QUOTE OF THE NOW

"Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That's why it's good to be able to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower. 'Lead us not into temptation.'" Joseph Campbell

Friday, May 20, 2011

Still figuring out my lifeo

Sorry I'm behind on reading everyone's blogs--I'm trying to clean up some stuff in my own, and get some things organized in my lifeo. Here's a co-post from my "home blog" to let you know some things on my mind, and I should be able to catch up later today. But for now I'm trying VERY HARD to go to bed no later than 5 AM. MEEEEEP. So I've got to rush and go!!

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Oscar & Will contemplate the unexamined life. Decide not worth living.
I'm thinking of retiring little Trivial Buttonhole (or Butthole as my brother's always read it.) I've been making Mabeltalk more personal, so I'm posting here less anyway. I'm thinking maybe the things I would normally post here--pictures of the cats, vegan chat, what I'm writing etc.--I could just post on Mabeltalk on the weekends. Cause I don't usually post my regular mabeltopics on Sat and Sunday (though lately even that schedule's been all woooo!)

So for those who are only interested in checking in on me on a kittykat level, you'll know to just check mabeltalk on the weekend, and you can ignore me the rest of the time, if you're not into all the "Fat shaming! Makes me mad! Arrr!" and "Love yourself! Here's a song! Grrr!"

I think I'm also trying to reconcile my two sides a little better, as well. (Yes I'm still in this massive cocoon phase I've been in all winter. You'd think I'd be out by now, eh? I finally received my cute oracle cards. Maybe that'll help!) I've always said I only half fit the Gemini profile because while they're supposed to be big communicators and flit around to a lot of new interests (oui, c'est moi), they also have trouble with constancy. Well, I might be inconstant when it comes to clothing styles, but I've been in love with the same man since I was 15 years old.

But I do feel like 2-in-1 in terms of having a Very Silly Side married to a Very Serious Side. Trivial Buttonhole, starring Oscar Wilde, with it's funny "quotes of the now" and so forth represents frothy me. The is the fiction writer side of me. Half of the friendships I have correspond to this side. I identify this side more with my mother and my brother.* I say it's frothy, but it's super important. Georgette Heyer's Friday's Child helped keep Romanian prisoners sane. Hugh Laurie credits Wodehouse with saving his life. And Oscar said life was too important to be taken seriously. Humor is Serious Bidness.

The other half of my I associate with my father and step-mother,** and it's who I married, and I have a bunch of friendships on that side too. That's the side that launched Mabeltalk, and is concerned with fat shaming, and racism, and sexism, and other-isms, and wants to teach, and cares about people's inner childrenz, and reads non-fiction and wants to talk for hours about politics and people's relationships. This side of me ends up befriending some pretty intense people.

But I think I'm getting tired of being Trivial on one side, and Mabeltalk on the other. Maybe it's because when I'm frolicking about in Bettyland I get to be both, so separating the two sides is starting to confuse me. I don't know where to post things anymore.

I'll keep up my music blog, though, because every once in awhile I get on a real music tear and there's no blog that can hold all that. Better to keep it isolated, at least until I feel otherwise. Same with my comments blog. I'm not consistent with it, but when I do read a bunch of articles, I always come up with tee hee things to put on there.

Well. This pot's on the front burner. The temperature's turned up. I'll know any day now whether the dish is done or not. :-)

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* **
My mother and 1/3 of the Brat Pack
Okay obviously my mother and brother aren't all-silly, and my father and stepmother aren't all-serious--it's a generalization. I do come by my feminism and social politics from my mother, and she rescues animals and loves politics.

But my brother and I also know that--although our father is very funny--the truly wickedest part of our humor is a genetic inheritance from our mother's side of the family. It's also with our mother that we can watch anything from the Beavis & Butthead movie to Pineapple Express. She used to have a life sized giraffe statue in her living room. She used to spit beer at us between her teeth when we were little. She and my brother are my top "beta readers" for my writing. Her hero is Auntie Mame, and she introduced me to The Thin Man, A Room With a View, and Georgette Heyer.

Also, my mother's father (the English professor) introduced me to Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw, used to tell dirty but erudite jokes, and wore a t-shirt that said: Here he cometh, there he goeth. So yes--I stand by my statement that I associate my frivolous side with my mother and brother, the R--- side of the family.

My father gives Yoda a shave
...Whereas I'm in the midst of helping to edit my father his article taking down Just War theory from a pacifist standpoint, for a progressive Christian magazine. Next he wants to write something for them on animal rights. My step-mother repaints dolls and donates the money to an orphanage in Mexico, never approved my fandom of Prince because of all the sex in his music, and didn't get the difference between S&M and abusing women when Madonna recorded the song "Spank Me." She's adorably goofy, but not in the Wildean way.  ;-)

I haven't said much about my brother. Cause he's due for his own post soon.

