Lines Drawn in Starlight

Because 5 things make a post, om nom nom.

1. The weakest link has been removed from the chain. More work for me, but overall very much for the better. I don't feel very bad that this got the first position in my thankful list tonight.

2. Chocolate glazed, chocolate cake Top Pot donuts are really good when left in the refrigerator. Quiche is even tastier when someone has made it for you... magic dinner! Quesadillas. Being someone who enjoys her fuel consumption. The luxury of having a "favorite food."

3. coffeedaiv. Who didn't have to take a sick day.

4. Aya is returning to his obnoxious self, after a week of kitty cold that included losing his meow. No, really. He has a lousy immune system. Shiva cat only had two days of mild sneezing, but Aya has been knocked down with a very human-like crud (cough, sneezing, no meow) for almost a week. I should not laugh. It's probably my fault that they, indoor cats, got colds at all.

5. Being energetic after a bad night's sleep. Being energetic after TWO bad nights of sleep (for different reasons). Go acupuncture!

D says that I have the wrong approach to Powell's, since none of my visits have produced a book purchase on my part. Yes, Powell's City of Books, in Portland, OR. Yes, that place you adore and will hear no dispersions cast upon. He tells me that I'm not supposed to go looking for a particular book, but to go and wander and see what the City of Books offers up to me.

Personally, I don't think that asking for them to have a copy of Blackout on the shelf was asking too much. Then they didn't have any of Cherie Priest's older books, either.

The thing is, I do there what I do at every other book store. I look at the faceouts and the endcaps. I browse the new releases. I let my eyes wander over the shelves as I walk through the store on my way to and from the section where I hope to find my book/author. This has worked many times in Elliott Bay books, for example, and I've had a few discoveries from them. It's even worked at B&N. It certainly works at the library. So what is it about Powell's?

I think it's a matter of expectations. You don't have to convince me that Powell's is an amazing, enormous book store and more fully stocked than your typical independent bookstore. The books I have looked for and not found there have been genre fiction. They have lots of genre fiction, just not anything I want. Because they are so big, and going there is part of why I'd be in Portland anyway, I want them to have the books I don't find in other places, either.

I'm having waffle failure even as I write this. I guess the first one is the sacrificial waffle. I can't find the kitchen timer, which fell and had its magnet broken off and so isn't on the fridge where it would be useful. Plus, I don't have the batter recipe that I usually use. Halfway through mixing, I realized that this internet recipe didn't call for sour cream.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that even though I did a lot of cool stuff this weekend, I'm ultimately feeling that I didn't get what I set out for. It's a pretty pessimistic, disappointment focused assessment of things. For simplicity, I can blame hormones, but I don't think that addresses the real problem.

Eating the waffles may not be addressing the root problem, but it is making me feel cheerier by the bite.