Projects

I forgot last time to talk about my progress on all my little projects, and I find it very helpful to look at my progress and see where I’m at. First up, my Reading projects:

Literature: I have read The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter – The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. This isn’t a comprehensive list of all the literature I’ve read, but the progress I’ve made on my literature reading list, that was basically the reading list in How To Read Literature like A Professor. I think this is pretty good progress since deciding to do this. I loved the Bloody Chamber and The Scarlet Letter. Huck Finn I have some mixed feelings about…

Arthurian Legend: I am still working on my first book, The Mabinogion. It’s dense, and the legends are repetitive and confusing. Also, I’ve been working on it while reading other books instead of focusing on it specifically, which was probably a mistake. I’m about halfway, I should just read the rest of the damn thing so I can move on to whatever dense, ridiculous book is next on this list.

Witchcraft: I’ve read a lot of witch books at this point but I started off with a bad and dated reading list so I read a book and a half on shamanism before realizing shamanism is…problematic and uninteresting to me as a practice and doesn’t tie in to any witchcraft that I do so I dropped all the books off the list having to do with shamanism. Then I dropped all the books that were impossible to find, dropped all the books that didn’t specifically have to do with witchcraft, and then added witchcraft books I literally have on my shelf and haven’t read yet. Then I guess I forgot to go back to the list. So. read the Way of the Shaman and part of another book and then stopped. I guess I’ll grab one of the unread ones from my shelf so I know to work on it when I’m able to.

Book Club: I started reading Brain on Fire for the next book club meeting at Vintage Books, which is next Sunday, then stopped because I’ve been non-stop crocheting voodoo dolls. I plan to make an effort this week to finish the book before book club. Also, I’m hoping the ARC for Hank Green’s book came in while I was off work so I can get started on that for B&N book club. I also watched a video of Hank Green’s last night with him talking about his endpapers. It was interesting.

NOW Other Projects:

Book Store Project: I go around photographing and talking about book stores in the Portland area and post about them on social media to encourage people to shop at them instead of on Amazon for their books. It’s been a little while since I’ve managed to do this, and I’ve have kept meaning to go down to Bingo books because they started following me on Instagram, no doubt hoping I’ll wander over their way some day. However, I happened to be up in North Portland for my therapy appt. the other day and thought, “Hey. There’s a book store up here.” So we went to that one instead, its called Another Read Through and it’s an awesome lesbian-owned bookstore and I found a book in this out of print Toni LP Kelner series that I’m reading. Next stop is Bingo Books. Hopefully. Maybe I’ll make a plan to do that on my next day off.

Portland Staircase Project: I have a blog I’ve been neglecting too. I have the Portland Stair Book and in my blog I go around and visit these Portland staircases and write about them. The last actual one I did was probably Laurelhurst Park, and I think that was back last April? Anyway, feeling like getting shit done, I went from the book store the other day to Mt. Tabor to do the Mt. Tabor stair circuit in the book. It took hours, it is four miles long, and a lot of it is straight uphill, but it is beautiful, I got lots of wonderful pictures, and I already have a rough draft for my blog entry, so maybe I’ll be getting that up soon. Then what should be next? I want to do the stairs at the end of the Morrison bridge because they are right there in the parking lot where I always park downtown. Next time I’m downtown I’ll do those staircases. Good. I have plans.

Voodoo Dolls: The craft faire is October 20. So far I have completed 15 voodoo dolls, set up an entire Etsy shop, and signed up for square. I still need a lot more voodoo dolls, a table, some chairs, and to figure out how I’m going to display these suckers.

Writing: I have almost completed a short story about vampires and comic con, I’ve had it read through twice by Chance and then sent it to Reed to read over. I would really like to organize my own writing group, though, so I have more than just one person providing me with feedback. I also had a completed rough draft of another short story that I’ve done nothing with recently. Also, my long book about nuns has been at a standstill for sometime now, I think I need to just keep blindly writing in order to get through it. Should I do Nanowrimo again??

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What have I been into lately?

Not only have I been enjoying Felicia Day’s podcast, but my favorite YouTuber Lindsay Ellis posted a new video yesterday about YouTube that was long and complex and interesting. It also had an interview with Hank Green, who’s book I’m having to read soon, so that was good.

I’ve made some progress with Passion of the Nerd’s Angel Guide, and I’ve been remembering the episodes I’ve seen so far. Once I get caught up, I’ll try to watch the show again. And try to like it.

I’m reading Brain on Fire, of course, for book club. I also just ordered Why Buffy Matters from Powell’s and wish I was reading that.

We watched one episode of the new Netflix baking show Sugar Rush and didn’t like it. It didn’t make any sense, and the production wants us to believe a lot of stuff that probably isn’t how it actually was. It feels like a manipulative cash grab attempt to capitalize on the success of GBBO and we won’t be watching another episode.

I have to go back to work today after 5 days off for comic con and I have another flat tire, and of course it is not one of the three other tires that we’ve already had to replace and had warranties on. So that’s great. Anyway, I better get up and get on that so I can actually drive to work this afternoon…