The Jen is Mightier

In getting a feel for where I'd like this blog to go, and because I happened to catch an online read-a-thon at the cusp of a new go-around, I decided to participate in the Bout of Books Read-a-Thon (it's #20!). Or... Maybe because I'm a first-timer to any kind of organized blogging event, I'll say "participate loosely" because I'm not sure how it will work for me one way or another. I plan to update this post daily with page counts, links to anything relevant, favorite quotes, likely some read-a-thon participation stuff, and maybe some other things I come up with as I go. This will be a little experiment in seeing how much I can get myself to read and to see how I like joining in on blog events like this. Unrelated to Bout-of-Books but popping this here anyway: Consider checking out  PaperbackSwap . I'm not affiliated, but I do think it's potentially a great way to unload books that others are looking for and you collect swap poin

I read half of Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., took a long break for no real reason and then just finished it. This will not be any sort of proper review, but I enjoyed this book a great deal. I had owned my copy--a very old, very,  very tattered Dell Publishing print from 1973--for a long time before I finally read it. Of course it was enjoyable--filled, as it were, with cynical humor and a wild, crazy-ass ending. I particularly loved a small bit of dialogue near the end between the narrator and Newt Hoenikker. It had less to do with making a connection to the overall novel as it did with making a connection to myself, personally. ... 'I am sick and tired. . .'"  "That comes pretty close to describing how I feel most of the time." "Maybe that's the way you're supposed to feel."

I keep starting new blogs. I've blogged in one way or another for many years now. Rooted back when no one had yet blogged but everyone had an online journal . I feel a sense of real nostalgia for those days. Reading the posts of people writing about nothing and everything. Online journalers winging it with crude, no-frills HTML to varying degrees of success... ... But now I start blogs and I abandon them. I do so in an attempt to find something that fits. I go wrong in a few different ways. Trying too hard to focus in on one topic, letting the blog cover too many topics, getting too self-righteous, trying too hard to be too neutral, lack of passion due to sometimes crippling depression........ I could go on. This one I started without a real title, without my name, and without a photo. In all honesty, trying to name another blog was irritating me plain and simple so I figured I'd back burner it for now. In terms of being anonymous, the idea struck me as enticing. Mayb