Consumables #27

The American
On our Midwest trip, Nordic Boy and I had a little over 24 hours to spend in Chicagoland before heading to Michigan. Most of that time we spent with Alli and Chris, but there was an afternoon when they were otherwise occupied and we had to find something to do on our own. Cue TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. We bundled up, borrowed an umbrella, and left their house determined to walk around Chicago a little. After about 30 seconds, we said fuck THAT and ducked into a movie theater (Seattle-ites! Skerred by rain!). The theater was ginormous and we were literally the only people there. It was kind of a perfect afternoon movie theater experience. The movie was quiet, and looked so beautiful- the kind where I could have watched it with no sound at all. I don't know whether I loved the movie, or whether I loved the afternoon so much that it made me love the movie. Either way, it was nice.

Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok
Good descriptions of how a immigrant child who is learning English experiences school.

Stiltsville, by Susanna Daniel
I appreciated what this book was doing, but I don't know that I loved it. It chronicled the mundane details that make up love and marriage, and I appreciated the idea and how the idea was executed, but mundane can be sort of mundane. But I get the point, and I liked the point.

Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart
Shteyngart takes current social trends like the erosion of privacy and the take-over of social networks by corporate interests and exaggerates them to the point where the world he creates is batty. Only really, it wasn't that batty to me. It wasn't that big of a stretch to imagine that world being real, which I guess is one of the scary points he's making.

I've spent a lot of time with my various nieces and nephews this past couple of weeks. And it is totally because of them that I can't get this DANG SONG out of my head, for the life of me. THX KIDS!

Lastly, (way to bury the lead, lady) BIOGIRL IS TOTALLY MOVING TO A HOUSE ON MY STREET SOON. Now our co-dependency can be GEOGRAPHICAL. This news may have made the both of us do something like this.


NEIGHBORS, BETCHES.