Aftermath

We spent our annual Christmas at my parents' house the past few days. The season started with a drive through icy conditions to pick my brother up from O'Hare on Wednesday night and included a road being closed right before I was going to go on it; I lost time but was able to get him back to my house by 1:00 in the morning. By 1:00 the next afternoon, we had already decamped to DeMotte and got into the swing of the season with a traditional party and tons of food. Yesterday we opened gifts and got a great reaction out of my son when he opened his new PS3. Lots more eating and some euchre playing and the joy of being together as a family followed.

I am now back home, though in a couple hours we will be off to another traditional party with some very close friends. In the meantime, I'm in my usual post-Christmas state of not knowing quite what to do with myself. There is so much I can do that I have a hard time committing to any one thing, so I've been shuffling through my iTunes and poking around the internet.

I do have plenty to listen to, including The Beatles stereo remasters boxed set. I've actually never heard 5 of their albums all the way through (I know, I know) and I still haven't listened to 3 of them yet. In addition, I got the new live Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers anthology, R.E.M.'s deluxe edition of Reckoning, and a Roxy Music album I've never heard.

I also decided to not read the three library books at once - I have three books stockpiled that I've been wanting to read when I have the time. I have the time now and should take advantage of that; after all, I can always check those other books out of the library again. So, I started Peter & Max, the first prose novel set in the world of Fables, on Christmas Eve.

Maybe it would be a good idea to read some more of that and stick Beatles For Sale in the stereo (that's one of the ones I've never heard). Think I will...

Consumerism

I started out the day with big dreams, wanting to see two movies, buy two books, download the new Built To Spill album, and pick up some goodies at a sale at the comics shop. I knew I wouldn't be able to do all of it and didn't really have the money to do all of it anyway but some days it's nice to dream. As it turned out, some of my dreams for the day came true and I got some other stuff I hadn't even planned on getting.

I ended up getting four nice shirts that I can wear to work, as well as a new pair of corduroys. I might even end up with a pair of black ones by the time the weekend is over - my wife and I saw them on the way out of the store and she had to make a movie time.

That's right, she went to the movies and I didn't. The good news for me is that I have a four day weekend coming up due to fall break, so I have a decent chance of catching either Where the Wild Things Are or The Invention of Lying (or both!) next weekend. Why not tomorrow? Football, baby.

I went to Barnes & Noble but they only had one of the books I was looking for (the missing one was the new Jonathan Lethem) and that one wasn't on any sort of sale, so I passed it up.

My last stop was the comics shop...and I couldn't decide on anything. I came home. I sat around for a bit. Then I went back to the comics shop.

They had the other book I was looking for, Peter and Max by Bill Willingham, which is a prose novel set in the world of his Fables comic. It was included in the sale. Finally, a decision made.

I had been looking at the first collection of Invincible Iron Man, which I've heard great things about (and read the first issue of about 18 months ago), but I just couldn't commit to it. One day, I will. I did notice the collection of the last DC and Marvel crossover series, JLA/Avengers, which was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by George Perez. I'd been looking at that for months too and decided to pull the trigger.

That should have been the end of it...but I wasn't done. Even though I had resolved to only buy trades again, I couldn't help myself. I had to pick up a couple single issues and at 40% off it was easier to justify. I grabbed the two most recent issues of The Unwritten (the first four were great), the first issue of Sweet Tooth (which was originally a buck), and Adventure Comics #2 (I can't resist a comic starring the original Legion of Super-Heroes). I would have picked up Adventure Comics #3 if they had it. I don't want to start down that path again but there has got to be a way to make it work for me. I need to figure it out.

Anyway, there's my day of consuming.