Habits

Jeez, blogging is an easy habit to break! Kinda like working out, writing, and just about everything else in my life. (Except playing Mahjong.) I can blog every day for a month, miss one day, and find it oh, so easy to miss the next and the next.

So what have I been doing instead of blogging? Writing, for one. After weeks of working only from time to time, I've buckled down and gotten back to it. It's going nicely, too. Love these characters.

And I've been reading, though not enough. I decided today that I need about $500 and a few hours alone in a bookstore. I was standing in the checkout at WalMart the other night next to a display of remaindered hardcovers and picked up a John Sandford Prey book. I'd never read him before, but I'd heard good stuff about him, and hey, it was a hardcover for six bucks. Can't beat that. Even if I didn't like the book, it was still a bargain.

It was Hidden Prey, I think. (Have I mentioned before that I hate series titles where the same word is used over and over? I can't keep them straight, and that annoys me.) Anyway, it's the one about the Russian spies. His style took me a while to get used to -- very short scenes, one after another in the same character's point of view, no reason to break them up into individual scenes. But once I got used to it -- and once I got know Lucas Davenport, the protagonist -- I loved it.

After finishing it in two days, taking time away from blogging and everything else, I had to go back to WalMart to get dog food (amazing how fifty pounds disappears in no time flat), and I found myself standing in the same checkout line, and hey, there was another Prey hardcover for six bucks. The one about the serial killer and the nuthouse. Loved it again. I think there are only about fourteen or so others in the series to get caught up on now.

In the serial killer/nuthouse book, Lucas has received an iPod and a gift certificate for one hundred downloads from his wife, and he's determined to download the best hundred rock songs. He has one hard and fast rule: no Beatles tunes. Have I mentioned here before how much I detest Beatles music? How cool that Lucas doesn't like them, either.

However . . . at the end of the book is Lucas's list of the best one hundred. I didn't even know about twenty of them, didn't like about twenty more, and hate about twenty more. Hey, I have great taste in music. A little on the eclectic side, I admit. I don't listen to much that was recorded post-2000. I think Ella Fitzgerald had the best voice ever. Love BB King. Eric Clapton. Beausoleil. Louis Armstong. Early Garth Brooks. Eagles. Bonnie Raitt. Zachary Richard. Etta James. Carly Simon. TransSiberian Orchestra. I love all kinds of music. But not much on Lucas's best one hundred list.

And of course, I can't be wrong. It's my blog. I'm never wrong here. Rachel8:57 PM