Trying to deal with Jamie Fraser withdrawal

“I feel… empty”

I couldn’t help myself to start this post with this Grey’s Anatomy quote from early season 2 :-) I’m a nerd that way, that I perfectly remember some dialogues, which probably has something to do with watching the episodes or favourite moments of it multiple times. But this line just came to my mind, when I thought how to write about the strange feeling I woke up to this morning. And no, it has nothing to do with being sick and throwing up *g*. Just with having said goodbye to some very lovely people, who I spent most of my spare time with during the last few days. Yes, I’ve finished reading “An Echo in the Bone” late last night, very late last night. Early this morning to be exact. I just couldn’t put it down and go to sleep not knowing what’s going to happen to the Frasers. And the MacKenzies. And of course Lord John and William Ransom. And now I know, or at least I know parts of it, because of course there were some cliffhangers and in fact I don’t know anything at all really. Which sucks a little. But I guess that’s the price you have to pay when you let yourself get sucked into this fictional world and get so so attached to all these wonderful characters.

This 7th novel of the Outlander series was just published last week so I’ll try to now give anything away and to not spoil anyone’s pleasure of reading it. Because it has been a tremendous pleasure. I know I’ve said it before, when I have spent almost two months this summer reading the first six novels in a row. But I really have to express my deepest thanks to Diana Gabaldon for creating these characters and to make them so loveable, that I couldn’t help but fall in love with them and care about their fate. Gabaldon has a wonderful way with words and she made these broad range of various characters with their different ways of living and their sense of honor and morality come alive, which is really fascinating.

List of Unread Books

I included this list in a post in May, but it was at the bottom of a longer post, so I thought I’d better make a seperate post to use as a reference on the “I’ve read” page. [G/E] indicates the language and it’s interesting to see that most of the books are in English. I don’t know if I actually buy more English books or if I just read the German ones earlier. The last purchased on on top, the one at the bottom was purchased in 2004 :-)

The Outlandish Companion – Diana Gabaldon, 1999 [E]
Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blades - Diana Gabaldon, 2007 [E]
Lord John and the Hand of Devils - Diana Gabaldon, 2007 [E]
Die Bastardin – Juliane Korelski, 2009 [G]
The Film Club – David Gilmour 2007 [E]
Bad Monkeys – Matt Ruff, 2007 [E]
The Post-Birthday World - Lionel Shriver, 2008 [E]
The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith, 2002 [E]
Hot, Flat and Crowded - Thomas L. Friedman, 2008 [E]
Der Nobelpreis - Andreas Eschbach, 2005 [G]
Confessions of an Eco Sinner - Fred Pearce, 2008 [E]
Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama, 2004 [E]
Was glaubst denn du? – Andrea Fischer, 2008 [G]
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak, 2007 [E]
The Princess Bride - William Goldman, 1973 [E]
Drachenläufer – Kahled Hosseini, 2003 [G]
Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen - Katharina Hagena, 2008 [G]
Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs, 1998 [E]
What Came Before He Shot Her - Elizabeth George, 2007 [E]
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Forte, 2001 [E]
The History of Love - Nicole Krauss, 2005 [E]
Tea-Bag – Henning Mankell, 2005 [G]
Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt, 1996 [E]
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell - Susanna Clarke, 2004 [G]
Die Kapuzinergruft - Joseph Roth, 1967 [G]
Drehen Sie sich um, Frau Lot! - Ephraim Kishon, 1980 [G]
Die Tote im Götakanal – Sjöwall/Wahlöö, 1968 [G]
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens, 1850 [E]
Das Mädchen - Stephan King, 1999 [G]
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde, 1891 [E]

I miss the Fraser & MacKenzie Clan

55 days ago – on the train to Bruxelles on my way to my summer vacation – I started reading “Outlander”. Until I finished reading book 6 yesterday afternoon I carried one of the books of the Outlander series in my bag everyday and wherever I went. London, Glasgow, Highlands, Edinburgh and as well here back home in Germany. I spent most of my spare time (which was rare to begin with) reading about Jamie & Claire, Bree & Roger, Fergus & Marsali, Ian, Germain, Jemmy and all the other members of the Fraser McKenzie Clan.

Sometimes – and during the last two or three books more often then at the beginning of the story – I rolled my eyes about some of the sub-plots. I was a bit bored by some of the detours Diana Gabaldon took in telling her story. What bothered me the most – of the things that bothered me at all – was that quite often I had the impression, that she hadn’t thought the plot through in advance. The last book contains an interview with her and she kind of admits to starting to write and see where it takes her. At least that explained to me how some of the “facts” which were carefully constructed in earlier parts of the story where later dropped with a rather plain and quite often not believable explanation. Like why there were these two gravestones in that Scottish churchyard.
There are a few more things I could criticize more detailed, but I feel like I’m not really entitled to that, because I couldn’t put any of the books down after all. So Diana Gabaldon must have done something right. And she did with creating these characters and with making me care about them so much, that I was moved to tears on a few occasions.

