After the afghan...

Do you ever feel the need for a break after a big project?  Now that my Stained Glass is finished, I have a ton of Christmas stuff to work on.  But what have I been doing all weekend?  Reading.  Except for last night when I got the urge to learn the crocodile stitch.  I did... I'm just making a triangle of stitches out of a skein of yarn that I bought for something else that didn't pan out.  So it won't be big enough to be a shawl or anything useful, but it looks neat.  Very fall colored... kind of reminds me of owl feathers.  I'll take a picture sometime.

I don't have time for all that, but I just need a break.  I need to work on my South Park amis... they're frustrating me though.  I have one fingerless glove finished and need to make the other one, but the pattern is pretty boring.  Then I'll have three sock monkeys and a mohawk, not to mention the things I hope to make for the girls.  I don't have time to read or experiment.

But sometimes you just have to.

I'm reading Eve by Iris Johansen.  I picked up the first of her Eve Duncan series forever ago and really liked it and read about half of them.  But I guess my tastes in writing style have changed, because her style drives me a little crazy now.  But this is like all the back story, and I'm too curious, so I'm trying to get past it to read this one and the two that follow.  You know, it's like some people can come up with great stories, but can't deliver them well.  I want to read the story, but her dialogue makes me cringe.  I don't care about the rest of the series that I gave up on.  I think one of her books was the second book I have ever just put down unfinished.  The first was The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway.  I detest Hemingway.  My teacher assigned it to me when I finished A Farewell to Arms early and I decided there was not enough extra credit in the world to convince me to finish that book.  It's rare that I don't finish a book, even if I don't really enjoy it. 

The most recent was one that I didn't finish of the most recent Sookie books.  I had to return it to the library before I finished it and I haven't even put myself back on the waiting list so I can finish it.  It's not that I didn't like it, but that I read some of Charlaine Harris' other series and they really turned me off.  I think she sold her soul to the devil for that series, because the rest of what I've tried to read of hers just was awful.  Or maybe she just finally figured out how to make a female character that wasn't totally unlikeable.  I guess I should give her some credit.

Stephen King has a new book coming out very soon and I'm super excited.  And Bag of Bones is going to be a miniseries on some network in December and I can't wait.  I know I loved the book, but I honestly can't remember much about it, so I might be able to enjoy the miniseries without comparing it to the book.  I have reading amnesia, I think.  I forget books almost as soon as I finish them.  I don't reread a lot of books, but I have been able to reread a few books and be just as amazed by them as the first time. 

I guess my brain just can't absorb much more than what's already in it.  Too many medical billing codes and song lyrics rattling around up there, I guess.  I can spout off colonoscopy codes like nobody's business and sing along with songs I don't even like, but I can't remember what the book I read last month was even remotely about.  It's kind of scary since soon I'll have to learn an entire new set of diagnosis codes when they switch from ICD-9 to ICD-10 (yeah, it's all Greek to me, too... don't feel bad).  My brain is going to short circuit.  They'll find me at work, under my desk, chewing on electrical cords or something.  I wonder if a nervous breakdown would be covered by worker's comp?