My Brain on Books XVI

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004 and will again next month.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges unless required to have a separate post..   



Be sure to scroll to bottom of this post for advice on how to ward off those scary nap attacks. You won't be sorry.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

10:00 PM - This day did not go as I planned.  And no matter how flexible I tried to be about it, adjusting my plans and expectations, events would NOT cooperate. Don't want to waste anymore reading time giving the play by play so suffice it to say it involved malfunctions.  Many, many malfunctions--of the connection, of the clumsy fingers, of the eyes, of the tent door, of the sky, of the memory, of the wardrobe...

Well, I guess the sky was functioning within normal April parameters and it wasn't its fault the tent door had lost its defenses.

The story I started to tell here promised to be a bit of a hoot but I could tell it would take me the rest of the thon to do it right so I cut it out and pasted it into a new post.  Watch for it sometime this week.  I can't promise it for Sunday or Monday--tho I may surprise myself--as I'll be in the throes of a Thon hangover.  No I'm not drinking alcoholic beverages.  It's the fact that I did not sleep the night before the thon started so I passed my 24 hour awake mark at about 10 AM.  Which could explain a whole lot of the malfunctions related to memory, clumsiness, staying on task, OCD and ADD moments and such.

Well, I'm going to post this update and then settle in with a book until my eyes or my consciousness gives out.  My husband's asleep, the kids in the treehouse next door are asleep and their parents have banked the campfire and taken their murmurs and chuckles inside.  The sky is behaving itself and I've got a good hour before I'm forced by nature to fuss with the malfunctioning tent zippers and make the trek up to the house.

I'll probably make only one more update--the wrapup and I can't promise it will be before I sleep.  I want to devote as much as possible of the remaining time to reading.

5:00 AM - Good morning fellow thoners.

I'm going to be reading on a theme today: Reading about reading.  Like Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking At a Novel, Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, and Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book to name just a few of such titles I have at hand.

I'm not limiting myself to that tho.  I'll also be spending time with a stack of library books recently checked out--browsing in them for the most part unless one of them reels me in for longer.  That is my way with a new stack of library books.

I will also be reading the third book in the second Thomas Covenant trilogy by Stephen R. Donaldson, White-Gold Wielder.  I began the re-read of these high-fantasy novels over a year ago as a project related to a story I'm writing in which reading the trilogies together played a big role in a young couple's courtship and throughout their marriage creating shorthand references in their communication.  I need to re-read them especially as a way to get inside the head of the husband who so strongly identifies with Covenant he re-reads the whole series nearly once a year and communicates even with himself in the story's language and symbol in an attempt to make sense out of his life and the world.

If I finish White-Gold Wielder I may move on to the final four book series The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.  Those will not be re-reads for me.  But because of my purpose in reading the Covenant series I am reading at less than half my normal fiction speed, taking notes and highlighting so I'll be allowing myself to break one of my 'rules' and start another novel I can just loose myself in and maybe read a few short stories.  I generally dislike having more than one novel going at a time.  That's why much of my reading today will be in NF and my way with it is just the opposite.  I flit among them like butterflies in flower carpeted meadow.

Some of my reading will be with audio so I can crochet or exercise or eat while I read.

Now I'm going to read for bit and then go check in at thon home and do the intro meme questions.

 

Read more...

My Brain on Books XVII

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004 and will again next fall.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. If you happen to be doing NaNo this year you can find me there as joywrite

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges unless required to have a separate post..   

Be sure to scroll to bottom of this post for advice on how to ward off those scary nap attacks. You won't be sorry.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

3:00 AM - Where did all that time go?
Still awake.  Not even struggling.

Well maybe a little.  Not having any trouble staying awake but am having trouble staying on task

I've done more reading on the blogs and social media following the thon activity and reading Dewey's archives than in books since last eveing's vid chat with Ed.  I opened a lot of books.  Mostly eooks but a few tree books and skimmed around in them.  Reading table of contents and other frontal matter--intros, epigraphs,  acknowledgements, and such.  It's one of my favorite things to do with non-fiction.  It may not be very productive in terms of stats but it's fun and that's the operative word for a thon is it not?

