Saturday, November 22, 2003

Currently listening to: "Love at First Sight" by Kylie Minogue

Currently reading: "A Potential Contender in the Post-Couric Derby" in the New York Times.

I was supposed to go to New York City this weekend. But my friend Ellen went home from work sick on Friday afternoon, and I didn't go. But it was okay -- Andrea had to work today, so I went into work with her and spent the day in downtown Baltimore. Or what might be properly termed as the Inner Harbor area. I went to Fell's Point, Inner Harbor and Federal Hill. It was definitely a loooooong walk. And I am so tired tonight after being on my feet for like seven hours.

Oh! The one exciting thing I didn't even realize until I got there was that the Baltimore Thanksgiving Parade was today. It was really fun. And the marching bands here are so different than back home... These people dance and really shake it while they are marching. I was very impressed! The parade was a little bizarre though -- I was on the corner of Pratt and Light Street to watch it. They didn't shut down Pratt Street -- the police would just start and stop up traffic during the parade. So there were these gaps in the parade while traffic would cross Light Street! I didn't actually stay for the whole parade -- but it lasted two hours. With, of course, Santa at the end.

After lunch with Andrea, I went to Fell's Point to do some Christmas shopping...and after that, I was tired and ready to go home. But I could go home until 5. (The downside to carpooling!) So I sat in the Inner Harbor, and I got pretty homesick. Baltimore is so different than anywhere that I have lived before, and I don't know that I like the differences. I even miss Milwaukee.

I thought that seeing the Inner Harbor and some of the famous Baltimore neighborhoods would make me feel more at home in Baltimore and Maryland, but instead it has just made me miss Wisconsin more.

Sigh.

Well, I started reading a really awesome book tonight. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's about a librarian who can travel through time. Not surprisingly, he's from the Newberry Library, which is in Chicago. I can't escape the midwest! But seriously, from the first fifty pages or so that I read tonight, it's highly entertaining. And confusing, but in a good way. More later.

I have also gotten into Dorothy Sayers and the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Although, quite honestly, I can't handle too many short stories at one time. So I started reading another one of the novels -- Clouds of Witness. I'm not too far -- maybe past the first chapter? Don't know -- it's my lunch time book. But I finished Gaudy Night which was very good. It was a refreshing mystery -- not a single murder! And there was a romance as well, which makes me wish that I had read the books in the proper order, but I got over that. But if you are looking for a good book to read, I would highly, highly, HIGHLY suggest using Book Lust by Nancy Pearl. That's where I found out about Gaudy Night. An excellent reference tool, and seriously, a good read on it's own.