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Category: Misc.

Stuff to worry about #3

Today we are (more correctly, I am) worrying about whether it is more important to have self-control, something I sort of pride myself on having, or to pursue my lifelong, but sort of ridiculous, quest for the One Best Copy of Every Book I Love. These exist and I do not need them because I own several of them already, do not like a couple of them, have not read several others, and would not exchange my current copy of In This House of Brede for anything. But these concerns are subsidiary to the very strong part of my brain…

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Stuff to Worry About, #2

In this installment of Stuff to Worry About, we are going to worry about jellyfish. I recently read (and aggressively loved) the Best American Science and Nature Writing book that Mary Roach edited, and one of the essays was about jellyfish. Did you know you needed to be worried about jellyfish? You need to be worried about jellyfish. They can survive anything. They proliferate in water with insanely high acidity levels. They are the cockroaches of the sea, basically, except unlike cockroaches, they also sting you. Places that never used to have jellyfish now have jellyfish. There are trillions of…

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Review: Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011, edited by Mary Roach

To be clear — because I got confused about this — this is not Best American Science Writing 2011, which is a whole other thing. It also does not feature the best of American science and nature writing published in 2011. The book is from 2011, the writing is all from 2010. I think that could be made clearer, but whatever, I am not the boss of this series. I got this because, please don’t judge me, I did a search on OverDrive for “science” and this is one of the things that came up. I just felt like some…

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New Feature: Stuff to worry about

Rule 34 of Jenny is that if it exists, I will worry about it. So I’m starting this new feature on the blog to spotlight things I suddenly learn I need to worry about. Because if I have to worry about it, I’m damn well not going to be the only one. In this post we are going to worry about how eating quinoa is harming people in South America. Because apparently when we eat quinoa and other things including, goddammit, asparagus which I love, the prices of these things goes way way up in their countries of origin. People…

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Revisiting Harry Potter: Origins

I know I know. I should have posted a post last Friday too. I didn’t do it because it was my first week back and there were a lot of things going on including buying a TV table and setting up my TV and DVD player and the Roku Box Captain Hammer gave me for Christmas. And buying a new purse (this one here). And organizing a work book club meeting for Five Quarters of an Orange (about which more later). And anyway I am lawless and I cannot be contained by rules. So. (I am writing this in a…

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Eeeeeeek, this is what happens

when you are occupied with this new game called Kerfluffle where you go “Kerfluffle!” and your puppy-niece waves her teensy little paws at you in response and that’s it, that’s the whole game. And when you are occupied with this highly adorable game, you do not always have time to read the blogs promptly so sometimes you miss posts that notify you that you are supposed to post an introductory post to the Harry Potter Readalong. And then it is nine in the evening and you are scrambling to get a post written fast fast fast even though what you…

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Happy holidays to all! (plus, some links to stuff I enjoyed!)

Well, my scrumptious darlings, I am going to take a little break from posting while all the holiday celebrations and debauchery are taking place. (NB: “Debauchery” is a joke. I am the least debauchery-prone person ever because I get tired quickly and need to head home to bed. But this year I swear to God I’m going to do something for New Year’s.) I will still be around commenting on your posts and asking you to spoil the endings of the books you’ve been reading, but I probably won’t be posting again until January. (Though who knows? I can’t see…

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Presents

So for Amy’s Meaningful Gift Exchange series (Amy, in case I haven’t said it recently, you are a delight in every way, and when I have thought about quitting blogging in the past, you are one of the bloggers I always think how much I would miss), we are writing posts about meaningful gifts. And I thought I’d say a few words about being a good gift-giver. I am a really good gift-giver. I give thoughtful, meaningful, excellent gifts. I know you aren’t supposed to brag about yourself, and usually I don’t and I try to recognize my own limitations…

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I was not told about this.

So apparently if you read the blurb of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase you will be informed that the book takes place in “a time in history that never happened”, and that said alternate time involves England being overrun with wolves. WHAT. This is explained? Because it’s not explained in the book itself! Lacking this blurb you are left to make your own conclusions about whether there are or are not areas of England that are overrun with savage, daring, vicious packs of wolves that come out as soon as it’s dark and jump through train windows. I’ve written several…

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WAIT WHAT

There’s a movie of Midnight’s Children and that’s happening right now and I never knew? DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS AND DIDN’T TELL ME! I swear to God, bloggy friends. Did you know about this and didn’t tell me? What did I do to you to make you neglect me this way? Was it that time I vanished for the whole summer? Cause…well, no, that’s very fair if so. Salman Rushdie is not my favorite author (very few of his lady characters are interesting), although I like him a lot, and Midnight’s Children is not my favorite of his books,…

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