Library and dancing. And dentistry. A day.

[xiphias]

So, I had a dentist appointment today, to get a permanent filling for the hole in my tooth where there used to be roots for a root canal. And, because that was in the morning, Lis asked if I could kill time downtown for the day, so she could have the house to herself to do various tasks -- mostly household organization -- that would be a lot less annoying with me NOT looking over her shoulder going, "Whatcha' doin'?" every five minutes.


I left the house a bit after 9:30, which gave me tons of time to get downtown by 11 -- really, that was half again as much time as I needed, but, I figured, why not -- 9:30 is a perfectly respectable time to leave the house. The dentist appointment went smoothly; I got to see my uncle David, who is the dentist in question, and I also got to see an old family friend who I'd not seen in a while, who had had the appointment before me.

After the tooth was filled, I walked around Newbury Street and Boylston and Comm Ave for about an hour to give the filling a chance to harden -- I don't think I actually HAD to do that, but, y'know, why not? I had a book with me -- Neil Stephenson's Zodiac, which I like as much as Snow Crash, and more than Cryptonomicon: 'cause, see, Zodiac is like 260 pages, which is an eminently readable length for a novel, unlike the doorstops he's been putting out recently. So I was able to just sit and chill and kill time.

I went to "Rebecca's Cafe" on Newbury Street for lunch; they had a blue plate special of pasta and meatballs for six bucks, which wasn't bad, but I was pretty disappointed: "Rebecca's Cafe" is usually really good, and this was just okay.

After that, I headed over to the library to kill more time. I picked up the third book in a series I'd been reading, John Barnes's The Merchants of Souls. I'm really liking his writing, and his plotting, style. Not to give TOO much away, but the resolution of the main plotline in the second book in that series, Earth Made of Glass actually surprised me, even though he'd clearly set it up as a perfectly likely outcome.

Unfortunately, the lighting in the Boston Public Library sucks for extended reading. It's this crappy red-yellowish cheap flourescent lighting that is a. too dark, and b. cheap flourescent lighting. There are other areas in the library I could have gone to read, had I thought of it, that might have had better lighting, but, well, I DIDN'T think of it, and didn't notice what was going on with the lighting until I asked myself, "Self, why are you nauseous?" And I answered myself, "Self, I'm nauseous because I have a raging migraine. That's also why my neck is painfully stiff." I replied to myself, "Self, the lighting in here is total crap -- you should probably have been reading somewhere else," and responded with, "That's true, Self, but who would expect that people would put lighting this crappy in a LIBRARY, which is, after all, a place where people go to read?"

Anyway, I checked out the book, since I was only about 75% done, and staggered to the train to go home. At one point, I got off the train at Sullivan Station, and waited for the next train, because I just needed to get out into the fresh air and sunlight for a bit, which DID help the nausea and headache.

I got home, and noticed that Lis had done an absolutely amazing job cleaning up a lot of stuff in the bedroom, which, had I been around, I would probably have annoyed her terribly by asking her "Whatcha' doin'?" every five minutes while she tried to clean it up. I drank a cup of peppermint tea and took a brief nap, and felt much, much better thereafter.

Then I checked livejournal, and one of my friends had called a "Gotta Dance!" for tonight. She decided that she had to go dance, so asked if anyone wanted to go to Man Ray tonight.

Lis didn't, because she's got a phone interview with a recruiter tomorrow morning, but I did. So I did.

I saw bluepapercup, who'd called it, and chanaleh, and tapuz and lagaz as well as a couple other people whose names I've forgotten, including tapuz's friend from high school who was in from Las Vegas.

When I got home, I noted that it was trash day, and took the trash to the curb.

Then I wrote this livejournal entry. Then I spellchecked it. Then I posted it.

I don't know what happens next.

Comments

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

Next I write a comment about books.

You keep unexpectedly being familiar with SF authors I think are completely obscure, and who only, say, one other person I know (different people in each case) has read -- first Tim Powers, now John Barnes. Admittedly, I've only read one John Barnes novel, but it's really good -- One for the Morning Glory. It's exactly the same genre as the Last Unicorn right down to the technology level, which was a bit weird for me when I realized it the other day, because I was reading them back to back and I'm accustomed to skipping gaily from genre to genre with no apparent pattern. keeps has read a number of Barnes novels and didn't enjoy most of them, but he recommends the Duke of Uranium, which I have yet to come by a copy of.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I didn't like One for the Morning Glory the first time I read it, because I couldn't get through the overly-cutesy way that he misuses words -- calling the flintlock pistols "pismires", and all that. The problem is that I knew too many of the words ACTUALLY, so I kept imagining people drawing and firing ants, fencing with bolts of cloth and cliff faces, and the like.

Once I got over that -- and it took some doing, let me tell you -- I enjoyed it.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

*flashback to the song about "one for the Morning Glory"*. I think I may have to go find the book now. :)

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any John Barnes, but The Duke of Uranium is sitting on the to-be-read pile. (It was on the freebie shelf at a recent con.) I think I'll move it to the top of the pile.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes, the overall structure of the book is vaguely influenced slightly by a variation on the chorus of the song. So there IS a connection, but it's a tenuous one.