Today, Portland - Tomorrow, the World!

Tomorrow we fly to Amsterdam, landing around 8:30 AM on Wednesday the 16th.  We'll be spending four or five days in Amsterdam before heading to Paris to stay with family friends for a week; after Paris, we travel to a small town near Pisa where we will stay with the same family friends.  Finally, my brother and I head back to Paris for a week-long adventure.  I've been brushing up on my French (and am bringing along a dictionary of verbs) because, while I can usually understand French almost as though it were English, I'm occasionally a bit hesitant about clever conversational gambits.  I blame this on the fact that my high school French teacher routinely ordered students out of her classroom.


The only Italian I know was learnt from a book of Italian slang that I bought used, and should probably not be uttered in polite company.  I have an unfortunate habit of collecting travelers' dictionaries; I own them in French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish.  Most of them I found for fifty cents at Powell's Books, meaning that they were published in the mid-1990s.  They were very useful back when I was writing a spy novel; now I mostly read them when I've re-read all my other books too many times.


I've packed plenty of writing material but fairly minimal reading material.  My speed-reading ability is quite the curse on long trips, as I can never pack as many books as I could read.  In the past, I've translated that into writing a great deal instead while traveling; I hope to produce the same result this time.


Blog posts may be few and very far between until I get back to Portland.  A wonderful summer to all!

World Cup!

I can't believe I forgot to mention the World Cup in my last post.  I love it - watching the different playing styles, hearing the underdog stories, feeling the frenzy of everyone else who's watching - and we'll be in Europe for most of it.  Definitely preferable to being home, where our local TV stations show only what they consider to be "major" matchups.  We're going to watch the US-England match downtown tomorrow, but I confess I don't have any particular favorite - sure, it might spark more interest in soccer if the US were to win the World Cup, but I don't think we're the best team and most of my favorite players are on other teams.


Mostly, I just want to watch some fantastic soccer.

A bit of review

Well, that was a longer break from posting than I had intended.  First off, yes, I did graduate; the Paper of Doom on gender hybridity and punishment in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dracula turned out very well, and I have this crazy idea that I might actually turn it into a book.  Crazy as it might seem, I would be analyzing literature by choice.


My summer so far has consisted largely of catching up on pleasure reading.  I read all of Amelia Awater-Rhodes' books, some military memoirs, a few old favorites, and some cookbooks; I'll post a full list at the end of this entry (mockery is strictly forbidden).  I've done all sorts of mundane things, like unpacking thirteen boxes of stuff into my room (quite the feat), spray-painting rubber boots so that they looked cooler, driving to and from various places in Portland...I did make it out to Cannon Beach for the day with one of our dogs, and had a grand time.


I've made a lot of progress on Kinesthesia, the '06 WriDay novel, in my head, but have done very little on paper.  With a little luck, though, I'll get more writing done, because we're flying to Amsterdam on Tuesday!  I'm traveling with my parents and brother to Amsterdam, Paris, and a small town near Pisa.  Historically, I write a great deal when I travel - the famous example is fourth grade, when we spent three months in Europe and I wrote a 250-page novel.  Even if I don't get a lot actually written, it should be an amazing experience.  I'm particularly looking forward to French and Italian food, which I was too young to enjoy on past trips.


Portland's rainy summer continues, meaning that I have lots of incentive to stay inside and write.  Or sleep, or watch TV, or play computer games...life is full of distractions.


Reading List, May 24-present (* by books I had not previously read)
*A Wizard of Mars, Diane Duane
In the Forests of the Night, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Demon in My View
Midnight Predator
*Persistence of Memory
*Token of Darkness
Hawksong
*Snakecharm
*Falcondance
*Wolfcry
*Wyvernhail (I was surprised and impressed by the level of nuance in this five-book series)
*Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
*How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman
*The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Jewish Kid From Chicago Fights Hezbollah, Joel Chasnoff
*Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero, Marco Martinez
*Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, Bill Buford
The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
Carpe Jugulum
Night Watch
Sabriel, Garth Nix
*The Rough Guide to California (more skimmed than read)