Po(sey) Sessions

One of the reason I miss updating my blog is that I enjoy going back and seeing what I was reading and if I liked it. Some of the books I have blogged about I still haven't finished. Some I never will. Lately I have been working on really interesting mix of reading, especially driven by my personal research in dystopian literature and communal living. Today I finished Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and it was basically amazing. It lost me in the last little bit, the moments just before the end. I am a little bummed out about this, but I think I will get over it soon and just go on loving the book. Hoping to try more books by this author soon. I "read" Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock via audiobook, and I just loved the narrator for it. I found out he is also the narrator for the audio of Perks of Being a Wallflower. Perks is one of those books I have been reading in a REALLY long time, this will be a good excuse to get back to it. I am extremely good at starting books. Prob...

Dystopia has been defined and redefined as every generation discovers and rediscovers the power it can have as a fiction, as an informative device, as a life changing event. There are many simple way to understand dystopia, but none of them help to understand the scope of dystopia. I pick up and put down dystopian research throughout my life.  When I was 16 I read 1984 and Thomas More's Utopia and these two books changed my life. They sparked in me interest and excitement. I have been chasing that desire ever since. I have also left and returned to blogging over the years. I have been stricken by the pressure to produce, but also by life getting in the way of things. The way that life gets in the way is essential to many dystopian narrative, especially the real life ones we see more and more often on the news. We used to fear Big Brother, and now we know he is there, yet somehow fall under the illusion that we are safe because we are too busy to deal with it. Dystopi...

It happened again. I am in the middle of yet another reading slump, this one came out of the middle of nowhere. I was reading a lot and enjoying the things I was working on and then BAM, no more interest in books anymore. It has been this way for about a month. One of the best and easiest ways for me to get out of slump is prepping for an author event. Whether the event is in the store or outside of it, I like to have a connection with authors I will meeting. This past week had a lot of author meeting in it. And these authors have written some pretty enticing titles. But no. No reading inspiration was found. I am still hopelessly slumped. I blame two people for this. Jessica Arnold and Joelle Charbonneau. Jessica Arnold ruins my life with a good book. Joelle's dystopian series ruined me for others. I like how a random internet search found them both pictured in a woody park, plotting against me. Not only do they give good plot, but they also ...

Growing up my grandparents always had a picture of the last supper in their dinning room. It was there for every meal I shared with them. But every one of my aunts and uncles hated it. When they asked if there was anything I wanted from the house when they moved I asked for the framed print of the last supper. My grandmother said that it was mine but that she wanted to keep it for a little longer. She moved from Connecticut to Texas she put it up in her dining room. And it was always there for every meal I shared with them. One day I was visiting my grandparents in Texas. I happened to be searching random things on the internet. I looked up some paintings of Salvador Dali and noticed he had a version of the last supper that looked very similar to the picture on the wall. I ran into the dinning room and it looked the same. I pulled the picture off the wall and it had a little card on the back that said Salvador Dali. It felt like kismet. When I first asked for the picture I d...

The fact of the matter is, I don't think I am a particularly good fan. There are the things I love: books, Cindy Pon, Frank Turner, Nathan Fillion, and food. But there is a limit to how much time I am willing to spend devoting time to things like waiting in line or aggressively stalking. Books and food respond well to aggressive stalking, Cindy Pon hasn't noticed yet, but for the others...I am not sure? Is it that I care about myself too much to be a good fan? In the fall of 2013, Mr. X and I saw two Frank Turner shows back to back. One in Salt Lake City and one in Las Vegas. We kind of felt like we were pretty good fans, but after the show was over in Vegas we were talking to some other concert goers who were seeing 5 or 6 shows in a single tour. And I just thought to myself, I am not sure I care enough about ANYTHING to do that. Maybe it is just part of being a grown up or being too self absorbed, but I can buy one Doctor Who shirt and feel satisfied. I can be half a se...

Thinking and writing have always been strong skills for me, but in the past few years I find myself more and more constipated when it comes to writing. I blame technology and the modern condition for this. I need to be consuming more mental roughage but take those two hours I have and spend them on Pinterest followed by complaining about how I don't have any time. The digestible format has lead me to start thinking in sound bites. And while it is important to think about the reach and sharablity of anything you put out there, will anyone even care about my current constipation and why do I even care if they do our they don't? The demand and judgement of an invisible audience has become an increasing issue for me over the past few years. The judgement of the other makes me feel like I don't have anything worth saying, but no one really is judging me. It is my own judgement of myself that is the issue. The past few weeks has brought me to refocus on some priorities in my ...

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