’m no master chef, I’ve only just started on my culinary journey. There’s going to be mistakes, lots. And I have to roll with it, I can’t lose my head and start raving like a lunatic when something goes wrong. He’s a smart guy, that husband of mine. I definitely don’t give him the satisfaction of hearing that as often as he should. But he was totally right. It might not come out of the oven perfect, so what? At least I tried.

We put the pie into the oven and resigned ourselves to hoping for the best.

When it was done, and it was time to see the finished product, I was pleasantly surprised.

I learned something very important today: puff pastry is a fucking miracle of nature! The pastry worked double duty and made up for the lack of filling. It puffed up way more than I expected and totally saved the day. Hallelujah!

It was 3 hours in the making, and took us mere minutes to wolf down. And my very first attempt at a steak and ale pie was goddamn delicious, if I do say so myself.

It was a trying experience at times and it ate up my entire afternoon making this thing, but overall I feel good about it. I’m not discouraged. I almost was for a minute there, but D helped me bounce back. I wouldn’t say that cooking is fun, not at this point in time, but it is an adventure. And I like adventures, so I think I’m willing to stay the course and see where it will take me. Yeah, I’m not one for giving up. I’d like to see where this can go.

A Stitch in Time

First off, I’m kind of ashamed of myself. It’s been a bloody long time since I even sat down with the intention to write. I’m so sorry to my precious little bloggy. It’s terrible, I’ve been neglecting you again. But it’s hurting me more than it’s hurting you, believe me. And, even worse still, I’ve been neglecting all of my wonderful blogging chums who I love and adore ever more. I’m sorry dudes! I haven’t been around making my usual cheeky comments on all of your wonderful posts. I’m sorry. I’m a self-involved asshole. Send R.O.T.O.R. to collect on my bounty. And don’t let the execution be a swift one, because I certainly don’t deserve it.

I miss you guys. A lot.

For a long while the best part of my day was connecting over all of our posts. Logging on and having a laugh at EI’s latest cinematic adventure or another one of Brian’s witty comments. I don’t even know who T9 has been crushing on these days, or what Zoe has been reading. Is Mikey still churning out those hilarious podcasts? And Dee, that gentleman across the pond who makes me smile, I miss being enlightened and delighted by your posts. I haven’t been around so much, but trust me when I say that you are all in my heart and thoughts every day.

I don’t want to make excuses for my absence, so let’s just call this an explanation and hope it charming enough that you’ll let it slide, just this one time. There just isn’t enough time, like ever. I have no idea how I’m keeping my head above water these days. It feels like I’m doing a desperate doggy-paddle in the middle of the ocean, no shoreline in sight and I’m gulping down more and more water as I struggle to stay afloat. But I keep struggling, because I’m not ready to give up yet, even though it’s so very very tempting some days.

In short: I’m working like a dog, I’m deep into the wedding planning, I’m trying to keep up with my social life, and there’s just no goddamn time to excel at everything all at once. But I want to, so desperately. I’m a shitty juggler, but there’s a big part of me that just belligerently refuses to accept that. With so much on the go, some aspect of my life was bound to suffer. So blogging and writing have taken this hit. And it’s funny, because one of the things that I do to stay sane when my life is a hectic disaster is write. It helps me find my way. I write to escape. I write for reprieve. I write because it feels good and it makes me whole.

I love writing. It matters and it makes a difference in my life. But if I’m being totally honest here, there has also been a major shift in my creative focus these past months and that will certainly shoulder some of this blame. I’ve been escaping all of my stresses with something else, something other than writing. A demanding an insatiable hobby, a jealous and possessive new mistress in my life. I’ve been doing an absolute fuckload of embroidery projects. Yep, you read that right. In the spare time that I do have for creative pursuits I’ve been putting the thread to the needle like a badass motherfucker and I’ve been stitching until my fingers are throbbing sore.

…and it’s been a super fun time.

I fucking love embroidery. There, I said it. But I do still love writing, too.

I’m creative and I’m zany. My imagination is an ogre. I have to focus it on something to survive, my very life depends on it. Sometimes I feel like I’ll die if I don’t find something for the ogre to do. She’ll crumple my cranium and toss it in the bin like an old grocery list if I don’t. I am compelled to create. Something, anything. A piece of writing, a kitschy craft, a silly doodle, making a killer mix CD, or even the shitty ass job I do of wrapping gifts. All just a bunch of ways that I package little bits of my imagination and send them out into the world so I can live. Really live.

The embroidery thing is something my friend The Magpie showed me. Back in the spring, she sent me a wonderful surprise birthday package and it was filled with supplies to jump-start this new hobby.