Besides it can be very productive in terms of comprehension, retention, and connecting the dots when reading them later.  I call it 'Einstein whispering sweet nothings in Emerson's ear'  or is that visa versa?  At any rate I wrote an essay on that theme in the late 90s.  I've shared it here before.  Not sure I feel like hunting the link right now.

Ambition is at low tide.

 Awake for over forty hours.

I mostly lurked on the blogs and social media.  Played the videos, imagined how fun this or that challenge might be, admired page layouts, followed comment threads and drooled over images of books.

But my ambition would not rise to the level of leaving more than a few comments with already familiar names.

One little project I accomplished was sharing the image of my Ode to Dewey poem on facebook, twitter and google+.  And while I was on fb I stumbled on my neice's posts in the newsfeed and discovered Im a great-aunt again.  Since October 1!  How did I let that get past me?

I spent half an hour at least drooling over baby pictures.

Well, because I've not been on social media much in the last month.  And even when I was it was only on my blog's fan page after the rare blog post.  My focus has been on autism research, NaNo prep and the fiber art project I finally finished Friday (original due date July 11) that will probably be the subject of tomorrow's post.

Very little of what happened conformed to my plan for the thon.  The only thing besides sticking to the dual theme that I adhered to was my intention to be OK with a pliable plan.  No shouldas or any other mental shaming tactics.  I kept the entire thon more than 90% on thon related activities.  And I had fun.  Now that was the plan.

The hardest part was staying away from Netflix and Amazon Prime.  The quick story fixes that resolve in 30 to 90 minutes that have consumed the bulk of my blogging, writing and reading time for most of a year before mid September when my Asperger's diagnoses shifted my obsession.  I've done more reading in the last four weeks than in all the weeks between last October and mid August.

I never did start that audio book this afternoon.  I think I'm going to go grab a quick snack and run the thon out listening to Carley's Voice.

3:00 PM - OK I think it is time to start the audio book and get on the mini-tramp and then pick up the crochet hook.  My afternoon slump is on.  I've been floundering for three hours.  Was reading the hub blog and discovered a link to Dewey's archives and got lost there for awhile and then I started writing updates and and editing them obsessively until so much time has passed I feel the need to start another update before I post.  And thus I've accumulated everything since 8 without publishing.  The 8 AM opening meme was left hanging at 9 for vid chat with my husband and I didn't get back to it until after 10 then decided to do the 11 AM  before posting and at some point got sidetracked by hunger and then the hub and Dewey's archives and then when I came back to the post I needed to check a fact in one of the books and ended up reading for i'm not sure how long.  Then...

Well you get the picture.  Its what I'd have blamed totally on the ADD two months ago but now I'm seeing autistic aspects to some of the behavior.  Afterall both ADD and autism are all about attention issues and information processing.  A high percentage of those with autism diagnoses also have preceding ADD diagnoses.  I'd be interested in seeing a brain scan showing neuronal activity to see if it is possible to differentiate between them.  Is ADD on the spectrum?  Or is the ADD diagnoses wrong for those who eventually get the Autism diagnoses?  From what I'm picking up in my reading so far I don't think there is consensus on that.  In fact I've seen no evidence the question is even being taken seriously by today's 'experts'.

All those question could be asked of Bi-Polar as well.  I was nearly diagnosed with Bi-Polar in mid 2013 and again a year later but it was finally ruled out when it was determined that the anxiety coupled with insomnia and sleep deprivation accounted for the symptoms.  And now I know the source of the anxiety is the autism related sensory processing issues.  The OCD and perfectionism is also as they say co-morbid with autism.  Meaning, I gather, they are often found holding hands.

And I'm rambling....
When I could be reading!!!

It doesn't help that I hit 24 hours awake at 8:44 AM.

Yeah I know.  I said as I prepared to post last night that I was headed to bed.  And I got there in time to get almost 7 hours but I never made it past the hypnogogic stage and gave up at 3AM and started reading.

