h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi.

I told you I was a lousy correspondent... Anyway, I know I owe you an email from a horribly long time ago. A couple of months at least. As with all things like that, the later I get the harder it is to reply. One gets caught in a near-terminal embarrassment loop. Or at least that's what happens to me.

How are you?

(Couldn't help overhearing...)
If it's any consolation (constellation?) I too owe Arisztid an e-mail or twelve. Whenever I actually get time to write anything (which seems far too rare these days anyway), I can never remember any of the interesting stuff I was going to say.

(I'll leave you to it.)

Hello Ivan! Lovely to hear from you! You never have to feel embarrassed... I don't mind. All that matters is that maybe one day I get an email eventually. I do love hearing from you but I understand that you have other things to do too

Hi there Jerms! Lovely to see you on again! Don't worry about saying something /interesting/. I'd just be happy to hear something boring from you.

Actually that goes for both of you. Whenever I sit down to write when I actually sit back and try to consider if what I'm writing is interesting I'm always convinced its not. No car chases... no exploding buildings.... Oh well. I'd say the majority of life is probably pretty "boring" but I'm interested in hearing what you're up to anyway

There are no huge exciting things happening here either, but that doesn't stop me being as busy as a big busy thing.

I've just had Mum staying here for a couple of weeks - my boss has a mystery illness so I've been trying to do her job as well as mine - we had the first frost of the season this morning - I'll be out of town most of next week - I'm on leave in June and I'll be seeing Tanzen in Melbourne ... There's a few journals as well.

There, I think that's a fair summary of the last few months.

Well I'll write you an email and let you know what I've been up to. Or maybe I'll make it a journal entry. The only thing is with email I can usually get more than a two or three sentence response out of people. On the other hand if you're busy this is probably the best way for now.
Now that it's summer it seems I have a little more time for hootoo
I'm busy today and tomorrow so it will probably have to wait until Sunday.
It's so good to hear from you though. I've missed you

Yeah, hootoo's best for me these days. Short replies with a conversation developing, rather than the dreaded blank page and the self-imposed need to write several hundred words to make an email worthwhile. I know that's not entirely logical, but that's the state of my brain these days.

The main challenge at the moment is that I have a staff member with Issues. These are mostly health Issues, but other Issues come about as a result. After a day of trying to help her through problems I come home too tired to write emails...

Now who's being terrible about replying! Sorry for the wait. I've been trying to cram a million things into my time off before I go back to school on Monday.

I've posted my journal so you can see what's new.

The Gay Fiction turned out to be really interesting. Of course I love that professor so I'm biased but it seemed good to me. I feel like I learned a lot and all of the books were good. I got an A-. I'm feeling extremely excited about that. He's an extremely hard marker and I've never been able to manage more than an B+ in his classes so its very exciting.

This afternoon I'm going to training because I'm going to work in the election. I'm sure I said I wouldn't do this again but the money makes it too attractive to resist.

Poor you coming home too tired to write emails. But I completely understand. We'll see how long I can manage to stay on Hootoo this time

Well, I hope you stick around for the long term - even if you only get here once a week or whatever.

Getting an A- in any course is worthy of note. Well done! (Did you come across any authors particularly worth reading?)

My latest Journal covers off the only worthwhile things I've done this week. The weekend is full of housew*rk ahead of an estate agent's inspection on Friday. Next week will be crammed with meetings. I'm tired just thinking about it...

I hope to be around... but I wont jinx it by saying that I'm staying... working so far.

I did come across books worth reading. To be honest they were all quite good. I'll give you the list. I don't think there are any that I didn't enjoy. I seem to have similar reading tastes as my prof. He always picks good books.
The City and the Pillar - Gore Vidal
The Invisible Glass- Whal (can't remember his first name)
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood
Love in the Backrooms - John Rechy
Dancer from the Dance - Andrew Holleran
The Beautiful Room is Empty - Edmund White
Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx
Grief - Andrew Holleran
I liked some better than others. I think, sad as it was, Giovanni's Room was probably my favourite. I wrote two essays for the course. One was on the progression towards invisioning a positive homosexual relationship starting with The City and the Pillar, ending with A Single Man and with Giovanni's Room in the middle as a kind of step. The second was on Christianity and Hosexuality in Dancer from the Dance. It was a fun course to do.

Poor you doing housework. Hopefully you're all finished by now. Though of course it never really ends. At the moment my room is filled with dust and wood shavings and interesting things like that. And I have a mountain of laundry to do.

Hope you've been well since I last talked to you

Yes, I've been well. There were more headaches, but I've stopped drinking things with caffeine in them and I think the trouble might be over. Well, I hope so anyway.

It's an odd thing, but I haven't read *any* of those books. I know of them all, and have every intention of reading them one day, but somehow I never get the time. So many other things to read...

I was at the dentist earlier, just for a check-up. What is it with dentists? Whatever I do to my teeth, however much I brush or floss or whatever, they're never happy. It all gets rather tedious and tiresome.

When I start writing disjointed stuff like this, it means I'm tired. I know this is a dull little post but there's nothing I can do about it tonight. Hell day in the office; my brain's fried.

I'm sorry to hear about your headaches! But I'm glad they're getting better now that you've stopped drinking things with caffeine. I had to stop as well. It's hard sometimes because I like the taste of Coke. Good thing I was never a real coffee drinker! That would be so hard!