I was excited, but a little too busy to dig into them until the summer. That’s when this embroidery thing really took off. I started out small, trying something simple at first. A little gift for my darling Joce-force.

Then, inspired by those wicked pillowcases The Magpie made me last Christmas, I made myself an awesome little robot buddy. He’s since been framed and now lives on my desk at work.

And then, because I really wanted thank The Magpie for showing me this awesome new hobby, and because I wanted to up the ante a little with my newly evolving skills, I made her a birthday gift.

It took a lot of time, and my craft still wasn’t perfect. But I loved making this weird little cheeseburger for her. I did it on a canvas, another great inspiration from The Magpie herself.

And then when that was done, I was feeling so confident and proud of myself that I decided I was really going to put my new-found embroidery skills to the test. I decided to stitch all of the table numbers for my wedding!

I found some beautiful fabric, bought a bunch of frames to put the finished pieces into, and then got to work.

I spent an entire long weekend stitching tirelessly to get them done.

It was so much work, but I poured my whole self into every single one. And I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

And now I’m tackling another canvas project, larger scale than the last. The cheeseburger for my friend was an 8 x 8 and this one is a 12 x 12, which is much more challenging. I can’t stitch at this one for very long periods of time because my hand and arm ache if I do it for too long.

But it is really coming along, slowly but surely. I think I’m going to raffle this piece off at our stag ‘n’ doe party next month. People like that sort of thing, right? They’d want to spend a bunch of money trying to take this bad boy home, yeah? I hope so. Otherwise all of that aching has been in vain.

Looking back over all of these projects, I can really see how much I’ve improved since I started a few months ago. Persistence goes a long way. Also, looking back on how I’ve spent my creative energies this past summer I feel really happy. Because even though I haven’t been writing I’ve still been channeling my creativity somehow. I might be stressed as fuck at work and at home, but I do have an outlet for all of it. I’m not going to suddenly and unexpectedly implode because of all the pent-up pressures. I haven’t been letting them pent. I’ve been releasing my daily anguish in steady streams through my relentless embroidery projects.

So know this, dear readers and friends: Even though I haven’t been around a whole lot lately, I’m still here. I’m still insane. And I’m still every bit as zany and ridiculous as I ever was.

And I’ve still got lots of writing in me yet. My creative focus is just temporarily shifted. Sometimes there are words in my heart just dying to be put to page, and other times there’s a vision in my head that only the needle and thread can bring to life.

It’s hard to strike a comfortable balance sometimes. All summer long I was feeling really fucked up and stressed out. And maybe my feelings were just too tedious to try to pin down. I’m just glad that I’ve been given a really frigging rad alternative means of expressing myself. It helped a lot, especially during all those times this summer when writing just wouldn’t do.

Embroidery rules!

The Strongest Man in the Whole Wide World

I’ve always known that my dad is strong. All dads are. Every dad is the strongest man in the world to their kids when they’re young. He can lift you right up over his head and everything! It makes you laugh, it makes you squeal, and you feel light as a feather, swooping through the air in his powerful grasp. It’s a wonderful, but fleeting feeling. You’ve got to come down eventually, he can’t hold you up forever. But he is still the strongest man in the whole wide world. Until one day when he isn’t…

Eventually, you get older and you realize that it’s just your own silly little misbelief. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t literally the strongest man in the whole wide world, he’s your dad and he’s still plenty strong for you. He might not be able to lift you right up over his head anymore, you’re too old for that now anyways, but you’ll always cherish those days when he could.

Dad and I, back when I was at the perfect weight to be hoisted up over his head

I got to watch my dad compete in a power-lifting competition this weekend, and I felt an overwhelming pang of nostalgia for those days when I was young and my dad was undoubtedly the strongest man in the whole wide world. Where did all of that time go? How did it slip away so quickly? Somehow, during that frantic dash to adulthood, I’d forgotten all about what it was like to believe in Dad. But thankfully for me, he’s constantly fanning the flames of belief in my heart, even when I’m out playing “adulthood” and am too caught up in myself to notice.