You know what?  I'm going to post without editing this update.
Take that perfectionism.

11:00 AM - Here's my promised comments on Neuro-Tribes.  I'm a bit over halfway and his overview of the history of the autism diagnosis has reached the 70s.  Here's why I'm now glad my diagnosis took nearly 60 years:

• First off the name autism itself is based on the Greek root for 'self'  as in autonomous and reflects the bias of the early observations of toddlers as self-involved, self-stimulated, 'lost in their own world' and 'preferring' the company of their self or things over that of other people.  This of course raises the specter of 'selfish' a definite implication of a character flaw.  They're off to a rip-roaring start these 'experts'
• Before WWII and into the early 1950s the likely diagnosis would have been schizophrenia especially if there was language deficit.  
• During WWII Hitler gassed us.  
• During that same decade and into the 60s America forcibly sterilized us, guilted our parents for causing it (refrigerator moms!) and shamed them for not institutionalizing as recommended by the 'experts'.  
• In the institutions well into the 60s (and beyond?) they chained us to the wall or beds and kept us sedated. 
• In the 60s and 70s they finally began to recognize it as neurological rather than emotional but aversion therapy became popular and was gladly incorporated by the institutions--including hair pulling, poking, slapping, shaking, shouting starvation and cattle prods.  

America doesn't torture, right?  Right!

It would be an interesting study to explore what role this permeation of aversion therapy in our culture (autism wasn't the only deviant behaviors it was advocated for) in the two generations preceding 2005 played in the choices made by Americans at Abu Graib and Gitmo.

i also find it interesting that more than one of the 'experts' who developed or advocated the use of sterilization and aversion therapy grew up in the German influenced areas of Europe where they got most of their education and cultural biases.  Could that have had any influence on their perception as they 'objectively' observed these children put in their care?

You think?

I'm afraid to find out what the current consensus is.  How can I trust that it is any more worth depending on than that of just 25-30 years ago?  Why should I even entertain the idea of giving them the benefit of the doubt?

Just asking.

OK that was probably an example of the way my autistic brain works.  I see relationships and patterns in data that no one else sees.

8:00 AM - Well I read the Donna Williams memoir for the entire three hours.  No switching as planned. But plans are pliable today.  I'm going to read the Thon blog for a bit and do the intro meme tho it is too late to be included in the giveaway.  That will probably take me thru til 9AM when it is time for my daily morning vid chat with my husband who is 300 miles away.  We have two a day and I'm not giving them up even for this.

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Longview WA USA.  A port town on the Columbia river between Portland OR and the coast.  This is my birth town and where I lived until I married at 21.  I'm living with my Mom and sister, unwillingly separated from my husband for financial and health reasons since January 2013.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Carly's Voice by Arthur and Carly Fleischmann.  It is an audio on CD from the library and I plan to  get on the mini-tramp and then get my crochet fix and rest my eyes while I listen during one of my circadian rhythm slumps in the afternoon and wee hours.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

spicy avocado dip with corn chips, rice cakes and/or veggies.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I was diagnosed with high-functioning Autism aka Asperger's Syndrome last month.  I will be 58 next month!  I was a little perturbed that it took so long to figure out.  Until I read the chapters in Neuro-Tribes covering the decades between WWI and my high-school years in the 1970s.  Now I think I'm grateful.  Talk about clueless!  I'll expand on that later on today and probably develop it into a post in the near future.  Meanwhile I'm in the midst of one of my obsessive research projects and would appreciate any input/recommendations--resources, info, support groups, etc. Web based and not.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

Treat plans as written in soft clay not stone.  It's about pleasure not perfection.  About community not conformity.  About honoring Dewey and literature not stats.  You will notice I don't post numbers of pages or books.  With my visual impairment I couldn't compete anyway and besides I like to graze.  Especially non-fic.  I seldom read a book cover to cover during the thon.  Those I finish were usually begun days, weeks or months earlier.  So I seldom get to entire my titles in the data base.  Thus the thon stats are ot accounting for my typical 3-5 hundred pages spread over ten to twenty books.  I wonder how many more like me there are and what the ratio is between us and those who read whole books. I bet the stats are biased towards YA, children's and light genre.  I wonder how that info might affect the industry peeps who contemplate contributing prizes or otherwise supporting the thon.

