Yup, it's me.

It's been awhile. I'm afraid I occasionally struggle with depression and when I do, the last thing in the world I want is introspection of any variety. Mostly I want escapist fiction, sleep, the occasional glass of wine and affection -- though that can be hard to come by in my family. Silence, peace -- that too would be nice, but again, unlikely.

I'm apparently stuck at around 2700 on the amazon rankings, despite having plowed through approximately six novels this weekend. As always, I wonder how others are able to read less, review less and pile up more votes. Also, I'm curious about a guy who's an 'amazon neighbor' whom I've nicknamed "the eater." apparently the amazon vine people get free stuff and this guy mostly seems to get stuff to eat, which he then reviews. gourmet products, bizarre nutritional foodlike substances and the like. I think he's a bit of a foodie, also reading cookbooks and the like -- but I find myself wondering what the mailman thinks as he stuffs "the eater's" mailbox with these packages. I picture this guy as some kind of weird hermit, never going to the store, just scuttling down to his mailbox, grabbing things to eat and shuffling off to his little apartment. (In my amazon fantasies, none of us have lives beyond books. We're all kind of like nuns or hermits. Or maybe that's just my fantasy. Maybe just this week.)

Anyway, if you're looking for a book that will make you cry, I recommend taking a look at "I see you everywhere," by Julia Glass. Kind of a break from the relentlessly happy chick lit books about PTA moms. This one in contrast suggests that women are actually full-formed, fragile creatures. Not the best read in my present state of mind, but still . .

There are no words . . .

I've begun a new research project, inspired largely by some recent reading I've done for this project. I've been reading "post-apocalyptic fiction" -- with an eye towards exploring what it says about how we visualize america's position in the world at present. In the past few days, I've read: A World made by Hand, Our American President, The Road and the Pesthouse. of course, by far the most haunting of these works is Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", a short, starkly drawn novel about a man and his son who somehow survive a nuclear war which ravages the America we know. The book is both terrifying and hauntingly beautiful, as the man and his son (whose names we never learn) become their own little universe is a world of nuclear winter, where they are chased by bands of marauding cannibals through perpetual darkness. It's impossible to do this work justice -- but it's one of those that changes you.

However, the downside of being on a 'post apocalyptic fiction' tear is that I have been alternately terrified and too depressed to speak. (Hence, when the power went out here the other night due to thunderstorms -- an entirely predictable event which happens a couple times a year when you live near the coast as we do -- I actually went outside and found my husband because I was so afraid. "It's the North Koreans," I said. 'They've bombed us. I'm sure." and at the time, nothing about that statement felt far-fetched.) I'm beginning to think that post-apocalyptic fiction, like disaster movies (another guilty pleasure of mine) is something that should be rationed.

I've moved up to number 2695 on the list, and as I approach the crossing of the 2500 line, I feel myself once again falling prey to that ancient temptation towards self-sabotage. (Who? me? Take myself seriously? Actually achieve something?) Last week, I kind of missed a TV interview, and may have seriously damaged my relations with our university PR lady. I believe I made a simple honest mistake but a psychiatrist might think differently. However, today I forced myself to write two more reviews. (I'm guilty of actually reading a TON of stuff lately, but not having written the reviews. Some academic stuff, and a couple of other post-apocalyptics that I simply haven't been able to organize myself to review.) I think part of it is that I'm in that particular academic limbo that's a bit like childbirth -- kind of pregnant with the next article, but it's still too unassembled and inchoate to actually make it into the light. And terrified also at the thought that it might actually be really good . . .

So here's the thing . .

I'm very excited to have moved up the scale to 2838, but when I "got to know my neighbors," I discovered that 2837 is a big fat cheater! His last four reviews are actually the same review posted four times for four different editions of the same book ("the giver" by Lois Lowry, if you're interested). He's posted his review to the original version of the book, a revised edition of the book, an audio book and (here's the clincher) a TRANSLATION of the book into Spanish. Somebody ought to do something about this cheater. I guess that explains why he's taken credit for reviewing over 1,000 books. Somehow I bet it's closer to 250. I'm sorry, but that feels like gaming the system. What do you all think?

2891! Whoo-hoo!

Feeling guilty because I have neither read nor reviewed nor posted lately. On the other hand, I did drive 1000 miles this week! Drove up to upstate NY on Thursday to pick up my son from music camp, attend two concerts and turn around on Friday afternoon and drive 11 hours home, arriving at 3 AM. Actually, I thought about getting a book on tape -- it seemed like the correct, dutiful thing to do, but lately I'm finding that it all seems like work. I've still got two articles to write, one manuscript to review, one book to review, and a conference paper to get done in the next month or so, as well as two classes to teach, etc. etc. etc. Not much time for extracurriculars.

And i've just been SO darned compelled by the last book I did read. It's called "a world made by hand" and it's the latest in an emerging genre called 'post-apocalyptic fiction'. It basically describes one summer in upstate NY after the nuclear explosion, death of everyone important in government, cut off of all utilities in the US, end of the internet, end of all supplies of natural gas and oil and thus all transportation outside your village, and the successive plagues that have swept through the area taking about forty percent of the population with them. So far me, my husband and my son have succumbed to the spell of this particular book where nothing particularly scary happens -- it's not like Steven King where we all turn into zombies or something. It's more about how your life would change if all of a sudden everything you were was gone (executive, business trips, vacation homes, etc.) and you were still living in your old house where you no longer had cable or electricity and you were reduced to the level of a subsistance farmer living in Rwanda. How would your marraige change? your relations with your neighbors? Your sense of self? Your community? How would you think about the future and your own past? I confess. I read the book twice and will probably read it again. Between that and the latest by Jennifer Weiner, I am finding it unable to take on any new reading -- these books are just so compelling.