My dad has always been into weight training, he started doing it back in the ’70’s when he was only sixteen years old and it became a lifelong passion of his. You wouldn’t know it to look at his average height and build, but he’s a very powerful man. He’s totally unassuming in that regard. And he loves pouncing on an opportunity to show someone what he can really do with a set of weights. He’s used to being grossly underestimated by those that so wrongly assume that only “built” or “big” men can lift anything remotely impressive. When I tell people that my dad is a power-lifter they immediately ask me how big he is or they’ll remark that he must be HUGE. But power doesn’t come from having stupidly gigantic muscles. It comes from an unyielding will to conquer the impossible and a relentless pursuit of ever greater challenges.

a very old photo of my dad while on his journey to greatness

Although power-lifting has been a great passion of his for many years, he only recently started competing. He’s been competing for a few years now, but I’d never had the opportunity to go and see him in competition until now. And though I’m quite familiar with what my dad can do–I’ve seen him lift mind-boggling amounts of weight while growing up–he totally floored me. At 57 years old he was the oldest man in the competition by a mile. All of the other competitors were anywhere from 20 to 30 years younger than him. But that didn’t faze him one bit, it never does.

My dad, suited up and showing off the deadlift tattoo that I drew for him over ten years ago

Dad gets out there and pushes all of the bullshit preconceived notions about his age and his build completely out of his mind. His only thought is about the lift. I watched as he stepped up to the bar, all determination and focus. I watched with unbearable pride as he shattered every expectation with every successful lift. And just like that, I believed again. I never stopped believing, I just forgot that you have to keep doing it if you want to keep the magic alive.

A power-lifting competition comprises three different lifts: the squat, the bench, and the deadlift. Each competitor will get three attempts at each lift, with the weight increasing progressively for each lift. My dad’s favourite lift is the deadlift. The announcer at the competition stated that it was her favourite too, because “it’s an act of defiance”. Defying odds and defying gravity. For his final lift of the day, my dad did a deadlift of an astounding 402 pounds. I know that’s not a record and it’s not the most that anyone will ever lift. But in that final moment when he dug into every last reserve of strength and snapped the weight into position, my dad was the strongest man in the whole wide world again.

My dad is a remarkable man and I admire him. He’s inspiring and he’s brave and he’s amazing. And I get to have all of the joy in telling people that he’s MY dad. I’m going to hold on to my silly little misbelief awhile longer yet and cherish it. He’s earned it.

My dad is the strongest man in the whole wide world. Everything is exactly as it should be.

The Best Innovation Ever

I’m always coming up with ideas for inventions, gadgets, and all sorts of what-have-yous that would make life better. I get these visions of how one day I’ll have an idea so revolutionary that it will have me firmly ensconced in the history books forever. Or it could just as easily make me the face of the next great infomercial on the home shopping network. Either way, however it goes down is fine with me. I see all of my ideas resulting in greatness.

The only hitch is that I’m not one for the logistical side of things. What I need is an epic partnership with some sort of tinkerer or crafter. Someone who can take my zany ideas and translate them into actual real life things. I’m still searching for my equally brilliant other half, that elusive craftsman. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we stumble upon each other one fateful day.

Maybe it’ll happen one morning when I’m waiting in line for a bagel. I’ll see some tool struggling with some sort of hindrance and I’ll mutter under my breath about how there really should be a blah blah for that. An eccentric fellow sitting nearby overhears me, feeling instantaneous inspiration. I feel a prickle on the back of my neck, and sense that I should turn around. Destiny is animating my body now, making me glance over my shoulder in the direction of my life’s true purpose. I do glance, and lock eyes with that curious chap, a knowing look rife with meaning passes between us. This is meant to be. And from that humble chance meeting the course for our sure to be illustrious partnership is charted.

But obviously that’s not going to happen overnight. I’ll have to wait a bit longer I think. But maybe soon, you never know. Until that glorious chance meeting of the minds does happen, I’ll keep the cogs turning on my hamster wheel by spending my time appreciating the innovations all around me. That’s how you keep your skills sharp. If you want to be a good writer, you should be reading a shit-ton of books, all the time. If you want to be a dancer, then you have to dance. You can’t stand there on the sidelines eating bologna. You have to fully immerse yourself in that burning passion of yours to understand how you can be great with it.

Innovation is one of my greatest pleasures in life. I like how innovation feels. Innovation feels like you’ve just conquered the fuck out of everything. Whenever we rent a fancy car for the weekend, sometimes we’ll spring for a fancy one and it has leather seats with ass warmers, it makes me feel exultant. That’s the kind of innovation that makes you feel like a bad motherfucker. That’s right, this car is warming my ass up right now while you wait for the bus, sucka! It just feels good to stop and marvel at the progress sometimes. Especially unexpected progress.

The Snuggie, for instance. Someone probably sewed a fucked up sweater one time that was five sizes too big in a dreadfully unfashionable fleece fabric and they saw an opportunity instead of a disappointment. They turned that shit into an ingenious innovation. They’re probably making residual fat stacks hand-over-fist as I type this sentence. And now, thanks to that wonderful addition of sleeves on a blanket, we as a people have a much better method for sitting on the couch and being cozy while we cram delicious junk food down our gullets. You say you want a revolution, well you know.