Just thinking with my fingers.  What do you think?

5:00 AM - and so it begins.  I'm excited and would rather be reading than blogging at the moment.  Besides I'm cold so I think I'll crawl back in bed with my Nexus 7 until the house heat comes on.  Tho that could be risky as just like last April I did not really sleep last night.  I dozed off a few times but could not get past that hypnogogic stage.  I was awake before 9am Friday so making it the full 24 could be a challenge even for me for whom all nighters are as natural as breathing.

As I stated in last night's pre thon post, my focus today will be on NaNo prep and autism spectrum.  I'm participating in NaNo in two weeks and a month ago I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

Thus the first four books I'll be switching between this morning are

• Dramatica -- the book on the theory behind the fiction writing application I am using to prep my NaNo story.
• Best Boy -- a novel narrated by a high-functioning autistic man in his fifties who has been in an institution since he was about 12.
• Nobody Nowhere by Donna Williams -- a memoir of a woman who, like Temple Grandin, was profoundly autistic as a toddler but eventiually graduated college ane went on to develop a career in which she makes a difference.
• Neuro-Tribes: The Legacy of Autism and The Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman -- written by a Wired journalist, this traces the history of the autism spectrum disorders from before it had was named less than a century ago.  His theory as to why there has been a spike in autism spectrum births in areas like the Silicon Valley is startling to say the least.

[I have this scheduled to go live at 4:44am.  But if this bracketed paragraph is still here on top after 5am I don't have my eyes unglued enough to check in yet.  I will be here soon as I can.]

 

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My Brain on Books XV

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004 and will again next month.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. If you happen to be doing Camp NaNo this year you can find me there as joywrite

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges unless required to have a separate post..   

Be sure to scroll to bottom of this post for advice on how to ward off those scary nap attacks. You won't be sorry.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

4:00 AM - Wrapping up.  I'm taking Thomas Covenant to bed and will continue to read as long as I can.  Am hoping the activity of moving from my desk across the hall to the bed will revive me enough to hang in until 5.

Will be reading on my Nexus so will also have the option to go lurk on the thon blog and watch a music vid or two...

2:00 AM - After posting the last update I visited the thon hub and lurked for an hour or so and then spent the last several hours reading and browsing among the NF books relevant to my NaNo novel.  Among them:

• Star Trek As Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier edited by Matthew Kapell (read the intro essay by Kapell)
• The Monsters of Star Trek by Daniel Cohen
• Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe by Lincoln Geraghty
• The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss
• Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins
• Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins
• Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek by John Tulloch & Henry Jenkins

Browsing in a bunch of NF in a compressed time frame is one of my favorite things to do.  The ideas from each book cross pollinate and flashes of insight and quirky ideas proliferate. It's obvious how this would be true when the books are on a theme like this but it also works when the selection is random.

Next I'm going to read for a time in From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler, one of my top three favorite how-to-write-fiction books which I've been re-reading in preparation for NaNo then for the final stretch I'm returning to Lord Foul's Bane the novel that started my day.

Though I'm awfully tempted to call it a day.  The headache plaguing me since Thursday is finally receding and sleep, which was a struggle for the two nights preceding the thon is starting to seduce me.

But as I write this line there is only two more hours...

Rooster Fillet Bag - removable

10:00 PM - More of the same.  Several more hours of munching, sewing and listening to Area 51.  20 more tracks and 4 more beads.  It's tedious and frustrating work.  No wonder I procrastinated. :)

I keep snagging the thread and my hands on the pins inside and outside the bag.  Snarled thread forces me to choose between picking it apart or cutting it off and starting anew.  The deeper into the bag the more snags and snarls.  Desperately attempting to avoid a second fatal mistake of catching a thread on the crochet with the needle as the whole point of attaching the beads is to make the crochet removable so it can be laundered separately from the bag.

