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I’ve been half-reading a whole bunch of books lately, and a few that I haven’t finished are: French Women Don’t Get Fat, a diet book disguised as a fancy French lifestyle book; Ash Wednesday, Ethan Hawke’s second novel, which is so embarrassingly bad that I can’t bring myself to finish; Runaway by Alice Munro, where I’ve started the first story about sixteen times and never gotten any further; and The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, which I’m determined to finish, so more on that later. Ahem, probably much later.

Annnywaaay. One book I did manage to finish, which makes #27, is Paul Feig’s Kick Me. If you don’t know Paul Feig, it’s okay, he’s not actually a household name. Best-known as the creator of the truly amazing Freaks and Geeks, one of my all-time favourite television shows, Feig’s prose style is easy-going, and I really envy that. The book is so funny. I was reading it on the TTC coming home from work one night and was laughing so hard I had to put the book away for fear of serious public embarrassment. It’s such a wonderful, honest portrayal of just how plain weird you are as a kid. How you do the silliest things and how truly brutal adolescence can be—highly recommended summer reading!

I’ve watched a bunch of movies too, but only because I’ve been feeling seriously under the weather lately and have had less than no energy to do anything at all. Except kill the ants, of course.

As if my hair falling out doesn’t already suck. As if the fact that I can barely eat anything these days without a) feeling like I’m going to throw it back up again and b) having an upset tummy for more than a few hours, we’ve got ants. Not in the house yet, but they have invaded our front patio stone area (which I hate, by the way). So today, the RRBF and I bought some Ant Attack. Down with the ants! In my silly obsessive compulsive way, I’m standing outside, as it’s about to thunderstorm, standing in my socks and flipflops, watching to see how many are still scurrying around and stuff. Is the disease now affecting my brain?

…to admit that I love a good Greatest Hits record. Amazon just delivered Neil Young’s Greatest Hits and Sloan’s A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005. I’ve been singing “Underwhelmed” for the past two weeks and took it as a sign that I should probably dump that song into my iTunes—except that I can’t because they’ve encrypted the silly CD and it totally scrambles after importation, which is seriously annoying.

The first book I abridged two summers ago, Little Women, has been on sale now since May. It’s kind of exciting to have not one but two ISBNs associated with a product of my blood, sweat and arthritic fingers. If only they would get the author correct—on Amazon it’s listed as Lucy Corvino, the illustrator, who has an important role in the production of the book for sure, but isn’t the author per se.

A couple of days ago our editor, Frankie, sent us all a note that the Wall Street Journal was publishing an article about the series. Unfortunately, the WSJ has a pay-to-read policy so I couldn’t read it until Bookslut posted a link to the article. Oh, it’s kind of cool to have a mention on Bookslut, but Jessica Crispin said something totally catty:

Wouldn’t you love to have that job? “So, what do you do for a living?” “I dumb down the world’s classic literature for the young and the stupid.”

Ahem, Ms. Crispin, I do have that job, and I’ll have you know that we didn’t think we were dumbing down the books at all. In fact, it was a hell of a lot of work to ensure that the shorter, abridged versions of all three books I’ve written now are not only similar in both tone and manner to the original, but also conserve the integrity of the classic. I think all of us that wrote them felt the same way. Perhaps the reading public agrees, as I step down from my high horse by noting, the 10 books have now sold over 500,000 copies. Not too shabby for “dumbed down” content.

A nothing day, but it’s a shame that so many days pass like this, in a normal, everyday routine of getting up, going to work, coming home and just being happy to see the sun, to feel the warmth on your skin, to ride your bike. There’s nothing special to remind you of how you spent the day, it just goes like water through your fingers.

And to see a trailer for a documentary on penguins. Oh. My. Goodness. How awesome is that? Makes me think about joining the Canadian version of Netflix, if I could only remember what it’s called—because they have a great selection of documentaries that you can’t get at your local Video 99. Now, porn, the video store near us has, in droves, but penguins, well, they’re not as, ahem, sexy.

I came across the campaign to Make Poverty History, promptly signed my name and then ordered some white bands. And no, not because Bono or Kate Moss told me to, and especially not because of silly old Sarah McLachlan, but because it’s probably the most important global issue of our time, right up there next to saving the environment. What do I want my generation to be remembered for? Generosity and good rock and roll.

Now I’m going to get on my bike with tears streaming down my face and go to poetry class.

We spent the Rock and Roll Boyfriend’s birthday looking for antiques. We went back to Aberfoyle so he could buy his 1969 Planet of the Apes poster from Poland. I bought a pair of 1970s lamps for our future living room. It’s only a year or two away.