Book 7 will be released (as hardcover) on 22nd September which is much less than 55 days ahead. And from what I’ve read so far about book 7 (at Amazon etc) it’s going to be a lot like book 2, which I liked a lot. I might be on vacation that week and I am already trying to figure out how to get the book that day anyway. I already checked for bookstores which might sell English books near my vacation spot and it doesn’t look good. I might have to order it from Amazon and spend the day at home in the cottage to make sure the postman can actually delivers it to me :-)

And it really feels weird to not be able to escape into this world of fiction when I have a few moments to spare and want to relax ore when I just want to escape the real world. But on the other hand I might finally be able to catch up with season 5 of “The West Wing”. And I also started reading Krista Vernoff’s “The Game On! Diet” Book and I really enjoy it because it’s not just informative but also very very entertaining. I’m determined to play that game as soon as possible and I hope I’ll find a nice team among the Grey’s fans / Gameondieters community on twitter. Or is there anyone among my readers here is up for that challenge as well and might want to team up with me.

Yes, I’m still alive and today I’m even writing… :-)

I wanted to write this blog post since Monday afternoon, but I just never got around to do so. Even tonight I was tempted to postpone it for another day, but I have quite a few things scheduled or planned tomorrow and I was afraid this post would stay unwritten for another day. I don’t even have anything important to write about, just lots and lots of everyday madness. More than usual probably, otherwise I would have gotten around writing this post early than late Friday night..
I’m once again kind of busy at work. Not in the sense of a huge amount of work to do, but in the sense of a variety of different smaller tasks, which I have to coordinate and most of all keep track of. I am usually good at organizing and coordinating, but this time this stuff just wears me down. I spent all of my Tuesday evening to finish an urgent job from my “home office”. At least someone else offered to take over planning and organizing the event, I complained about last week. And I’m grateful for that, because on Monday I realized that I messed up another job I had to do. Messed up big time. At least that’s what it felt like to me even though looking back on it, it wasn’t really that bad and there was no harm done and I could fix it all. But it still upset me. I was working so thoroughly on all but one aspects of the job and … Boom! I messed that one up. Like I said, there was no harm done and everyone involved probably forgot my mishap within minutes. Not me, though, I was beating myself up for the rest of the day. I’m just one of those persons who can’t  let it got, when they mess up. But at least I’m over it by now :-)

Besides work I was insanely busy with various stuff of my local Greens. We have local elections coming up and we still hadn’t put up our elections posters around town. So that’s what I basically spent doing Monday night, yesterday evening and a couple of hours this afternoon. There is some other election campaigning stuff I’ll have to take care of and I will have to do that on the weekend. I was actually planning to do some of the stuff tonight, but there is no way I could concentrate on that tonight.

No photo update tonight…

I promised a new round of photos, but I have to postpone this until Tuesday evening. Or maybe tomorrow during the day, if I can access my photo site from the office. Some sites are blocked and I don’t know if this one is. But there isn’t not much work to do except the usual clerical stuff. The upside of the usual summer vacation time :-)
I started to upload and tag the next batch of photos but I’m too lazy to retrieve all the photo links and write a short recap of my vacation days. I was reading “Voyager” (the 3rd book of the Outlander series) until 2 am last night, because I just couldn’t put it down. I spent most of today (well the afternoon, because I got up really really late) reading the last 110 pages, visting my mom in the hospital and using the dryer in her home for the linens I couldn’t wash at 60 °C, so the hot air in the dryer had to kill any traces of any lice on it. I think I was lucky – in the sense that my head wasn’t that infested to begin with. At least I hardly found any nits when I combed my wet hair this evening with the special louse comb. But enough of that nasty business…

I can pick up book 4, 5 and 6 of the Outlander series at the bookstore tomorrow *squee* I just hope that I’ll be able to restrict my reading to the 2 hours I spent on the train every day. And maybe some time before I go to bed. Because otherwise I won’t get anything done. Anything at all. And there are quite a few things to do. Posting photos, working on electorial stuff for my Greens, start working on the termpaper and the new course material and and and. But these novels are highly addictive, even though the storyline is flawed. Well some of it is and especially at the end of book 3 I found myself rolling my eyes several times. Some things were just too much.
On the other hand I thought some parts of the way the story is told, especially the first half of book 3, were pretty good. And of course there are Jamie and Claire, and I’m still such a big fan of this couple. Part of me is helplessly sappy romantic and Gabaldon definitely knows how to reach this part of me :-) I just love that this love is so so big that it can conquer (almost) everything and that their emotions run so deep. Which means that they love each immensly, but when they are mad at each other, they are really mad. And they yell and fight. And of course they make up in the end.
I wasn’t sure what to think of that story moved from Scotland to the West Indies for the second half of the story, but in the end, when they stranded – literally – in America – I thought it was a pretty neat idea to move the story forward and to open up new possibilities. And I can’t wait to find out what Gabaldon has in store for them in the New World :-)

I can’t find out until tomorrow though, so tonight I will spend some time with my other “ship” and watch Grey’s 2.19 for the Marathon on The Elevator Junkies maybe I’ll visit The West Wing after that. A visit I had planned to make already yesterday, but it was more interesting to accompany Jamie and Claire on their journey.