4 beads in 2 hours! Eleven more to go.  That's four beads added to what's seen in the pic I took this morning.  At least they aren't all taking me an hour like the first one did last Tuesday.  My goal is to have this project--along with my husband's birthday present finished last weekend--ready for the mail by Monday afternoon.

But I think I'm going to do something else for awhile.

Altho...I am enjoying listening to Jacobsen read her book and left off in the middle of a chapter--actually mid track--so I may at least finish that chapter before moving on.

Wallet Wannabe

6:30 PM - In the last several hours, while listening to Annie Jacobsen reading her expose on the history of Area 51, I've been alternately snacking and sipping and working to turn turn that flat, misshapen crochet piece to the left into the wallet/cardholder I'd envisioned last Tuesday evening.

Crochet Card Holder

Chalk up one to my campaign to finish what I start.  Although it is actually a small piece of a larger project that was meant to be my Secret Santa gift for last year!  And when I started working on this unplanned wallet, I was likely procrastinating the tedious work of sewing 20 of those beads onto the larger piece.

I'm often watching video while crocheting since I don't have to keep my eye on the work most of the time but not so with the finishing work like tucking tails, sewing, pinning, blocking.  But such things are working out well while listening to audio books.  I have been thinking so for some time but kept...putting off trying it.


12:45 PM - Well that was a mistake.  I chose to stay in bed this morning to read until the house heat came on and took the edge off the chill.  I fell asleep over Lord Foul.  My med alarm woke me at 9:30.  I resumed reading and fell asleep again!  Slept until after 11.

Spent the last hour taking care of nature's needs and moving back into my office with devices, snacks, drinks etc.

I have several hours worth of snacks and drinks gathered now.

I did read enough to advance in the ebook to nearly 50% so I managed to read nearly 20%.

I suspect part of the problem is the mild headache I have today left over from the serious one I had Thursday and Friday.  Reading on the Nexus seems to trigger motion sickness and I keep closing my eyes.

So I'm going to switch to an audio book.  Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

6:00 AM - Introductory Meme
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Longview WA USA

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I have no prearranged stack.  The Thon snuck up on me.  I only learned Thursday evening.  No plan.  No prep.  I'm winging it. But off the cuff... I'm eager to delve into some of the NF books on Star Trek I've collected as research for my NaNo novel.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
  I'm winging it with snacks too.  What comes to mind as possibilities are Baby Belle cheese and chocolate, hummus and veggies,  nachos...

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm a Star Trek uber fan since age 11.  My NaNoWriMo novel next month is about a teenage girl immersed in the online Star Trek fan community, who writes fan fiction.  For prep I'm rewatching all of the Star Trek episodes.  I started with Star Trek Enterprise in September and worked my way through the original series and nearly 6 season of The Next Generation so far. When I was a teen I had no knowledge of a fan community, no Internet and only syndicated episodes of TOS on a vacuum tube black and white TV with rabbit ear reception.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
This is my 15th Dewey Thon.  This is the first time I've winged it like this.

5:38 AM - Getting started now.  Was all set to go at 5 but had to restart my computer.

Am kicking off with Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson.  This is a re-read which I first read in the late 70s.  I'm already about 30% in as the day begins.  I've begun rereading the two trilogies of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever in preparation for reading the 4 book series The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever for the first time.  It's an ebook I'm reading on my Nexus.

As I said in last night's post, I'm winging it today as I let the thon sneak up on me and only discovered it was this weekend on Thursday evening.




[I have this scheduled to go live at 4:44.  But if this bracketed paragraph is still here on top after 5 I don't have my eyes unglued enough to check in yet.  I will be here soon as I can.]

 

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Winging It

Ravens Gathering in the Fog
by Alice Popkorn flickr

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon is tomorrow.  It really snuck up on me.  I discovered it late last evening just as I was heading to bed and then had to be away from home all day today. Away from WiFi!  Horrors. :)

 Now I must get to sleep!  It starts for me in 8 hours.

