Egads, You're Right

Sabrina, you're right. And because I love you, I'm going to give you some excuses for why I've been absent from le blog. (In order that I think of them, not in order of importance.)

1. School. Specifically, The School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University (Indianapolis). I'm two semesters in and just started volunteering at a PreK-8 parochial school on our city's north side that had to cut their media specialist for budgetary reasons; I'm cataloging books, developing a collection development plan (which I'm a little surprised they didn't have already), and then will commence the task of weeding (which hasn't been done in about 20 years).

2. Podcasts. Not mine, mind you. Rather, I am listening obsessively to a podcast called The Enthusiasticast, in which they enthusiastically recommend (roughly) one book each week. These two Canuks have saucy mouths, strong opinions, and magic recommendations (not necessarily in that order). Seriously. It is a rare occasion that I don't add their recommendations to my "To Be Read" list. I came in late to the party, so I've been listening a lot to get through the backlog and get up to date. Books that I've added to my list based on their recommendation(s):

• The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
• The City & The City by China Mieville
• The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
• His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire #1) by Naomi Novik
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (although, in my defense, I usually read the Pulitzer winners, but was choosing to let this one languish until [the loud one, John?] talked about all of the wicked comic references and pushed me over the edge)
• All-Star Superman (Volume 1 and Volume 2) by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
• Daemon and Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez
• Flawless by Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell
• SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (and a bunch of other behavioral economics books)
• Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

That's quite a list, no? That's what I like--the recommendations are broad and fun to listen to. (Not wholly unlike the Books on the Nightstand podcast that put me onto The Enthusiasticast.) I'm not interested in taking their recommendation to read WAR by Sebastian Junger, but I put Restrepo (the documentary complement) on the top of my Netflix queue--a coveted spot.

[Note: Those links are to the books on GoodReads... not to their podcast-ed recommendations. You'll have to go to the linked mainpage for the Podcast and do the legwork to track down each individual title. Or just take my word for it, and add them to your list too.]

3. Church. For some time (over a year) I've been working with our Middle School and High School students at First Baptist--teaching on Sunday mornings and serving as the girls' small group leader/mentor on Wednesday nights--and loving it. This summer we took a sweet trip to Creation Fest (in Pennsylvania) and had a rock-your-face-off awesome time. Since then I've been trying to step up and keep the kids "high on life." This means doing an extra weekly small group with just the girls to talk about "stuff" and I'm planning an "Impact Retreat" out to Philadelphia for next month. The investment is SO worth it.

4. Football. My nephew is in the throws of High School Football--he's an outside line backer--so every Friday night (Varsity) and Saturday morning (JV) is blocked out for watching him play. I can't say that it's time wasted. I love high school football. A lot. Perhaps too much? Impossible.

So that's me. What have you been up to?