Then we went for dinner with my brother and our good friend Kate. I lasted through dinner and then had to go home because my energy had collapsed by that point. He had a wonderful birthday though, and that’s all that matters considering this time last year we had one of the worst fights in our entire relationship.

Today is a holiday Monday. Which meant that because I did all the chores on Saturday, I fell into a sickness stupor. Hence, I watched a lot of daytime television, including Oprah. With Tom Cruise. And Katie Holmes. Ew. He kept kneeling on the floor and punching the wood. Ew. I’ll still see War of the Worlds, though. But you know, not to be negative about those in love, but these people are actors extremely good at acting. Yawn.

I finished Sue Miller’s Lost in the Forest. I think that’s book #26. The book got a rave review in the New York Times, and many people I know have been raving about it. The book is passable, and Miller’s prose reminds me a little of Joyce Carol Oates, that sort of American, easy style that reveals the ins and outs of family life exceptionally well. She has also mastered the flashback, and excels at intertwining many different stories from the past and present together.

On the whole, the book would make a good cottage read, something halfway engaging but perhaps isn’t destined to become a modern literary classic.

The warms sunshine makes the pavement hot, and cars seem out of place in the city spewing their exhaust and bad tempers. I’ve stopped crying today, but I don’t really feel much better.

We’ve started summer hours at work, so I left at one yesterday, came home, watched two movies (Breakin’ All the Rules [very bad] and Baadasss! [very good]) and stayed on the couch for hours). Those are films #5 and #6, I think. This morning the Rock and Roll Boyfriend and I went out for brunch (blueberry pancakes, yum!), and then to visit some friends in The Beaches.

Tonight we’re supposed to go away for his birthday for a couple of days. Fingers crossed I have enough energy to sit in the car and watch the side of the 401.

This morning I cried all the way to work, knowing that it’s not at all rational to bawl on the middle of the QEW for no good reason, I’m chaulking it up to the disease. Again. Like everything else these days, I’m feeling so sick and tired all the time that I’m surprised I can still even go to work.

The Rock and Roll Boyfriend got his hot little hands on an advance copy of Cuff the Duke’s new album. I think it’s scheduled to be released in August. Anyway, the first song is one of the best songs I’d heard in a long while—there’s a great harmonica part that reminds me of The Low’s Rosy and Grey, one of my all-time favourite tunes in university.

There’s a lot going on in the evenings this week. I had school last night, where I read a poem called “Born in the Sign of July.” The girls in my writer’s group really liked it, so I wanted to try it out on a larger group—turns out half the people in the class thought it was about my dad, which is strange considering it’s love poem, but it went over well anyway. The teacher used some of the lines from my poem to explain one of his favourite things about poetry; its ability to convey an entire range of emotions in just a few short lines, and how effective it can be by just using spare words vs. long, drawn out explanations that you find in prose. Ahem, or like you find on this blog…

Tonight I’m off to the Premier Dance Theatre to see some modern dance. Watching dance is always so bittersweet, soft reminders of all the things I’ve had to give up in my life and where I’ve ended up now as a result of my health. It’s a neverending cycle these days, and I’m not coping particularly well.

Then tomorrow night I’m going to review Lords of Dogtown for Chart magazine. I have a thing for skateboarders, but I don’t have high hopes for this film—go ahead, call me Betty and get over it already.

Then on Friday it’s time to say goodbye to Suzy Q as she goes off to teach English in an extremely foreign country for a year. See, there’s a lot going on for someone who can barely make it out of bed in the morning without barfing and feeling like my stomach is trying to digest knives.

1. I heart Zach Braff’s blog. He seems like such a geniune fellow, and especially considering Garden State has sort of catapulted him into another world in terms of the whole being famous-thing. If he’s ZBizzle, can I be DFizzle?

2. Scarbie Doll‘s Martinis For Milk. A dear, sweet friend who never ceases to amaze me in terms of her mad writing skills.

3. Hissyfit. The name says it all. Wing Chun is one of the smartest, funniest, and savviest writers I know. Not to mention Glark’s also most kick-assiest sense of humour. Check out his Star Wars / Pride 2005 desktops. Heh.

4. Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. I’m not a big reader of crime / mystery fiction, but as far as litblogs go, it’s one of the best. Even better than Bookslut at times because of Weinman’s pure, unadalterated love of literature.

5. Kim’s Fresh Hell. It has my favourite tagline of any website I’ve ever come across, “All pop. No culture.” One of those things that makes you think, “Damn, I wish I wrote that…”

There are so many others that I love too, too many to list, but honourable mentions go to pamie, Blondie, and to Chicklit, where I wish-I-wish deborah would start up a blog because I’d read it everyday.

Anyway, some things to keep my mind off my rotting stomach and ill-feeling, stupid diseased body.