New, Not Improved

Guys. Guys. I have an honest-to-god bed now. Which means there's actually a bedside to speak of. Which explains why I'm here again.

Sure, the Treehouse was nice and all. I had a great four-ish years there. But you know what else is great? Reaching over to turn off my morning alarm without fear of concussing myself on the ceiling. Having a table (or three!) on which to store books and water and chargers and lamps and all that ancillary crap that finds its way to the bedroom.

Anyway, as you might have gathered, I've recently moved – recently enough that I'm still needlessly excited by things like furniture, but also so recently that unpacking is still a part of my evening plans. So the other bedside table (dear sweet Jesus, what luxury I live in to have to differentiate), it must be told, is currently home to a Sharpie, a cordless drill, most of the instructions to build the full-size MALM bed from IKEA, and my signature half-empty water bottle.

This side, though, is the stuff you came for. You know, the dead tree porn.

I should get this out of the way now: Yes, that's Cloud Atlas. Yes, still. I'd like to blame part of my lack of progress on that front on the fact that I, you know, bought a house since last we spoke, and those mortgage companies sure do like to take up all of your time and energy getting you to collect and send in triplicate every goddamn piece of paper in your house with any numbers on it, but truth be told, I just can't get into it. At this point, since I've taken almost a year to wind my way through this much, I'm certain I've completely ruined whatever effect the nested storylines were supposed to accomplish, which is probably not helping my reading experience in the least, but if any one of them were captivating enough to get me back on a roll, I'd be happy. So far, not so much. Please tell me I'm missing something. (All that said, I couldn't help but chuckle when I realized the last quote I tabbed before starting this blog post was this:

"Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. 'Admire me, for I am a metaphor.'"

Right on top of that one is the 2012 Consumer Reports guide, which seems weird until you think of how much time goes into researching new appliances and how I needed to find a refrigerator, washer, dryer, microwave, and garage door opener for the new place …. That also explains the to-do list peeking out at the edge there. The other loose paper is my voter registration card, which should be pretty self-explanatory.

The other two volumes, Padgett Powell's You & Me and Jonathan Evison's The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving are on loan to me by Books Editor Kimberley Jones for possible future reviews. I'm only a short ways into the former (you can just make out the edge of the Loteria card holding my place), but its conversational tennis match is captivating so far.

Also included: Edge of bed (now with frame and box springs!), lamp, my mom's Superman watch from 1987 that needs repair, a white chocolate candle (perfect for the baker who couldn't get to her kitchen for two weeks), and a coaster designed to look like a giant typewriter key. (#nerd)

For next time, I hope I'll finally be done with David Mitchell once and for all, so I can move on to something else cumbersome to hold down the fort for a few months. Sigh.