One.

1. Ann, you are the catalyst in all our lives.
2. It reached a balmy 84 degrees today in our fair city and Bethany told me that her co-workers were complaining about the unseasonable (does that exist in TX?) weather, which made me wonder why we Texans are never satisfied. We complain there is no Winter, which there really isn't, but then also complain that there is no Fall or Spring, but we do have one of those...it's called Winter. Our days just don't match the rest of the country. I blame it on TV and movies...if we weren't constantly hit with constant reminder of what a white Christmas looked like, or wonder why J. Crew sells "summer sweaters", we'd be better off...
3. Yesterday felt like a stolen day, because I did not have to go anywhere for my jury summons, as the jury selection was "complete." What a glorious thing.
4. I've had an library card for about two months and have grown to LOVE it. Conservative current savings by using my APL Card: $70.83.
5. So, I'm reading this book...I've actually read A LOT of things lately. I'll go in order of completion...

• Uglies, Scott Westerfield - I started this book because, like with a boy, I'll give anything moderately attractive a chance. I get sucked into terrible YA novels like Bethany gets sucked into terrible Lifetime movies. And, at first, I was NOT disappointed. This book was such an amazing surprise, turning out to be a satirization of consumerism and body image in the media...I couldn't wait to read the sequel. Pretties did not live up to the first, but was told from the POV of an unreliable narrator, so I let it slide, hoping for an awesome finale. In Specials, everything goes truly, truly wrong. Westerfield lets the most obnoxious character be the influencer for the first half of the novel (which I, admittedly, skimmed) and banked too much on the reader's attachment to the main character from the first book, even when she began acting like a WACK-A-DOO, lacking any humanity. In the end, because I was built up so much by the first novel, I was incredibly disappointed in the last two novels and can not even recommend them to anybody. I have not been let down so much by a book since I found out the Inheritance Trilogy somehow morphed into a 4-part cycle--and you who know me, know that was a BIG deal.
• Good-bye, Chunky Rice, Craig Thompson - On a recommendation from a friend, I picked up this graphic novel at Half-Price Books for $2.50 and it sat on my shelf for a while at work. The other day, when I found time on my hands, I finally sat down to read it and was blown away. At once heartbreaking, intricate, and life-affirming, I think this should be required reading for anyone in their 20's. One of my favorite drawings is on page 76 where the ship's captain is explaining everything that can go wrong on a boat. Read.
• Ender in Exile, Orson Scott Card - Card published this direct-sequel to Ender's Game only in November, 2008, and since I just finished reading all of the Shadow Series, and (through that handy Wikipedia) I found out a Shadow character pops up in it, I decided to give it a chance. I was not disappointed, although it is hard to feel as close to Ender as you naturally do to Bean...which I think is done on purpose. No one, not even Valentine, feels like they are truly Ender's confidante, so naturally the reader can't feel that way, either. Nonetheless, I recommend it completely, particularly to follow the last published Shadow book, Shadow of the Giant.