Bookshelf:

Packing

Don't expect regular updates for a little while yet: Closing on my house is very near, and if all goes well I'll be moving next weekend, which means that I've been spending this weekend packing.

A cow-orker of mine gave me a big stack of boxes, and Debbi and I have spent much of the last few days filling them. It's actually been going surprisingly smoothly. We've packed over 50 boxes, which includes all of my books (fiction and non-fiction), comic books, CDs, videotapes, audiotapes, computer manuals, and office supplies, plus most of my games and assorted knick-knacks. The big chunks left to pack are dishes and clothes, and the latter should not be much trouble at all.

I'm pretty happy it's gone so smoothly. I'd been dreading packing, just because I've never packed myself up before and didn't really know how long it would take. But, I can be industrious when I put my mind to it, and Debbi's been a big help with labelling and organizing, so I'm not sure it could have gone much better. I'll also need to disassemble some of my furniture (notably my futon) before the big day.

I've lined up movers for next weekend, but there's still a lot to do. I should be signing all the closing papers tomorrow, and I also need to phone the utilities to transfer them into my name at my new place. Plus I'll need to get a cashier's check for my down-payment, and do a final walk-through of the house. And that's all before moving.

I also need to buy a washer and dryer (my friend Rob has been strongly suggesting I get a front-loading washer since it saves on soap and water and is gentler in clothes), though I think I won't have time to search again until after I move. And there will be other little things to pick up, not to mention that I'm not quite ready for my sister's wedding yet...

It's just gonna be a really busy month! So I hope you'll forgive me if updates are sparse.

On top of it all, I got sick last week. It was just a cold, but it dampened my energy considerably on Wednesday (when I went home early) and Thursday, and I've been suffering the lingering symptoms (scratchy throat, congestion, coughing) through the weekend, although over all I feel much better.

Thursday was doubly a bummer since I didn't have the energy to play the whole first night of the winter ultimate league, though I did play the first game, and though my endurance isn't there yet, I didn't pull anything and some of my instincts started to come back to me. I'm looking forward to another winter of the game.

I also finished the book for this week's Kepler's speculative fiction book discussion, Kate Elliott's Jaran. Unfortunately, it turns out that this is perhaps the most boring book I've read since Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum (albeit without the interesting concepts of Eco's novel). Although billed as science fiction, Jaran is really a fantasy-romance, with a young woman dropped into a world with nomadic tribes of riders (all human), where she hooks up with one tribe to try to get back to her own people. There's some intrigue with some aliens riding with the Jaran, but the thrust of the story is Tess and the group's leader, Ilya, falling in love with one another.

Almost nothing in this book worked for me. The characters - especially Tess and Ilya - are entirely one dimensional. Actually, Ilya at least is the "stoic and repressed leader" type, while Tess is a complete cipher, and even by the end of the book her motivations and desires are a mystery to me. The book is nearly plotless, with random wandering and conflicts popping up from time to time, a few supporting characters dying for little reason, the aliens carrying out a plan which is not foreshadowed and which occupies maybe twenty pages of the book, and - most importantly - the main characters having few real trials to overcome and nothing really to give up in order to get what they want. The only reason their relationship is so difficult is because Ilya turns out to be either a total brute or a complete fucking idiot, and neither possibility is really addressed subsequently.

The book is amazingly long (494 pages), and could have easily been cut by about 40%. Overall, it reads a lot like it wants to be Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor, only without any of the plot or personality or humor or humanity that Bujold gives her story. Unless you enjoy long, rambling, blazingly obvious romances, avoid this one at all costs.

On a cheerier note, I am getting excited about moving, really I am. I'm looking forward to the better location, and more space, and nicer views, and pleasant outdoors seating places that I'll have, and although the cats will be stunned at first by the move (Jefferson in particular is already very suspicious of all my packing), I think they'll also love the views, and the fact that they'll at last have stairs to run up and down.

It's taken me a long time to get to this point, and it'll take a bunch more effort to bridge the final gap, but I can do it. Look how far I've come so far!