I didn’t think life could get any better than The Snuggie. Until recently.

Friday night: D was out with his cronies and I’d been out shopping all friggin’ day trying to find the perfect dress for his upcoming work holiday party. I finally get home and I am FAMISHED. I need some goddamned dinner, stat. Right fucking now, man. I opt for the fastest, most satisfying option. Pizza.

But it’s Friday night and all the pizza joints are going to be super busy because nobody cooks on Friday night, really. Guuuuh, so it’s going to take forever. And all I want is a piping hot ooey gooey slice right fucking now, man. But it’s my shitballs luck that a pizza teleportation device hasn’t been invented yet. (I’ll just pop that one on my ongoing list of fantastic ideas while I’m thinking about it.) So I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way: order it and pace around impatiently for the next forty-five minutes.

I place my order online. Dominos, medium pan pizza with double pepperoni and extra cheese. But something different happens after the order is entered. Instead of some boring old confirmation page a new, special page loads in its place.

It’s some sort of order tracking visual. It’s beautiful. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen. I simply cannot take my eyes off of it. I stare at it for a while, waiting for it to change. When Stage 2 “Prep” starts flashing, I’m euphoric. Gopi, you magnificent bastard, I think I love you.

I open a bottle of wine, and come back to sit in front of the computer for a little while, marvelling at this tremendous advancement in the field of fast food delivery. They took all the anxiety out of waiting for my pizza. Instead of pacing around like a raving lunatic wondering where the hell my food is, worrying that there was some inexplicable glitch that prevented the order from actually being placed, which will surely send me into a murderous rampage when I discover it too late and too hungry to be stopped, I find myself actually enjoying the wait. I can trust again. My food is on it’s way. Why, Gopi just put it in the oven. What a revelation. I believe in Gopi. He knows I’m waiting, and he’s doing the best damn job he can. Because Gopi cares. He cares about pizza and he cares about me.

And then, an even more beautiful sight than when I first discovered the tracker, Stage 5 “Out For Delivery” happened.

Elation! Jubilation! Adulation!

I feel all of these things and so much more. I have never been happier in my whole entire life. Not even when I got engaged in Hawaii this past year. My pizza is on it’s way and I KNOW THAT FOR A FACT! Yong just left the store and I can’t wait to greet him when he gets here. Whoa, if I don’t calm down I might just wind up frenching Yong’s face right off when he does get here with the pizza. My pizza. My precious pizza.

The Domino’s Tracker is hands down the greatest innovation I have ever encountered and I can honestly say that it has changed my life. I can’t even order pizza from anywhere else now. If they don’t have the tracker, I’m not going down that road, it’s just too difficult for me. I have to have the tracker. It has become an absolute necessity. It’s essential. And more importantly, it’s accurate. Yong was knocking on my door within ten minutes of the status changing to Stage 5 “Our For Delivery”.

That’s what makes me love invention and innovation. If I could invent something that would illicit an emotional response this insane… that’s the dream.

And for those of you wondering, yes, the pizza was fucking delicious.

A Weekend of Solitude

It’s been a hard go for me lately peeps, you know. Busted up that arm something rotten. Missed out on a whopper of a goal for this year. Been stressing about work. Feels like I’ve been a lot harder on myself lately. But by the end of last week, I felt the tide starting to turn in my favour again.

D went away this weekend. He left Friday afternoon before I even got home from work. And he didn’t come back until Sunday afternoon. I had the whole weekend all to myself.

…

SCORE!

No offense D, obviously you’re totally rad and I like having you around, but I was excited for this weekend. I can’t even remember the last time I had such an abundance of alone time. A whole weekend. All me, all weekend long. Totally awesome. I needed this.

Some people don’t like to be alone. Which is fine, to each their own. But I fucking love alone time. I would gladly venture that I love alone time even more than I love pizza. Yeah. Let that sink in for a minute. Those of you who’ve been around for a while know how deeply my love for pizza goes, so you know what a hefty statement that is for me to make.

I’ve always been a very independent person. When I was little people used to call me a loner and I thought that was a bad thing. I suspected that word was synonymous with defective in some way. Maybe some of my wires were loose, or I was missing a crucial part needed in order to be normal. Some people are born with stumps where their hands should be, right? So maybe there was a stumpy little place in my brain that made me be a loner. That was the first impression I ever formed of that word, having heard it often enough in a seemingly grim context, that a loner was someone who formed a little differently in the mould than expected. My sisters and I had a bunch of little chums that we played with growing up. And I’m one of five kids, so I had plenty of socialization all around me. But I just preferred being on my own.

