Of books
My self-imposed attempts to keep up with the BookBonobo project having completely failed, largely due to my own laziness (I get home from work and most nights have no more energy than to play the next few moves in Scrabulous on Facebook or watch some pointless TV) and in part due to other reading necessities, I have joined a book club that, to my mind, seems rather more manageable.

Rather than the noble, but in my case apparently unattainable goal of 52 books per year, I've joined a book club on (yes, where else?) Facebook started by a former co-worker. The Constant and Quiet Book Club will be reading a book a month, and discussing on Facebook.

I'd tried the BookBonobo project in an attempt to expand my reading horizons. It's worked, a little. I've read books that I might not have otherwise picked up. But I still find myself gravitating towards history books, or historical fiction, and it's time to move on. Even one of the better comedic books I've picked up recently was historical fiction (Lamb: The Gospel According to Bif, by Christopher Moore, anyone? And on a completely random note - I saw another copy of this in Chapters yesterday that actually looks like an old-school Bible, complete with black leathery cover and gold-embossed print, along with the gold leafing down the edges of the pages and the ribbon bookmark... awesome! No, I didn't buy it. I only have two bookcases, and they're getting suspiciously full... And while the e-Book reader that Sandy recently purchased does look cool, I still need to be able to physically turn pages made of paper. E-Books are not for me.).

So first up is, go figure, a book that is essentially a history of Santa Claus. History. Ah well. I did vote for it. Spirit of the season and all that. And the history nerd in me was really excited. But I'm sure I will get outvoted at some point in the near future and my horizons WILL be expanded.

So, since this will be occuring, I will, from here on in, provide a revised version of my old "Currently Reading" at the bottom of each post. I haven't started Santa Claus yet (waiting for it to come in at Audrey's, so that I can buy it at the US price, rather than the Canadian), but as for the rest of it, here goes:

I Am Reading:
Quasi - Academically: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (David Lowenthal) 17
For Fun: Le Parfum (Patrick Susskind)
Pile of Unread Books on my bookshelf: 17
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Of funerals
I feel like a bit of an idiot. Today I attended a funeral. I didn't know this woman particularly well. I don't know her family. I don't know most of her friends, and only barely know the rest on a professional level. I didn't interact with her at all outside the university, with the exception of a couple of emails after I went away to England. And yet her death and the fact that I won't ever see her again are affecting me a lot, and I don't entirely understand why.

She was an absolute whirlwind. As somone pointed out today, she was like a force of nature - sometimes a tornado, sometimes a rainbow. To continue quoting from the eulogies, she knew what she wanted, when she wanted it, and as long as she got it at precisely the right moment, she was pretty easy to please. And lord only knows, she's probably up there attempting to micromanage the way Saint Peter runs the gates of heaven. She drove a lot of people nuts at various times. What matters most, though, I think, is that she showed me kindness during a period in my life when I really needed it. And it is that that I will always remember. And from what I heard today, I was not the only one.

What gets me, is that it was yet another person that I know who's died of cancer. It's snatching up the best and brightest, and ripping them away from us.

Dietlind Bechthold was an amazing woman. Especially in the last fourteen months of her life, as you can see chronicled on the short website she and her loved ones mainted.

I will always remember how I finally learned her name. After continued banter about some paper or other I was handing in after a long semester of handing in paper after paper, I finally said something along the lines of "You know my name now, so what's yours?", and it started from there. She'd photocopy papers for me - but only in return for my postering half of the Tory Building... I can still bring to mind our chats about her German courses, the paper she had in storage for me from a prof that I didn't want back, the discussion with another faculty member about the colour of a third faculty member's robes (he claimed 'Crimson', we all thought pink...). She was about the only person behind that counter that didn't scare me half to death - and the only one that ever bothered to learn my name, even after 5 years of handing in papers and picking things up and asking questions.


I wish I had faith. At least then I'd believe that she wasn't gone for good and that maybe we'd get to trade witty insults again some day.


Much love to you, Dietlind.