I have a billion books on my list of things to read. Well of course that's an exaggeration... but you know what I mean. I'm thinking of making myself a list of things to read over the summer and then I can just plough through it. I seem to spend a lot of my time just staring blankly at my bookshelves because I can't decide what to read! Too many choices!!

If you want a personal recommendation, and I did like all of the books, I think Giovanni's Room was my favourite even though it was sad. But heck, they were all sad

I hide from the dentist as much as possible. I brush and floss but you're right. No one is ever satisfied. And sitting in that chair with the bright light on me and surrounded by torturous looking instruments I feel as if I was being interrogated about it. And it doesn't help that the dental hygenist never seems to believe me. 'Are you sure you floss? Maybe you should floss more!' Run screaming

No worries about disjointed posts. I understand. Besides, it wasn't boring. And it took me forever to get to it anyway. I just finished an intensive but completely awesome class. It was on apocalyptic themes in film. I loved it.

And now I'm back from my holidays - 12 days away, most in Adelaide but some in Melbourne - I'll do a Journal about it later. I'm very very tird, and not just because I had to use a walking stick for most of it. (Sprained my ankle on my first full day in Adelaide...) It's a good thing I have another week off w*rk.

A box of books turned up at lunchtime today. Another should turn up tomorrow. Once again, there was no room in the suitcase for all the books I accumulated. I'll have to get a bigger house soon.

I now have about five dozen books on my not-read-yet shelf.

I was starting to wonder what had happened to you

Holidays sound lovely Did you enjoy yourself? ...aside from the sprained ankle. I hope it feels better soon

I'm looking forward to your journal entry!

I completely understand your book problem. I'm facing the same dilemma myself. There is practically no room to move in my bedroom because of all the bookshelves. Good thing they're so easy to build! I don't even want to think about how many books I have that are on my "to read" list. On the other hand it's nice to know that I have a variety to choose from when I finish my next book I just finished "The Big Over Easy" by Jasper Fforde.

How are you getting your books home if there wasn't room in your suitcase?

I sent the excess books home by post. $14.90 for 6.5kg from Melbourne; not sure about the other box yet as Mum did the actual sending for me, from Adelaide. It works out a whole lot cheaper than excess luggage and it certainly made the suitcase easier to manage while using the Stick.

I hope the second box turns up today. Tomorrow I want to go to the National Portrait Gallery - there's an exhibition of Vanity Fair portraits... It's said to be rather good.

Journal's up now.

It's about time Jasper fforde put another book out. I'll have to look him up and see what's planned and when.

Very smart of you to send your books by post. I'll have to remember that. I usual go visit my grandparents with another member of my family and if we've flown I have to beg them for space in their luggage for my excess books.

Let me know how the National Portrait Gallery is. I hope you enjoy yourself. It's very good of you to get out while your ankle is sprained. I'm sure I would be very tempted to lay on the couch and watch DVD's.

I'm lucky in that I'm behind in my Jasper fforde reading. I've only read two of his books so far. Hopefully he'll put out another book before I catch up

It seems there's no new fforde scheduled until the end of the year in the US and later than that elsewhere. Never mind, I'll just have to be patient.

My second box of books didn't show up today. Maybe I'll stay home tomorrow too, just in case, and head out on Thursday.

I definitely won't have caught up by then. Do you know if it's something new or is it a continuation of a series?

What kind of books did you get while on vacation?

The fforde will be something new, apparently. 'Shades of Grey', I think it's called. After that there's a new Thursday Next book planned - 'One of our Thursdays is Missing'. So that should keep us busy in due course.

I'm still waiting for the second box of books. How irritating.

My holiday purchases covered all sorts of things. There's a huge heap of miscellaneous things from a second-hand sale, some travel books, some non-new fiction, some cookery writing (as opposed to cookbooks), and a few histories as well. There's also 'Last Poetic Gems', a collection of verse from the world's worst poet, William McGonagall. (Spike Milligan was a fan, which should give you some idea.) You can find McGonagall online at http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/ if you dare. If you haven't encountered his work before, I recommend http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/poems/lpghero.htm - it's entirely typical of his output.

Well I'm certainly looking forward to more Jasper Fforde books. I'm reading "Lost in a Good Book" right now and enjoying it thoroughly

Reading anything good at the moment?

Thanks for telling me about McGonagall. As soon as you said Spike Milligan was a fan I had to go and read "The Hero of Rorke's Drift." It was quite amusing. I like the understatement at the beginning where the two horsemen say that their news is going to cause them all some bother

I was planing to get a lot of studying done today but no such luck. I ended up going into town and buying two new pairs of pants (there was a great sale) and then I spent some time with my Dad at his work and had lunch with my Mum and two friends of my honorary aunt who just came in for the day on a cruise ship. All in all a good day but I'm afraid It means lots of studying on Friday. The German final is approaching alarmingly fast.
On the bright side every day brings me closer to registering for next years classes

I'd like to reread all of the Thursday Next books over the next few days, but this collection of unread stuff simply must be addressed. I think I'll do the food books. There's Elizabeth David on bread and yeast cookery; there's also another thing by someone or other about food adulteration and illegal (or just plain stupid) additives over the ages.

I could, of course, read McGonagall - but more than one of his poems a day might be damaging to the mind.

The rest of my books turned up today, hurrah. Now I have to work out where to put them all.

Good luck with the German. Do you have set plans for next year's classes, or is it too early to be sure?