4/23/13 Update

Books read so far this week are a little odd. I finished "The Man Who Invented Hitler", an odd book Katie had bought some time ago about the therapist who might have, sorta, kind of caused the mental leap from timid-but-weird Hitler to flip-out-and-murder Hitler. I don't know that I agree with the premise, but there was a lot of interesting historical what-have-you in it. I read a cookbook called "Korean Cooking for Everyone", which I've often flipped through and learned a good way to press tofu before frying. It was worth it if only for that.

I joined a book club started by a friend of Katie's, and the first book is "Cat's Cradle" by Vonnegut. I haven't read it yet, but I'm about 50 pages in and I've found it to be intriguing. Since it's for a discussion group, I'm taking notes and hopefully I'll be finished by Wednesday. I'm also reading "Starting Out With C++", which was not the book I was using for my own studies in high school or college (my mother stole my programming book, but to what end I will never understand), so I figured there was little use in reading it without learning to code again. I went out and downloaded a free compiler that Katie's used in the past, but that'll probably take some time to properly work through.

Next month is Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore". The library in Belleville didn't have "Cat's Cradle", so Katie just bought it for the Kindle app, which I don't enjoy as much but, well, I don't have time to waste waiting for the library to get it in before the end of the month and it was only 3 bucks this way. I own "Kafka", already, which is something like cheating but, well, I didn't vote for it so those are the rules of the club. Majority wins.

Michel Pollen just released a new book called "Cooked" and, I swear to god, the only reason I asked the library to order it for me is because it bases its chapters off of the classical western elements in terms of its discussion on food preparation and it gave me an idea for Dragon Blooded cooking Charms. I've liked Pollen's other stuff, though, so I'm excited to read it on general terms.

Work is normal, the convention is over, my tire is fixed, my suit is in, Katie's suit is being hand-tailored and I'm totally gonna get shown up in terms of awesome suit quality (I'm excited to see what comes in!), but mine is still fairly nice. Our food raising charity, Can Town St Louis raised over 300 dollars in cash from our auction and over 250 in the value for canned goods, so this month ended up being about 600 in cash and value to the Collinsville area food pantry. We're practically ecstatic - I think this is a new record, and I'm amazingly proud of not just Katie, but everyone who donated and helped with the events.

I'm going to be selling or giving away a fair amount of my own book collection - both role-playing and otherwise. I'll post a list when I know what I'm getting rid of. It's not that I don't like it, but we're desperately trying to cut back on our possessions in order to tidy up our material lives, here. Books and media are my greatest weakness, and I'm trying to set a good example and get better about possessions and collecting, myself. It's good stuff, though, most of it. You might want some.

We're very busy; that's not everything, just a snap-shot. Money is very tight, but we're feeling pretty good in between bits of financial-based anxiety. Cheers!