What Are You Reading? April 2016 Edition

April total:27

Year to date: 101

Fiction

Dandelion Wine        Bradbury, Ray

The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)        Rothfuss, Patrick

Brokedown Palace       Brust, Steve

Nonfiction

Popular Tales from the Norse Dasent, George Webbe

In My Father's Court    Singer, Isaac Bashevis

What Are You Reading? March 2016 Edition

March total:40

Year to date: 74

Fiction

Varjak Paw (Varjak Paw #1)     Said, S.F.

The Outlaw Varjak Paw Said, S.F.

The Screwtape Letters   Lewis, C.S.

Pride and Prejudice     Austen, Jane

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)    Rothfuss, Patrick

What Are You Reading? February 2016 Edition

February total: 17
Year to date: 34


Fiction
Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind #5)           Pratchett, Terry
Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity, #1)       Wein, Elizabeth

Nonfiction
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad     Anderson, M.T.
Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination    Rowling, J.K.

What Are You Reading? January 2016 Edition

I read a lot of books.  I've read even more since I graduated from college and got a part time job at my local library.  I track my reading on Goodreads but I've decided to post monthly updates here as well.

January total: 17
Year to date: 17


Fiction
Throne of Jade (Temeraire, #2) Novik, Naomi
Book of a Thousand Days         Hale, Shannon
Full Cicada Moon           Hilton, Marilyn

Nonfiction
Creativity, Inc.   Catmull, Ed

Where do you live?

My wife and I moved into a new apartment this week. We had lots of help loading the truck. Mormonism is good at many things, and helping those who move is certainly one-- several fellow congregants who know us only as passing acquaintances spent hours carrying heavy boxes due to our shared belief that when you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are in the service of God.

Moving has given plenty of opportunity to think about what my place of residence means-- in moving from one apartment to another, just a few blocks away, I'm leaving one community and congregation behind and joining another. Where I leave is not just geography, it's about webs of human relationships. My wife and I made many close friends in our old neighborhood, and decided to move in part because several families we were close to moved on, as transient college students are wont to do. While we had stayed in the same place, our community changed, and it was time to move on. 

Where has the time gone?

Six years ago, I started this blog. Four years ago, I abandoned it to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Almost three years ago, I returned, wiser and (for a while) quieter as I tried to process what I learned. Two years ago, I began posting again, with a greater sense of who I was and what I meant to say.

Two years ago I also began dating a woman who was smart enough to beat me at Scrabble, and kind enough to let me win sometimes. Who I could talk to for hours, about anything. Who has the wit and timing for a career in stand up comedy, but takes the serious things in life seriously. Who loves good music almost as much as she loves her family (and I know no one who has a stronger love of family). Whose faith in God led her to leave behind all she knew and face down opposition from those closest to her to do what God Required, and then used that faith to heal those relationships. 

And soon it seemed that all I had to say, I said to her, and all I wanted to do was be with her. 

And so I stopped posting, and wooed her. 

We've been married now for a year and a half, and I am happy every day, and grateful I could see the best chance in my life when it came my way. And now again I have new things I've learned, and new thoughts, and new things to say to the world. 

So here I am, and maybe you'll be seeing me more often. 

My New Favorite Typo

Usually, I spell things right the first time.  But four or five times in the past week, I've written "while" in place of "well."  Always at the start of a sentence, always followed by a comma.  I don't know what leads me to replace this space-filler with a temporal signifier, but I do.  I can't recall ever having done it before this week, but it keeps happening.

It's an odd slip, it is.  And isn't that a part of what life is made of.

Coincidence

Did you know that kiss and lips are identical in T9?  Well, neither did I.

What are you reading?

I read a lot of books (those less these days than at some times in the past) and a fair number of magazines and newspapers.  Also, blogs.  And lots of other internet things.  But there is one reading source which often escapes attention in regular discussion which is of great import here.  After all, no compendium of all things Mattathias-y would be complete without at least a passing reference to web-comics.

I also like print comics, which combine two of my favorite things (words and pictures) into a marvelous new thing. Web-comics add a third ingredient: the internet.

Back on the Blog

Sorry I haven't written in a long time.  I've been busy reading.  And living my life.  It's been pretty amazing in the past few years.

I'm not the same person who started writing this blog, but I'm pretty close.  I may be wiser.  I've certainly been more places.

Last week a good friend said she missed my blogging, and challenged me to start up again.  So here it goes.  Back to the blog.

How was your weekend?