Showing posts with label Chuck Palahniuk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chuck Palahniuk. Show all posts

12.29.2010

The GGA Project -- Day #18 "Really? Your Lunch?"

Ohhhh Golly.  So today was one of those days when I thought fitting in a new activity would be tough.  But I was excited to realize there are scores of restaurants near my work that I've never eaten at.  I usually bring my lunch, but it's nice to get out every now and then.  I would just check out Dino's -- some kind of burger/pasta/Greek hybrid that looked greasy in the good way and which I've been wanting to try for a while.







I was feeling good about my new lunch spot.  I was, anyway, until I snapped a picture of my actual meal


and realized, holy sh!t, I'm about to become one of those people who blog about their mf'n LUNCH!  Oh no.  How did I let that happen?  I couldn't let that happen.  So maybe it's better to just say that I tried a new place for lunch and leave the details out (?)  I don't know.  That's the veggie patty version of their San Franciscan burger up there, since I know you were wondering.

Other minor lunchtime firsts:  I ate one of the pickles they included in the basket.  I really can't stand pickles, but I hadn't tested that opinion in a while.  I thought, 'hey, while I'm trying new things, why not revisit the whole pickle thing.  I might find I like them now.'

Yeah, no.  Still hate the pickles.

And yes...blogging about pickles now.  Whew!

So then, why not make *this* one the official Today's New Activity: Stealing the Wi-Fi Outside Starbucks

After eating I was too full to add even a coffee to the mix, but I did want to catch up on some e-mail.  Well, look at that!  A parking spot right outside Starbucks.  Don't mind if I do.  I'm pretty sure the couple sitting in the car next to mine was there to steal Wi-Fi too.

Hey, here's a potential first for you, too:  sit for a minute and try to imagine explaining what I'm talking about in that last paragraph to somebody who died in the 1970's or earlier.  Even the 1980's.  I've thought about that before...how I would try to explain the Internet and e-mail to, say, my great-grandmother.  It is so WEIRD when you think about it, and especially when you think of how much time we spend doing things online.  Even just the phrase: "doing things online..."  What does that mean, really?  What did we do before to pass our time?

Moving right along...another first for the day:  horrible stomachache for the duration of the afternoon, following my greasy quasi-burger from the greasy spoon.  Big surprise!  But that wasn't anything I did myself--it just kind of happened to me, so I can't really count that.  Not only that though...I was also so very, very sleepy I didn't think I was going to make it through my shift.  And that is why I usually bring some light-to moderate lunch of leftovers or rice and beans, rather than spring for some gut-buster that's gonna bring on the zzzzz's.

Oh my god, I'm going to put my own self to sleep just with the incredibly uninspired boredom of this post!  This is what working in a bank all day does for my creativity :P

Anyway, I also took a new route to pick up the baby after work (bad move...it was waaaayyyy the long way; I won't be repeating that move).


Update on an earlier GGA post:  I found I didn't care much for Chuck Palahniuk's Diary, and I went ahead and stopped listening.  Actually, "putting down" a book-on-CD was a first as well.  I long ago allowed myself to stop reading books I didn't like, but it seems like the ultimate in lazy to stop a CD, seeing as I wasn't doing anything in the first place.  But I just couldn't take it anymore.  Not only were the characters and events kind of (very much) far-fetched, in certain senses, but I was annoyed with the reader as well.  It's hard to listen to an audio tape when you don't like the reader.  I was fed up listening to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food because the reader came off so snooty and sarcastic.  I loved the subject matter, but I barely made it through that one.  Anyway, the #1 thing that got on my nerves with Palahniuk's writing was this sentence structure, repeated over and over and over again, driving me crazy:

Modifier + subject + verb

As in,

"Looking over her reading glasses, Granmy says, "....""
"Staring at the painting on the wall, Misty Kleinman says, "...""

Ugh.  That was the other thing.  I think in the first 3 disks I heard, the phrase "Poor Misty Marie Kleinman" was used no less than 32 times.  And I'm not exaggerating.  Yeah. I have to add something to my little sidebar phrase.  Life is also too short for annoying audio books!

12.13.2010

The GGA Project -- Day #2 "Chuck"

Lately I'm having a terrible time finding (making) time to read.  Facebook time: no problem.  Reading time: problem.  I have to say a big part of this is that I don't have a good reading spot these days.  I used to always read while lying down in bed, but now that my baby boy and I share a room, I am reluctant to risk waking him with the reading light, and I just can't seem to get comfortable anywhere else.


The compromise I've made is to listen to books on CD during my long hours spent commuting to and from work and driving the 20 mile minimum I travel at least 3 times a week in order to visit any of my friends.  I'd never listened to a book before about 3 months ago, and I'm liking the new discovery.


Sooooo, I went to the library this afternoon with every intention of finding a sci-fi book on CD to check out.  This fit squarely (yes, the word choice is significant) into my try new things project as I've resisted sci-fi for years, despite the strong-armed encouragement of a host of friends and former coworkers (Kenneth).  Unfortunately (fortunately), there were only a few options, none of them viable because they were parts of series where the 1st installment was not in stock.  Anyway, I thought checking one of these out would be unfair anyway because their almost guaranteed suckiness in the grand scheme of even the sci-fi genre would have been too convenient an excuse for me to poo poo the whole movement for all time.  I thought that if I'm to read/listen to a sci-fi book, I should at least give it a fair shake and find a decent representation of the genre.


Plan B jumped off the shelf:  Today's New Activity: Chuck Palahniuk.  Diary, specifically.



I've never read a novel by Palahniuk (best known for Fight Club).  To be honest, I'm kind of scared of him for some vague reason.  My friend Jesse is a big fan (or maybe just a fan?), and maybe he told me something once upon a time...the overall sense is that perhaps Palahniuk likes to flirt with the grotesque...along those lines anyway.  Also, I feel like he's a real guy's kind of author.  The only people I've ever known to be fans were young men or else girls who are into ultra guy type things.  Anyway that assumption and speculation is about to be put to rest because I'll be listening to it come tomorrow morning.


I think I'll save the sci-fi adventure for month 10 or 11 of this project.  It definitely feels like a kind of final frontier for me.  And by then my mind will ideally be more open to new ideas and forays into imaginary universes.  Really.  I look forward to the day I can embrace that prospect with open arms :)