Some kinda update

[triadruid]

I don't talk about work much here, but things have been going well lately. Didn't quite succeed today, but made it to work on time *twice* this week, which hasn't happened in &$#^ months. Been dealing with a lot of winter blahs and ennui in my job, and it's really manifested in some slipshod performance. When LiveJournal and MafiaScum get more time between 9:40am and 5:40 pm than phone calls and emails, there's a problem. I've also made it *home* on time once or twice this week, which has also been a rarity, but for different reasons. I'm sure my other thirds appreciate that. Trying some new routines and mental gymnastics to keep myself on this track. It's not like my work ever *really* stoppped being busy over the winter, it just didn't have the same immediacy. Now, I get to try to excavate the inches of paperwork covering my wraparound desk. No, really:


In addition, I've got a couple of opportunities coming my way. I'm working on an all-CSS website for one of the coalition groups in the City, which is a fun bit of geekery to fire me up. I'm on the election slate for Vice-President the Heart of America Crime Prevention Association, which is thankfully a job-hours-only task, 95% of the time. And you know, VP is a hell of a lot easier than Treasurer.. and they're redoing their by-laws this coming year, which I think will make 4 sets I've helped revise in the last 16 months! Thirdly, I got myself assigned as the Implementation facilitator at a "Gangs & Graffiti" Town Hall meeting in the Old Northeast next month, which will be a nice bit of experience and skills practice.

I even brought a toothbrush in to work today, which has been driving me *nuts* of late, and took my pills this morning. Go me! Still have to schedule that dentist's appointment, though...


In other positive news, I finally got to Book Six and the climax of Lord of the Rings last night. Which of course means I only have 100 pages or so of elvish linguistics and halfling songs to go before the end. And then the Appendices, which I thankfully pored over in my youth and feel no need to repeat right now. This will be the first time I've read it through in at least a decade, and I was considerably less thrilled with it now than then. Part of that is because I can only manage to read about 5-15 pages a night usually (I started this bad boy in December), but a lot of it has to do with Tolkien being such a literate sonofabitch. He delights in wordsmithing to such a degree that LOTR is as much literature as it is fantasy epic. And I admit it... I *really* don't like the songs, but that might just be the Ralph Bakshi influence talking. I skim them.

You cannot deny, however, the incredible influence he's had on other five-heroes-in-search-of-a-sword fantasy writers, however. I honestly believe that the Peter Jackson movies take the best of the book and craft them into something more accessible than the original. I think one of the reasons that I like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books so much is that he crafts a world around his characters in real-time, rather than through references to elvish lore and Biblical mythmaking.

And yes, I realize the irony in complaining about JRRT's epic length shortly before I dive back into the WoT series).

Comments

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I finally read all of the appendices the last time I read it (last year). I've been re-reading it every few years since I was about 12, and never managed to slog through that bit.

When does the next Jordan come out?

And also, yay, pills! I took mine this morning too. And a vitamin, even.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I took a vitamin *and* a Claritin. And breakfast, three days running! That may be helping, too.

Jordan's next one comes out in October of this year.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Your desk is positively NEAT compared to mine:

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but is that at home or at work?

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

That's at work. My desk at home is much more cluttered.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Heh, okay, well done. I suppose in my defense, my desk would probably be worse if I didn't have to have customers in it from time to time (it faces our office door, where I took the picture from).

[ajs-moppet.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've soooooo got you guys beat. I'll try to remember to bring my camera to work and then figure out how to post the pic here. ::looks around at boxes and boxes of thrown-together, completely out of order papers, then at desk piled with boss' unpaid bills, construction plans, invoices, etc.::

::wilt::

*waters the wilting office worker*

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, hearing about your office environment kinda puts things in perspective...I hope he's just enthusiastic about getting started, and not taking advantage of your help...

eek!

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Your workspace makes me twitchy. How do you concentrate?
::running away::

Re: eek!

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Well, that would be part of the problem, wouldn't it? :)

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

Wow. Papers on the floor, even. ;)

My last two jobs, my work space was clear...which is an oddity, but can be explained because at the one I didn't have a permanent space(911) and the other (the one i just finished), I only had half a cubicle, and not a lot of paper to shuffle. My desk at home, now....well let's see. Stacks of papers on each side of the monitor, between the monitor and the speakers; a mixed pile of papers and books on the top of the desk, and the 2 bottom shelves. I'm notoriously messy. BUT....I know exactly where everything is. ;)

I know what you mean about Tolkien. He is a rather wordy and linguistic SOB, isn't he? I tried reading LOTR in high school, and never made it past page 20 or so. Didn't pick the series up again until after I saw ROTK, and only read the 3 major books, FOTR, TT, and ROTK. That was enough for one lifetime. ;) I really enjoyed the movies, though. And I think Peter Jackson (and Harry Potter) have done for the fantasy movie genre what Tolkien originally did for fantasy. I'm very excited to see what develops from that. For instance, I would love to see some of Piers Anthony's work adapted to the big screen.