My new neighbors on the chart up are intriguing: One is a messianic jew who's into bellydancing, and the other is a guy obssessed with cults. what do you think of that?

In case you're wondering . .

I now have thirty dollars in library fines. And I'm buying more books than usual too. I'm starting to think that climbing this particular mountain may wind up being expensive -- despite the lack of preparation entailed or the need for special protective gear (unlike, for example, climbing the real Everest). Luckily, I have some great sherpas in the form of all the people on amazon's top reviewers discussion list.

Also, I recently made up a series of assignments for a stats class I'm teaching which require them to:
1. randomly sample a selection of Amazon top 1000 reviewers
2. come up with hypotheses about the variables entailed in moving up the chart
3. figure out how they are going to operationalize and measure the variables (i.e. willingness to like any book)
4. perform frequency distributions
5. make cross-tabs
6. make up two samples(one for top reviewers under the old system and one under the new) and then compare the median, mode and mean for various qualities (i.e. average number of stars given, average grade level on which the review is written) -- and then perform statistical tests to describe the differences between the two groups
7. run bivariate correlations
8. make a regression model
and so forth. Hopefully by December 2009, I will have more data than any of you would ever want on what it REALLY takes to get to the top of this list. I look at this as a win-win situation -- my grad students learn stats, and I get some potentially useful advice. Ah, harnessing the power of the student. One of the real joys of being a professor.

Word Overlord, er, Overload

Did you ever read the book "Still Alice"? It's a novel about a woman who is a linguistics professor at Harvard University who sadly, ironically, tragically, develops Alzheimer's disease and gradually loses her powers of, yes, language. The interesting thing is that it's told from HER perspective so that as you read the book, her language and writing gradually unravels and you can FEEL the ground being pulled away beneath her. It's an amazing book and one of the most amazing things about it is that it has enjoyed great commercial success (including being one of Oprah's picks) despite the fact that it was rejected dozens of times by all of the major publishers, the author ended up self-publishing the thing, and then afterwards it was picked up by a major house.

But the OTHER reason I'm mentioning "still alice" is because it ignites all your personal fears if, like me, someday developing alzheimer's is on your list of things that go bump in the night. I was drawn in by the first scene where alice -- in quick succession -- forgets a word or two, loses her keys, wanders into the kitchen and can't remember what she's doing there. of course, but of course, she googles her symptoms and decides it's not alzheimer's but perimenopause -- which is exacctly what I had done a few months previously when after working a series of twelve hour days involving a 130 mile commute and leaving my house at 6 AM (don't ask), I found myself at a kid's swim practice at 8 PM talking to close friend and realizing that for the life of me, I couldn't remember her name.

The reason I'm mentioning this is my husband thinks it's stress, but I seem to be reaching a new boiling point of sorts. last evening, I looked at the computer keyboard and COULD NOT, COULD NOT, COULD NOT remember where to put my fingers, nor could I remember where the letters were on the keyboard (and for those of you who know, I'm an awesome typist, 90 words a minute). I frustratingly hunted and pecked for about ten minutes before the situation resolved itself, but it was as though I had fried the synapse between my fingers and my brain. I'm thinking maybe it's just too much reading. My brain is so full, that what I'm losing is the little things I should know. But clearly, my short term memory is fine, as I have now learned to fill my head with public policy information which I can then regurgitate on command in nice little 3.5 minute soundbites on the nightly news. I'm trying not to think of it as obama barf.

the Wrap-up

it's been nearly one month since I started this project. July 14 will make it officialy one month. My goal was 3 books a day for a total of 90 per month, but this month I will only have reviewed around 79. Still not bad, though, considering this is my 'extracurricular' reading, in addition to what I have to do for a class. or two tht I'm teaching.

Also, this has been an unusual month with travel, 3 TV appearances this week, my husband's retirement ceremony, construction on the house and so forth. So it's not too shabby that in this month, I moved up 2000 places on the amazon list. However, I have noticed that my progress seems to have slowed, and I'm concerned that it will be a much harder climb from here on out.

I'm somewhat excited, however, that by implementing simply ONE discipline into my life, (writing amazon reviews for every book I read) it seems to be spilling over into other areas, namely my eating habits and hopefully my work habits. Also, I'm watching less TV which is always a good thing.

Not sure about how public I should be about this particular quest. Although we've lived in our present location for four years now, I still don't have many close friends or people with whom I feel comfortable sharing lots of details about my life. I also don't have a lot of contemporaries, in terms of knowing other people the same age, at a similar stage in life, with similar goals and aspirations. when I talk to the other moms in the development about working, being on TV and contemplating running for political office, I get the impression they don't know what to make of it. Actually, I've been told that I'm intimidating. However, I think if I told them about my HK quest, they'd just think I'm weird.