Catch-up

Finally having a quiet morning at home, though I must confess that I feel flat and dispirited rather than relieved. It is probably just accumulated fatigue; I am hoping that another couple days of relative peace and quiet will make a positive difference.

Minor light reading around the edges (jury duty and holiday travels both entail lots of time for novel-reading): Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground (these books just get better and better as the series progresses); a few last lingering books by Diana Wynne Jones that I hadn't yet read and that are now available for Kindle (I really like her books more than almost anything else I can think of), Power of Three and The Homeward Bounders and a collection of stories called Believing is Seeing; Matthew J. Kirby's Icefall (implausibly modern heroine, but very nice otherwise); Terry Pratchett's delightful Dodger (probably inferior from a literary point of view to Leon Garfield's Dickensian children's books, but much more lovely to read - those are incredibly dispiriting); Tom Piccirilli's The Last Kind Words, which I enjoyed a good deal but which is very strangely reminiscent of Holly Black's superficially entirely different Curse Workers series; Attica Locke's The Cutting Season (even better than her first one); Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath, which I thoroughly enjoyed (presidential vampires!); and William Landay's Defending Jacob.

Also read two non-electronic books at my mother's over Xmas: a copy of Noel Streatfeild's Traveling Shoes, which my mom obtained at a used book sale, and Garry Disher's Whispering Death, borrowed from the public library, which I thought was quite reasonable.

Having completely rotted my brain by reading too many undemanding novels over the past couple weeks (not to mention the candy!), my only plan for the rest of the week is to indulge in vast quantities of exercise and read this.

I also need to look back through the year's blog posts so that I can write an end-of-year round-up....

Just a note

to observe that I was released from jury duty at the end of the day - they kept the four of us who were alternates in a separate room for the afternoon, but though deliberations hadn't finished, they let us go regardless. Too tired for true celebration to be in order, but I am incredibly happy that I can spend tomorrow luxuriously at Chelsea Piers - and finally get back to end-of-semester grading responsibilities!

Reacher's checklist

Via my father, Jack Reacher's wardrobe choices! (FT site registration required. NB in the middle books of Sara Paretsky, there is too much detail about the washing machine - it is the way of V.I. to wash clothes ruinously dirtied by some investigative enterprise, forget them in the washer and then find them smelling moldy a few days later and run them through another wash cycle - this is also the first set of books I read, other than the novels of Dick Francis, where the detective's exercise habits occupy a significant proportion of the pages, including the question of the affordability of new running shoes on a private investigator's income).

I remain excessively frazzled, but a good play and late dinner were soothing. Last night I needed to be home more than I needed to be at the opera; we sensibly left at the first intermission!

My main feeling right now is intense self-reproach at having dug myself so deep into the fatigue pit this semester that jury duty seemed cataclysmic. Now we have the schedule for the next week, it seems at least doable (in retrospect, based on the intensity of my distress yesterday and today, I probably should have deferred service, but between teaching and travel, it's rare that I am actually available, and I thought I should get it over with). We have Tuesday off and that's one of the two days I had a lot of stuff scheduled for on campus, so I only had to reschedule half, not all. Still slightly stymied as to when and how I will read the large heap of end-of-semester student work and dissertation chapters, but it should be that it will be one week from now and I'll be done with the fall semester work and also, if the trial isn't over, have a week's hiatus for Xmas holiday. Could be worse....

Jury duty

Am very depressed to say that I am an alternate on a jury, and that the trial may run into early January. So glum about it that I almost burst into tears on the street outside the courthouse when they let us go around 1 this afternoon with a call for tomorrow morning!

My faint hope that they will send us home tomorrow after all does not have much basis in reality, but I will wait till the end of the day tomorrow to reschedule my work obligations for next week - it's all stuff like dissertation chapter conferences that can be reconfigured as evening one-on-one meetings if necessary.

Am going to do some meditation now in the hope that it may assist me to greet this turn of events with greater equanimity than I have mustered thus far....

12/12/12

Final classes plus other school obligations plus day one of jury duty have absolutely flattened me. This is all I have to share!

Thanks to the kindness of the excellent Maggie Griffin, I saw the Jack Reacher movie on Monday night - highly enjoyable, though of course I will always much prefer the books. The urban audience is seized with hilarity whenever Tom Cruise has either banter or a fight scene!

Great lunch on Tuesday with Amazon publicity people. I'm really excited about what they're going to be able to do for the book. Galleys not quite ready yet, but I should have them soon.

Light reading around the edges: Attica Locke's superb Black Water Rising and J. Robert Lennon's Familiar, which I also enjoyed a good deal, though not perhaps as much as some other particular favorites in a similar vein (1Q84, Glimpses).

I haven't been able to become enthusiastic about the current season of Fringe, but perhaps I'll give it another go this evening. I am so tired that I can hardly see straight!