A new books list

I find myself at work, looking out my window over the skyline of Centrepoint and the faux Eiffel tower at the beautiful blue sky...yet here I sit with nothing to do. No work to be done, and yet stuck in the office. Mmm, a bit unlucky, but I formerly lectured Marcus on the novelty of being paid to do nothing but sit in an office. Now here am I, of the same experience and understanding the madness. Three more weeks, three more weeks.

Yesterday we spent the first half of our day wandering through Alexandria. We semi-unknowingly live close to a scattered bunch of outlet stores. Random purses and shoes in one store, European shoes and bed linens in the next, designer jeans "on sale" for $130 two doors down...once upon a time I was a master at rifling through a smorgasborg of clothing. I possessed a true gift at finding treasure amidst the trash. But lately, shopping has been overwhelming and outlet shopping is five times worse. What happened to the shop-happy girl of my youth? I think I've learned that I do pretty well on having a few trendy staples to get me by. My wardrobe is still very American, very classic (a white tank top and jeans is still my favorite outfit of all-time) and a bit reserved, but I try branching out a little here and there. But my heart isn't in the shopping like it used to be, probably because I know that it's a bit of a waste to spend so much money on clothing that I won't get enough use out of. Because I know that people in other parts of the world get by on one or two outfits a day while I have a wardrobe that has pretty much spit out all of the overflowing clothes into a room that doesn't need more clutter. Because I don't feel like spending money on them when my income isn't exactly stable and I have a big visa application fee impending. And because I think I've turned into that lady I always saw when I was younger--the one who didn't update her wardrobe according to the fashion of the times and was left "dated" by her clothes. Yes, I am that woman now. Ten times over. I hate when things I say I won't do in the future I eventually end up doing. I remember making fun of my stepmom's bell bottom years when I was younger. We have a dress-up clothes barrel in our house back at my dad and stepmom's house in Spokane, and one of the contents there-in is a fluorescent orange bell bottom track suit. I laughed at that thing every time it made its way out of the barrel, and I loved to say how I would never be caught in bell bottoms. Flash forward to my high school years when I rummaged at Value Village for hours just to a good pair of old man pants and...eventually...bell bottoms. I remember standing in the kitchen with my stepmom, making my anti-bell bottom declaration, and I remembered it the day I bought my first pair of bell bottoms. I just hoped she wouldn't remember it. I also declared I would never wear clogs, those ugly beings....again, hit up those high school years and I had a pair of leather clogs. I mean, they weren't the super-ugly clogs, they were more like a great pair of leather shoes...that didn't have a back. I had the same memory when I bought those shoes (or rather when I pointed those shoes out so my mom would buy them for me for Christmas), thinking, "God, I hope Laura doesn't remember my oath against clogs..." And if she did remember it, she never mentioned it. Nice.

Funny, when I started writing this, so I could make more time go by in this endlessly boring work day, my wardrobe was the furthest thing from my mind. I actually thought I would write about how impressed some people might be by how much better I'm eating these days! (I mostly think of Jessi and Kalisha because when I was at home before coming to Australia and we went food shopping, Jessi continually asked me if I would eat this type of food or that--I must have been a pretty picky kid!) It mostly struck me because after our day of fruitless outlet shopping, Marcus and I went to Subway for some sustenance and on my sandwich, there were only two vegetables that I didn't have put on my sandwich! I thought Jessi would be like the proud mama that she is. Only she's not my mom...she's my sister...but she'd still be proud! I'm not touching seafood any time in the foreseeable future, however.

What else is going on besides the 9 to 5, shopping attempts and produce consumption pride? Reading. Lots and lots of reading. I keep meaning to, yet again, start a list of the books I've been reading but I forget. And as I'm constantly on the prowl for good book recommendations, I thought this would be a good forum for asking. So for any of you who are looking for something interesting to read, here's what I've been immersed in lately:

• The Twilight series: I just got my hands on book number three yesterday and I'm almost a quarter of the way through. I think the book may actually be rotting my brain, but it's so much fun to read! It's a quick page turner full of girly goodness and while I don't have much in common with the heroine, references to the Seattle area, dubbed over martial arts movies and cheap-o high school cars remind me of home. Like I've said before, pure brain candy.


• Crimes Against Humanity: This book is written by Geoffrey Robertson, a human rights lawyer from the UK who has worked with Amnesty and the HRC and is a prominent figure in the International Criminal Court and in human rights law today. This book is about the development of human rights law from the Magna Carta to the US's blatant disregard for international criminal courts, evidenced by Guantanamo Bay and Saddam Hussein's criminal trial (taking place in the states rather than The Hague). This book assumes the reader has a good grasp of European history, which apparently I do not. This makes me think I paid far too little attention during my social studies classes, but it also makes me realize that grade school through high school history classes in the states are vastly insufficient. Anyway, the text is very informative (and sometimes confusing, as it refers to the beginning of "such and such" at one point then says a few pages later that this is the mark of the beginning of "such and such" and while I realize there must be linguistic nuances to each reference, I can't seem to be bothered to go back and read it). I think this book would be excellent if I were to read it while sitting next to an open page of dictionary.com and wikipedia.


• The White Tiger: The latest Man Booker award winner, this tells the tale (the book claims to be fictional, but there's a note at the beginning claiming that if this book does in fact resemble the life of a real human being, the coincidence is entirely accidental--my cynical side says the author may have used a real life subject without telling them so) of a peasant man from the "dark" side of India evolves into an entrepeneur through a half-baked education, scheming, and murder. And his belief that he is resembles the mythical "white tiger". I didn't think the book was good enough to win a prize, and I wouldn't particularly recommend it. I'm not sure if I'm missing some greater analogy? Or maybe I'm just disillusioned.


• Valley of the Dolls: This is apparently a classic from the 1960's, and focuses on the lives of three women in New York. It begins in post-WWII and is focused around their careers and love lives. It's not what I expected, being a book about women of that era. I expected house wifely duties and such to be a central theme, and I certainly expected there to be similar undertones to "The Awakening" but it never took that turn. Not a bad book, but it was one of the more random ones I stumbled upon in Bec's room. (Her bookcase is Marcus's and my personal library.)

Big sigh! Fifteen more minutes exist in this work day then I'm off to frolick in the sunshine on my way to yoga. While seven hours of my day are spent feeling caged, there are the other 17 hours that make up for it. I have gratitude for the income, but I especially have gratitude for those other 17 hours!