My List of Unread Books

Instead of writing the Grey’s review, which I know would take me more than an hour, I decided to put together the list of all the unread books on my shelf. Lined up on the shelf and where there wasn’t enough space to line up, there are a couple of stacks. Since yesterday I’m officially out of shelfspace and really have to consider to buy another bookshelf, even though I have no idea how to put it. Until then I probably can use part of the only half filled DVD rack. I usually note the date of purchase on the first page of the book, for my own reference. I knew that one of the stacks contains books I bought quite a while ago and probably won’t read for another couple of years. If I ever read them at all. But I just can’t throw them away (you don’t throw away books!) and I’m too lazy to sell them on ebay or to donate them to some charity thing. I probably got them at some charity bookfair years ago :-)

I don’t know why I buy books when I still have so many books I haven’t read yet. I guess, because the new books sound so interesting and intriguing. I actually read quite a few of the newly purchased books within a couple of months. But every once in a while I have kind of a book shopping spree and the books just pile up, because I can’t read as fast as I buy new ones. For example, from the seven books I read in 2009 so far, there were 5 new ones and only 2 out of the collection of unread books. But until I have a bigger apartment and more space for bookshelves I should really refrain from buying books on a regular basis.

Anyway, here is my current list of unread books. [G/E] indicates the language and it’s interesting to see that most of the books are in English. I don’t know if I actually buy more English books or if I just read the German ones earlier… The last purchased on on top, the one at the bottom was purchased in 2004 :-)

Book Review: “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein (2008)

I’m not a dog person. And I’m not a fan of race car driving. Despite all that I spent several hours today reading about a race car driver and his dog and his family. And I LOVED it. So much, that I have to recommend this novel. This recommendation comes with a tissue warning though, because this story will make you cry. At least it made me cry so hard.

A couple of weeks ago I read or maybe even saw in a clip that Patrick Dempsey (a race car driver at heart himself) has bough the movie rights to this book. Or planning to buy the rights? Anyway, Paddy had read the book and loved it, which was reason enough for me to at least check what kind of story it was. And I liked the plot and the reviews and bought it a while ago. I haven’t found the time or wasn’t in the mood to read any novel during the last few weeks, but this morning I decided to take a book with me for the trainride to work. I choose this book, because it seemed a less complex story than most of the book on my Unread Books Shelf. With so many things on my mind, I can’t concentrate on complex drama or thrillers.

My Book-List 2008

It’s time to start the 2008 retrospect posts. I don’t know if I will also do a “best/worst moment” sort of thing, but I can definitely do this one about the books I’ve read. I won’t manage to finish another one this year, so I can already post it. And I’ll have to keep better track of how many books I’ve bought in 2009. And I will definitely keep track of the ones I’ve read in a slightly different way.

So this is the list of 2008, in chronological order. [G/E] stands for German/English. And there also have been lots and lots of novel-like Grey’s Anatomy fanfictions.

Listless Times…

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m so utterly listless today and it’s just the first day of the week. My weekend wasn’t too busy. Not busy at all, but I just feel… off. There are actually a couple of things I have to do besides my regular work. Work for job #2, doing local politics stuff, maybe get back to more disciplined studying? But I can’t get myself to do much of anything lately. Maybe the weather is bringing me down. I liked to see the first snow covering everything last night, but some icy rain had already washed that away until this morning. And walking to the train station in that icy rain sucks. It seemed to have snowed a bit again this evening, but I guess it’s all going to be gone in the morning as well. Yes, I’m not much of an optimist at the moment.

Maybe (probably?) it’s also bringing me down a bit, that my mom is still hospitalized and has to have some more tests done before she can have the bypass surgery. She is trying to keep in good spirits and managing pretty well so far, but she is so bored, especially as she so far had only weird patients to share the room with.

A few more random things:

Just Finished the Twilight Series

Wow! I can’t remember reading a complete novel series within just one week. And not a vacation week with nothing else on my agenda. There was work (busy, busy, busy work) and friends and politics and TV shows and all that stuff. But I finished “Breaking Dawn” just a few moments ago. During my afternoon coffee break at work :-) 

All in all I really enjoyed reading the whole series. The final book was different than the first three and I definitely hadn’t expect these events and development. Once I got over that and let go of my expecations I had fun reading it. But I think Stephanie Meyers got carried away with quite a few ideas. I don’t know, maybe I’m just still a bit disappointed that she didn’t predict MY expecations and wrote the story in the way I would have loved to read it…