Also, thank you. Your comment about other fantasy writers led me to search for a series of books I had found in the library when I was younger and loved, but forgot when I moved on to other writers, and have now found again. Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345913752/103-7640734-0798259?v=glance) by Stephen R. Donaldson. If you haven't read, I highly recommend. :)

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

You're probably the fourth person to mention the Thomas Covenant Chronicles to me in the last few months, so I suppose I ought to put them on my list (my cousin and fellow fantasy buff started recommending them to me when I was 16, I think).

Finally finished LOTR a few minutes ago. It is surprisingly depressing when you know exactly how a story is going to end because you've read it so many times, and getting there seems to take so long... or maybe I'm just getting old.

I do recommend The Hobbit, if you haven't actually read it, as it's a much faster-paced book than LOTR. Also, the Book of Lost Tales (I think it's called) might be interesting, as it's a collection of shorts.

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

LOTR was unique in my world in that I liked the movies much more so than the books. It's almost always the other way around. I was one of those in the movie theatre for all 3 Harry Potter movies going. "Hey! They didn't include this, and it was one of the better parts of the book!" or "Hey, where do they get off cutting out all the good stuff from the book and putting in stuff that wasn't even in the books in the first place?". *grin* but that's the book whore in me, I suppose. But the movie ending(s) for ROTK was so much more.....satisfying....than the book ending. And damn, Tolkien went off on some tangents, didn't he?

To the best of my memory, the Thomas Covenant Chronicles are highly entertaining. I'm thoroughly excited now about finding them again and reading them again.

I suggest a deal. ;) I'll read the Hobbit and Book of Lost Tales if you'll read the Thomas Covenant Chronicles. :D

Done and done

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Are you recommending the first trilogy, or the whole series, or...?

Re: Done and done

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

Hehe you're going to love this actually, there are so far7 books....and 3 trilogies (http://isfdb.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Stephen_R._Donaldson) (supposed to be, anyway). The 3rd trilogy, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, has only 1 book so far, The Runes of the Earth, published in 2004. I never got to read that one. The other two series were published back in the early 1980's.

But it's hardly fair to require you to read 7 books when I'm only reading 2. So why don't we make it I'll read the 2 I said I'd read, and you read the first 2 of the first trilogy, The Wounded Land and The One Tree? I'm sure that wild horses couldn't drag you away from the series at that point, but for the sake of fairness, let's just put the requirement of the deal at the first 2 books. :D Deal?

Re: Done and done

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Well, it turns out I've read the first five pages of the first book before (in a library or something, after one of the many recommendations), so I'm vaguely familiar with the character.

However, I get the impression they are fast reads, but featherynscale says Book of Lost Tales is not all that worthwhile afterall (it's many of the same stories from The Silmarillion, but less polished). Let's leave it at one and one for now?

Not like it's tough to get me to read something: it's the order that is rough. Check this thread: http://www.livejournal.com/users/triadruid/31944.html

Holy Shite Batman!

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

That is a long list. Whew! I'm sure you'll get through it though, but that's the enjoyable part, no?

Oops-started with the wrong series. *smacks forehead* In my defense it's been like at least 15 years since I've read them. Start with Lord Foul's Bane, but don't let it put you off the series. I remember when I read it the first time around, and thought Thomas to be one selfish bastard, I really didn't like him. But he changes, he changes. Part of the plot...but I'll leave it at that, I don't want to give too much away. :D

And it's a deal. :)

Re: Holy Shite Batman!

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I knew it was Lord Foul's Bane, I just didn't want to write the whole chain of titles in there until I got past the first one.

That post is the 2005 list; it started the year before (you can see the link to those ones), and I just carried over the unfinished/unstarted books from that post. Sadly enough, this means I read more books than I did in recent years, which is still a lot less than when I was in HS/college...

And on another part of your to-read list.....

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

I own and have read The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense(for Business Success) by Suzette Haden Elgin, and I must say it is fascinating and quite a good choice. There's also another book that I consider a companion piece, so to speak. Don't let the name throw you off. It's The Complete Guide to Verbal Manipulation by James K. Van Fleet. It's kind of....salesey, if you know what I mean("And here's what you'll get if you follow our method!")(which amuses me, because the book is about verbal manipulation, but it talks to the reader as if they are in kindergarden, very blunt), but it does have some great info and strategies, and has value as a look at human interaction, if nothing else.

I'm currently reading The Circle of Simplicity by Cecile Andrews, which is a wonderful book about stopping to smell the roses. I only mention it because from your posts you sound as if you might want to be doing something along those lines....trying to simplify?
:)

Re: And on another part of your to-read list.....

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I suspect I won't have time to read anything on VS anytime soon, and K. has one book downstairs on the topic, should I find time. Thanks for the idea, though.

With my job, it's significantly more important that I be able to deflect commentary than persuade people, per se... they're usually fired up enough as it is, or we wouldn't be talking to them. :)

Re: And on another part of your to-read list.....

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

Oh, I find verbal self-defense and manipulation are always useful. For instance, Guide to Verbal Manipulation starts off listing the 14 basic desires of humans, and how to use those desires to move a conversation in the direction you want it to go. Also useful in cutting off someone with cant(or won't)-shut-up-itis, without pissing them off, a technique I found came in very handy when I worked 911.

*shrug* but here I am trying to convince you to read yet another book when you already have a huge long list. ;) Just keep it in mind, if you ever have the free time and inclination. I'll even loan you my copy. :D