Mabel's Consumer Report: pocket books

I used to work for a large book chain so I was used to getting a discount off my books. Yes, this is how you end up with 600 books on your fiction "to be read" pile. (That plus an bookaholic-enabling friend with a collection of 5000 books who would bring me to the cheapest second hand booksale in town twice a year.) I don't know how many non-fiction books my husband and I own, I haven't counted. I see at least 200 in this room.

click to see full cartoon

Since I don't work there anymore I have to get my cheapee books some other way--once you pay cheap, it's hard to go back. Not that I um ahem need any more books. Ahem ahem. (Did I mention I live, literally, across the street from a good library? I didn't get an ereader because I don't like physical books. I got it so I can hide more books.)

So I buy from amazon.ca, indigo.ca, ebooks from kobo, and secondhand books from abebooks and betterworldbooks. Still haven't found the best source for cheap French books--the secondhand places are downtown (I'm in les burbs.)

Since kobo no longer sends out 20% coupons >:-(  I decided to check out other ebook sources. Specifically on mass market (pocket) books cause they're the hardest to find deals on. Here's the book I investigated, but she's a Betty author so though I included second hand sources for general information purposes, I would buy this new. (Gotta support one's peeps.)



NEW ACTUAL BOOK
Indigo in-store & online price: 9.99
B&N online price (& probably in-store): 7.99
Amazon online: 7.99

EBOOK
Kobo: (can be used on everything except kindle) 6.19
Amazon: (for use with kindle, or with phones/apple products, but can't be used on other ereaders) 6.39
all other sites: 7.74 - 7.99

USED BOOK
indigo - I don't bother with indigo--the secondhand source they use is always the most expensive one. Might be okay if the shipping was cheaper than that of the US and UK sources, but it isn't at all: 6.47 to Canada - 7.99 to the US

amazon.ca - .01 cent + 6.49 shipping <--Shipping is always this rate, but at abebooks there are different rates, which is why I usually shop there, as a Canadian.
amazon.com - .01cent + 3.99 shipping OR 3.65 + can add to a $25 free shipping order

B&N - 1.99 + 3.99 to US  / 8.95 to Can shipping

abebooks - current best deal: 1.00 + 2.95 to US/ 6.00 to Can shipping  <-- they always put the cheapest TOTAL price at the top of the list, which I lurv

betterworldbooks - 4.98 + free shipping worldwide

BEST DEAL FOR AMERICANS:  ABEBOOKS.COM = 3.95
BEST DEAL FOR EVERYONE ELSE:  BETTERWORLD = 4.98
BEST DEAL IF SUPPORTING THE AUTHOR :-)  KOBO = 6.19

Lessons of the Day: When buying mass market...

1. Unless you have a kindle, kobo still has competitive pricing with them, so definitely check them out. Once all publishers go agency, go with whoever gives you good customer service, or support local, or an independent eseller.

2.  While physical books are still swimming around out there, secondhand online is an excellent source of inexpensive books--you often pay for little more than the shipping. Keep this in mind with books that were bestsellers at some point, cause they're likely to be in abundance and cheap.*

* Wonder how much a useless copy of Three Cups of Tea goes for now? Ah, amazon has 1656 copies available for 1 cent.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Do you knit? You NEED this caplet. You need it! (AKA Celebrating Ms Casapinka)

One of my favorite blogs to read is casapinka. She's a doctor * creative (and currently full-time) mother of two * wife * knitter * knitting designer * her-home decorator * lover of all things pink * and all-around witty lady. The way she writes about her the weirdness of kiddos amoozes me greatly, so I get to enjoy child-rearing at arm's length.



She makes so much effort to bring out their creativity, and it always feels like her children have plenty of breathing room to blossom into their Own True Selves--whether that means her son wants to wear Hello Kitty socks and carry a baby doll named Tom, or her daughter wants to skateboard while on a royal-wedding-weekend-getaway.


She also makes the funnest sewing and knitting projects like her son's "Japanese surfing trousers"

And she has the same can-do attitude as the women-folk in my family. When confronted with tinted car windows that would prevent her taking her driver's test, and the impossibility of having the tint removed before six months, she wrote (in re her husband stressing out):
"I, however, love problems like this. These are the challenges in life that don't really matter and are just begging to be solved creatively."
Yes. Some challenges don't really matter.


Pink also takes beautiful photos...
 

And is just so durned quirky, sarcastic and down to earth, that though you'd love to hate her for being so talented, and such a great parent, and having such great taste... bahhhhh you CAN'T!!! Look at her! Cute! Quirky! She made a sweater with pom-poms on it!!

 

And speaking of talented, the reason for all this netluvs is that I wanted to celebrate her publishment: Her pattern for a bridal caplet was published in Love of Knitting magazine. Yays!!! <--I don't make knitting patterns so I can afford to be generous and unjealous. Yays!!!

But I don't knit, so I can't run out and buy the magazine and be supportive. So I'm posting it in case it inspires someone else. I presume one can change the color and--amazing!--no longer just a bridal caplet. Eez cute non? Eez cute.



Reading

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
Les années douces : Volume 1
Back on the Rez
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
Stupeur et tremblements
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