I made no plans.  No prep.

I guess I'll be winging it.

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An Ode to Dewey, Founder of Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon (April 26)

An Ode to Our Dewey
by Joy Renee
vote, fav and share for Dewey
We Miss You Dewey

Join the Party

What is Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon? -- 24 hours of reading, sharing, mini-challenges, prizes, cheerleading, blogging, social 
networking...

This twice a year event was founded by book blogger Dewey in 2007 and hosted at her original blog, The Underside of the Leaf, which I can't link because it no longer exists.  Which is so sad and not just because I didn't get to  finish reading her archives but because there was a lot of valuable insight in her reviews and they could have added richly to her legacy.

Dewey passed in late November of 2008, after organizing and hosting four events in the spring and fall of 2007 and 2008.


Since then her legacy--the world wide community of book lovers she wove together by those 4 events--has continued to thrive under the dedicated administering of a slew of organizers, hour hosts at the hub, gift and postage donors and cheerleaders.  And the numbers of participants increase each thon--nearly 500 this fall--which is now hosted on a dedicated blog, Dewey's Read-a-Thon

I have no set-in-stone goals for this one other than to enjoy it and go with the flow. It will depend on my mood when the time comes what the ratio between reading and the other possible activities will be.

The Book of Heaven
by Patricia Storace

But I do have a tentative reading plan:

• To finish the ebook Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton if I haven't already.  I've been reading this slowly all month to aid in the structural rewrite of my short story Blow Me a Candy Kiss which is my Camp NaNo project.
• Select two or three books I'm close to finishing from my mile long currently reading list as posted in my most recent IMWAYR? and finish them.
• Spend a sustained amount time with the library tree-book The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace.  It is a lovely, lyrical, mythopoeic retelling from a woman's point of view of stories from the Biblical Old Testament era.  
• If my eyes give out I'll listen to the audio book, A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  I started this during the last hours of a previous thon (October 2012) and then didn't return to it until I had to restart it.  That has happened several times now.  That opening scene talking place in a library haunts me every time I see the title sitting in the list on IMWAYR?

I used to pride myself on my ability to stay awake the full 24 but that is no longer a given.  Unless I have had a solid week of good sleep (7.5+ per night) I shouldn't even try.  But even then I would have to do it without fudging on my med schedule which is tricky with the bedtime Trazadone which I'm rarely able to resist more than an hour.  I'm supposed to take it between 9 and 9:30 PM but for the thon I will push it past midnight but I'm not sure yet how far.

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Sunday Serenity #358 - An Ode to Our Dewey

An Ode to Our Dewey
vote, fav and share for Dewey

I wrote this Ode to Dewey during my final hour with the read-a-thon in the wee hours of this morning and left it sitting atop my Thon post My Brain on Books XIII

Yesterday was my 13th participation in the 24hr Read-a-Thon founded by Dewey in 2007 and hosted at her original blog, The Underside of the Leaf, which I can't link because it no longer exists.  Dewey passed in late November of 2008, after organizing and hosting four events in the spring and fall of 2007 and 2008.

Since then her legacy--the world wide community of book lovers she wove together by those 4 events--has continued to thrive under the dedicated administering of a slew of organizers, hour hosts at the hub, gift and postage donors and cheerleaders.  And the numbers of participants increase each thon--nearly 500 this fall--which is now hosted on a dedicated blog, Dewey's Read-a-Thon

Tho I can no longer expect to participate the full 24 hours, I can't imagine my April and October without Dewey's 24hr Read-a-Thon.

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Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon Set For October 22

The date has been set for the next Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon:

October 22 at NOON GMT which I believe is 5 AM Pacific Coast Time for me.

I can't wait.

This will be my 9th, counting both spring and fall since October 2007.

It's hard to believe this will be our sixth one without our dear Dewey.  We'll miss her for always!

Sign-up has commenced so click on the pic and join the party.

Sign-up for volunteers is also underway.

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Reclaiming the Holiday Spirit: It's About the Giving!

