Ummm ... Back to school?

I have looked at this blog several times over the last few months. Played with the design, thought about writing something but always left the page with nothing new posted.

Today I added current reading and guilty pleasures lists as I have been reading a lot the last few months. Not that the lists reflect that :-). I have read literally piles of British Police Procedurals, all of which would have to go on the GP list as most were good not great writing. Many of them did have the sense of place that I look for in books. A real taste of the location a book is set in. There have been a few books 'set' in my area over the last few years but -- honestly?-- they could have been writing about a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e. There was no sense of the closeness of the Sound, no being awakened by seagulls or the scent of the marshes at low tide, the richness of the air. There was no attempt to bring the reader into the bedroom communities, the commuters walking the darkened streets in ones and twos, passing shops that close at 6pm 'cause almost everyone is at home.

Now. perhaps, I am more sensitive to this having loved geography enough to major in it decades ago. But it just takes a paragraph or two to set that scene and to give the reader a sense of a different setting, a different life.

Can one have a blog...

if they only post every 6 months? Probably not. But let's see if I can build a little more consistency in my life.

This is definitely a desire of mine : consistency. A daily practice of meditation and chanting. Exercise. There are ways in which my history of drifting or spontaneity (to be a little more positive about it) is a good one. I learn lots of ways to go from point A to point B by not taking the same route each trip; many delicious recipes have been invented by substituting what sound good for what is required. But it also leads to feeling unmoored sometimes. Going with the flow for so long that I really have no idea where I want to end up.

The last month or so I have been reading Martha Beck (and here ). I have read her articles since she wrote for Real Simple 10 years ago. This month I have read Finding Your Own North Star, Steering by Starlight, The Joy Diet (not a diet book), The Four Day Win (a plan to among other things, lose weight). Do you get a sense of desperation here? There is a little bit of that but mostly I love her writing. She is sciency enough to appeal to the wanna-be PhD in me and funny in a way that gets to my inner adolescent boy (the one who enjoys Preston/Child and Rollins books). All of this slightly panicked reading comes from trying my best to come up with where I want to go with the rest of my life. That seems to be the place you have to start if you want to make lasting change in what you experience.

A "new" post

Rather, a first post. I started this several months ago, thinking I would like a place to continue to talk about books. Then I promptly went into a several month reading vacation. Not that I didn't read ... I read blogs, recipes, Mac rumors, tv listings, newspapers/magazines (electronic and dead-tree), book reviews, and labels, labels, labels: food, supplements, fabric care. And I sat and I walked (less that I should) in our beautiful park/beach.

But over the last two weeks I have started reading again, easing into it with some juicy thrillers and some poetry. And on my to be read pile are some enticing fiction and non-fiction titles. So soon I should have some actual book thoughts (and food thoughts and dharma thoughts) to share.

Off to walk in the blessed sunshine and warm (for January) breeze. And then to wait for Steve Jobs to tell us what's up on the Infinite Loop in Cupertino.

may all be happy and well and free