Starting 2022 Thankfully Reading Weekend Early

That’s what I am doing today. Officially the event, hosted by Jenn of the blog Jenn’s Bookshelves, begins on Wednesday and runs through next Sunday.

Click on the image to be taken to the sign-up post for this year’s event.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m off for “9 Days, 17 hours, 30 minutes”. I have a list of possibilities of what I want to read, watch, and listen to. This morning, I’ve already started to listen to Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, written and read by Bono, which is on the list. Also on my list are Paul Newman’s autobiography, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man and the Serge Storms series by Tim Dorsey, of which I’m on the 14th: When Elves Attack. Apropos or not, the latter is a Christmas tale of sorts.

Even as I’m writing this, I’m listening to Bono’s memoir. I just fell into it and now I don’t know when today I will be able to get out of listening to Bono’s ~~tenor~~ baritone voice accompanied by his, and his band’s, music, some “reimagined” just for this recording. I’ll leave you with a sample:

Interrupting the doing

It’s a little bit before noon Saturday as I begin to write this. I’m in the midst of listening to two parts of a talk by Tara Brach titled “Beyond the Controlling Self” that she gave in 2019.

In the first part, she asks, “What can we do if caught in overdoing/overcontrolling?” with the answer to be mindful and “choose to stop the doing” and “to interrupt the doing.”

She talks about how it is important in our day to take pauses that invite us to beingness. I also am a strong believer in taking those pauses, that pause, in our week. It is what I am doing today and this weekend as I don’t have to work either today or tomorrow.

Initially, or at least as of yesterday, this was not the plan for today as I signed up for Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, which is happening today, at the last moment. But I realized that I have my phone set up to block Instagram, where I was planning to post updates, for the weekend. While I could have changed the settings, I also realized that I didn’t want to do that and after another week at work, I needed to “interrupt the doing” and pause.

So here I am, interrupting the doing. Namaste.

Holding on, loosely, not letting go

It’s been over a month since my last blog post so I thought I’d give you all an update on what I’ve been up to.

5-foot, 7-inches still. Ha.

But really, still the same…in a holding pattern (with work mostly, but also some personal), holding on – loosely? Like REO Speedwagon. Yeah. Sure, let’s go with that.

This morning I finished my first book in forever with The Silent Speaker, the 11th in the Nero Wolfe series, by Rex Stout. I’m now starting the 12th, Too Many Women. I’ve read most of them over the years, but a year or two (or three or more, I don’t know) ago, I decided to start over and read all of them eventually. I’ve been reading them via Libby at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

(Birthday) Party like it’s 1999

Earlier in the week, I talked about my serious plans for my birthday, which is today and I’m celebrating with a four-day weekend. In that post, I said I’d talk about my fun plans for my birthday later in the week. This is that post.

The main two events that we have planned are tomorrow night, starting with the premiere of Episode 5 of Season 13 of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Doctor Mordrid. That will be followed by the airing on PBS of Prince’s live concert from The Purple Rain Tour at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y. from March 1985:

I also have a YouTube playlist of a few hours of DJs spinning dance tunes on the turntables and mixing boards. I’ve already started listening to that. I have another playlist of music to wind down the party or the after party.

Other than that, we’ll see, as they say, where the spirit takes me.