Enough with the maudlin morass I sank into Sunday. I've reached out and grasped a slender reed of grass on the edge of the swamp. On Sunday I started making something for the giftee in the family whose name I drew from the bowl on Thanksgiving Day and today Ed took me shopping for the other parts of what I had planned for them. Getting my mind focused on creating a really special package for this really special person took it off my own woes and the series of whams I blogged about Sunday night for my Monday post.

While we were out and about this afternoon I saw a homeless man with a a cardboard sign reading, "Any little bit hleps." I was reminded of the ten days we were homeless on the streets of the Silicon Valley in the Summer of 2001 with our two cats, remembering how grateful we were for little offerings of help--a small carton of catfood, a 5 dollar bill, a bus pass, even conversation. However difficult our ten days were that summer, it must be expoentially more so for this man in the freezing cold weather we've been having this month. And to be homeless the week of Christmas!!! I was suddenly awash with gratitude for what we are currently blessed with.

I was also moved to want to do something for this man but he was across several lanes of heavy traffic and to get to him would have entailed driving not just around the block but around an entire shopping complex or getting on the freeway and driving to the next exit into town and then driving back through the stop-and-go town traffic. So I sent up prayers for his wellbeing and while I was at it, all those in like position this winter; this holy day season associated in all our minds with the warmth and safety of home and the comfort of fellowship with family and friends.

When we got back home and I got logged onto Ed's laptop and started searching for something to post about for which I wouldn't need any of the materials still trapped on my laptop's hard drive, I shortly stumbled onto this post: The Dewey Tree

It is a challenge to give away books to any of a variety of chaities such as libraries, literacy programs, soldeirs serving overseas, schools etc. Here let me let OnlinePublisist explain:

As I write this, I think of a favorite blogger who passed away this time last
year. Her spirit lives on in the Dewey Read-a-Thon, Weekly Geeks, and The Bookworms Carnival. She loved reading. She loved books. She supported Banned Books Week and believed everyone had the right to reading material. In her honor, I'm calling this donation project The Dewey Tree. It's a little bit The Giving Tree, a little bit Dewey, a little bit charity. :-D

Here's what you do:

*Gather up the books you can live without. It can be 4 books, 10 books, or 20 books! *Find a worthy group you would like to donate your overflow books to. It can be your local library, a literacy campaign (mine will go to the literacy center I volunteer for), or overseas. There's a great list of book donation sites here on the ALA. Find a charity
that speaks to you!
*Then take a picture of your donation and email it to me (onlinepublicist [AT] gmail [DOT] com). It can be a pic of the mailing label on your package, one of your kids giving a box of books to a librarian, or you handing books over to your literacy center. Be creative and have fun!

I will accept pics (and will post favorites) until January 4, 2010. At that time, I will enter the names of all who sent donation pics into Random.org and choose three. ***AMENDED: PLEASE GO HERE TO ENTER FOR THE GIVEAWAY*** Those three winners will receive custom made totes from me! I will email you pics of my available fabric and have you build one you like. The pic above is of two I made recently.

You'll have to go to the post at OnlinePublisist to see the picture of the cool cloth bags she has made. They can be book bags! Yay. Or green consciouness shopping bags. Or sewing, crochet, knitting or scrapbooking totes. But the point isn't really about getting a bag is it? This is an exercise in giving. And in honoring our Dewey!


Please, if you are moved to, pass the word along about this giving project. Email and Twitter. Use the graphic heading this post on your own blog or facebook but be sure and link it to the post at OnlinePublisist.

The act of giving in the spirit of generosity is a powerful mood booster.

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Honoring Dewey our Read-a-Thon Founder

moar funny pictures
I made this LOL for Dewey because one of the many things she introduced me to was the LOL builder when I realized she must have been captions some of those she posted herself and hunted down the source.

I also owe to her just about everything I learned about book blogging and the fact that I tilted Joystory toward book blogging after getting involved in the first Read-a-Thon and then Weekly Geeks. And because of my involvement in them I started getting opportunities to host giveaways.

I miss her so much. Tho I never met her face to face.

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