Boredom

Life - 

Man. This job is incredibly boring some days. Most days. And the worst part is knowing that I could, in theory, be accomplishing something. I could be writing or really diving into my reading, or paying bills or something. I should be writing. I really should be editing and revising The Whispering Ferns so that some day I can start looking for an agent.

There's nothing stopping me from doing those things. I didn't see a single one of my corporate charges yesterday. The only people I saw the entire day was the UPS guy and the weird dude that works in the building next door with the 2-foot mustache. And he was just wandering past the window, likely thinking about tying damsels to railroad tracks.

But I feel guilty doing it. I feel like that if I'm at work, I should be working, or at least attempting to. So every time I start reading, I stop, twiddle my thumbs, check the email. Sigh, and go back to reading.

If I don't get beck into a store soon, I think I'm gonna lose my brain. Or stop caring and start doing my thing instead of being bored. Maybe that's the ticket.

It rained all day yesterday and looks apt to do the same again today. It's a very West coast, misty rain and I love it. Though it's odd to see it in February when other places are getting snow.

I told our landlord yesterday after work about our new place. He did not take it well. Shouting ensued on his part, he accused us of not letting him fix things, of us over-reacting. I explained to him that he broke his contract. When we signed up, it was with the understanding that he would provide utilities, cable TV (Which we didn't care about) and the internet. In 25 days, we have had the internet reliably all day for less than three days and had spotty service for less than an hour on five other days. As far as I'm concerned, that's a violation of the contract and he knows it. Honestly, it wouldn't have bothered us if he'd actually tried to remedy the problem but instead he just raises his hands and says there's nothing he can do or tells us to harass the downstairs neighbor that has the extender in his apartment. To me, if you are staying in a place, especially one that advertises itself as a motel, if there's a problem and the owner throws his hands in the air or tells you to figure out what the solution is, there's something wrong with the motel. If I owned a motel and a guest came to me and said their room had no pillows, I wouldn't hand them a pillowcase and a goose.

Anyway. It doesn't matter now, cause even if this other place falls through, we're out of there by Monday morning.

My favorite part of his rant though? He accused me of trying to steal from him. How, you ask? By plugging in and using a lamp we bought. Lindsay does cross-stitching and I do a lot of reading, and when we moved in, the only light in the front room was three recessed lights, all above the kitchen area. In those sockets were 12 watt cfls. This made for a very dim room, so we bought a $12 lamp and put two 67 watt bulbs in there. Apparently, that was an unconscionable act. I feel bad, but mostly because he thinks that is a huge power drain and not the 24 year old fridge that runs 24 hours a day he had in the room or the two laptops, game boy, ipods, TV, phones, beard trimmer and crock pot that we had plugged in most of the time. To say nothing of the 50" TV that the neighbors have in their room... I guess I should have gotten one of those. I bet I could have read by the light of my plasma tv....

Reviews Of Unusual Size - 

Books - 

BLOOD AND BONE

by William Lashner

2009, 400 pages

1 - The first stand-alone novel from Lashner, who has previously written 7 books about the morally loose Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl. This time, the story focuses on a slacker named Kyle Byrne and his daddy issues

2 - Like most of Lashner's work, the characters are memorable and likable, quirky and real-feeling. I would love to hear more from the detectives in the story.

3 - The novel gives up its secrets pretty early on, with little to reveal at the end, but I found myself attached enough to the Kyle and his pals to happily follow along to the end.

4 - Lashner is king of writing passages that are both simple and lyrical at the same time, especially when it comes to sex and death. Make sure to check out the blog on his site too, its full of insight into the writing process.

5 - Suit up!

4/5
 

Writing - 

I actually did a little bit of writing a few days ago, starting a new book. I did a bit of plotting and wrote and introductory paragraph. Not much yet but it was nice to type again.