If I was a loner and there was something wrong with that, well, it didn’t feel wrong to me. I liked it just fine that way. But what the fuck did I know, I was six the first time I heard that word for chrissakes. I also thought that the Power Rangers were real and that Vanilla Ice’s parents sure did pick a weird name for him. C’mon guys, if you wanted his rap career to have momentum that lasted longer than one crummy song then Black Ice was the obvious choice there. Der.

One of my best memories is when I got my acceptance package to post-secondary school and I found out that I’d been assigned to a single room. Fuck yeah, no roommate. FINALLY. I always had to share a bedroom with my little sister growing up and my biggest dream was to one day have my own room. Hallelujah! It was a frigging miracle. And I only had to shell out an extra $2000.00 bucks for the privilege, but it was worth every penny. Do you know how great it feels to jump on your own bed while doing a killer ABBA hairbrush lip sync without the fear of someone busting it on you and making you feel ashamed for being so goddamned rad all the time? I repeat: it was a frigging miracle when I got that single room. Space and time for days to kick out your jams in complete unabashed splendour. What’s not to love about that? And when you stumbled and fell awkwardly into the wall while you worked out the timing on your show-stopping twirls there was nobody there to see and laugh at you scornfully. Furthermore, there was nobody around to laugh at you for being a weird kid who enjoyed listening to ABBA in 2005. And who will admit to still thoroughly enjoying those magnificent Swedes in 2013.

I had all this wonderful freedom for the five years that followed. But then I stupidly fell in love and blah blah blah moved in with D. Again, I don’t want this to come off the wrong way because I love living with D. But when you live with your significant other certain quirky things that you used to enjoy doing on your own get tucked away into a dark little corner. Only ever to be seen again when gifted with an ever so elusive bundle of alone time. So you have to maximize it when you get it. You have to cram as many of those ridiculous things that are best done alone as you possibly can into your allotted alone time. You know, those things that you prefer doing without the ever-present shame land mines that lurk around every corner when you’ve got a cohabitant.

Here are the top 10 things I did with mine this weekend:

1. Ordered enough Chinese food to feed six extremely hungry people on Friday night, but didn’t have anyone over and ate it for every single meal for the entire weekend
2. Watched a Queen Latifah Rom-Com that D and I had been making fun of all week whenever we saw the commercials for it
3. Pissed money away on a bunch of shitty gossip magazines that I read while watching the Queen Latifah Rom-Com and doing an at home facial
4. Went on a five-hour long shopping spree and tried on no less than twenty party dresses
5. Did extreme high-kicks while listening to The Ramones Greatest Hits at maximum volume
6. Cried at the America’s Next Top Model finale because I was so happy for the person who won. She really wanted it bad you guys, okay?
7. Laughed uproariously while watching Top Secret for the first time ever and then spent a solid 15 minutes after it was over imagining what it would be like to make out with Val Kilmer. Young hot Val Kilmer, not old fat Val Kilmer of course
8. Sorted out my underwear drawer and finally threw some of the oldies away after realizing I possessed an unfathomable amount of underwear
9. Bought new underwear
10. Consumed an entire pint of Cherry Garcia and loved not having to share one single bite of it

Everything on this list is 100% accurate and honest. I may not wish to be seen doing these things, but I’m comfortable enough with my bad self to fess up to ’em. And remember, that’s only the top shelf stuff I did. There was plenty of other stuff I did that only gets more and more ridiculous to list. My wacky sense of imagination knows no bounds and it is a freaking delight when I really get to run with it. D grounds me. He’s good at pumping the brakes when the crazy train in my brain really starts to ramp itself up. But sometimes I’m curious to see how far it will take me if we just cut those damn brakes altogether…

I missed D, and I was happy to see him when he finally got back from a weekend of his own adventures. The occasional absence ain’t such a bad thing for a relationship. Looking back over my fantastically impressive itinerary from last weekend, I wouldn’t change a single thing. I lived like a god, a master of my own destiny. All alone, just me calling every single shot all day long. And it was glorious.

Alone time is ever so precious to me. If you really want to treat yourself right, I assure you it’s worth it to go be with yourself for an extended period of time doing only the things that make you happy. Shed the shame and indulge in your quirks for a while. Dream big dreams that wholly revolve around you, the kind of dreams that hectic every day life doesn’t tolerate. Push the limits of your whims. Soar. And when you come back out on the other side, don’t forget to stick the landing.

You’re gunna be alright after all, kid.