I'm reading James White's The Silent Stars Go By and listening to more ABBA. Specifically I'm listening to the later stuff and some of the B-sides. I had never heard one of the songs in Mamma Mia! so I decided to see if I had a recording of it. I found it on a four disk collection called Thank You For The Music. It was sandwiched between a horrible medley of American hootenany favorites and some sort of live studio snippet of the group talking. It's a nice song. I'm not surprised I missed it previously, considering its location. I can tell it's getting stuck in my brain. I'll probably associate it with James White novels from now on.
Hey, it's not as bad as Steve. He wrote to say he's reading Hesse and listening to Waterloo over and over again. Now that's a weird combination.
Which is not a bad way to describe my reading material for my upcoming vacation. I have the Jackie Chan biography (okay, the most recent biography), an Egyptian mystery, and an Elizabethan mystery to while away the hours on the plane. I don't expect to read a lot once I'm in Ajijic but I dread having nothing to read while in transit. I always take way more than I can finish. It's the one area in which I tend to overpack. I don't take very many clothes because I loathe hefting a heavy backpack or suitcase through an airport. I don't bother with makeup, hair dryers, or jewelry. But I take lots of books and shoes. I think I hate having sore feet even worse than I hate having nothing to read. After all, if I get desperate I can always read John's extra books. Although I would have to be desperate since he's currently reading things like "The Incredibly Explicit And Detailed History Of Some Itty Bitty Part Of Prussia" and so forth. Still, I could do that if I had to. I couldn't fit into his size 12's.
Going to Mexico is jumpstarting my wanderlust. I went about six weeks without making travel plans, but now I'm starting to eye the empty calendar. We can take lots of short trips but there will be nothing exotic like Japan or Chile this year. I've already decided I'm going to Boston at the end of March for Corflu. I'm probably going south for the Los Angeles Festival of Books in April. I'm going to Portland over July 4th for Westercon. In early October we'll visit New York City again, and of course there's Orycon in November. And I really want try to visit my folks in Palm Desert for Christmas. I have a yen to see palm trees wrapped in white lights and cacti done up with jingle bells.
Suddenly that calendar is looking kind of full. Somewhere in there I'm going on a cruise. Honest, I am. My bosses agreed to send me, and I've told them I am keen on a Caribbean cruise because that's the classic cruise experience. I've never been to the Caribbean. I don't care if I have to go by myself, I don't care if it's a long flight just to the port, I don't even care that there's nothing much to see or do on the islands themselves except shop for jewelry and eat conch. It is something that I want to do. And I think it's really going to happen this year.
I just hope I have enough shoes and books to last seven days.
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