--Brax the Salesdemon, in A Night in the Netherhells, by Craig Shaw Gardner

Saturday. In between sleeping, 'twas time for some reading.

I started a Raymond Carver short story collection I got for my birthday (thanks again, Elaine!), and Salman Rushdie's latest novel, but, despite my having looked forward to reading both, neither grabbed me at the time. I realized that I just wasn't in the mood for anything literary. I wanted a light read. I wanted printed comfort food.

So I reread A Night in the Netherhells, by Craig Shaw Gardner, Dreadnought! by Diane Carey, and Young Adults, by Daniel M. Pinkwater, and felt rather better. :-)

• In the course of writing my portion of the pornography paper, I listened to "Toy Soldiers," by Martika, at least fifteen consecutive times. As I only have it on cassette (50 cents through eBay -- the postage cost me three times as much as the tape did), not CD, I couldn't just put it on "repeat." Fortunately, I'd borrowed my brother's boom box, which has a remote control and that cool AMSS feature, which can rewind to the start of the track at the push of one button. I kept hitting that button. "Toy Soldiers" rules.

• Remind me to subject y'all to my '80's music rant one of these days, okay? :-)

• Since getting the Lear/Faustus paper back, I've been allowing myself a glimmer of hope that I may yet maintain my ridiculous 4.0 within the English major. It's still pretty darn unlikely, but hope springs eternal...

• In a way, I'm almost hoping I won't maintain it, if only so I can stop worrying about it in the future. Kinda like the way I felt the first time I got an "A" in an English course, rather than an "A+."

• I hope that doesn't sound too pretentious. Alas, it's the simple truth. I don't claim it's deserved, though. In some cases, yes, but in others, I know better.

• This has probably been my worst semester -- not in terms of my grades, but in terms of my overall satisfaction -- since I started college, in the spring of 1997. But maybe I'm just being cynical just now. I'll wait until the dust settles.

• Elaine's recent entries reminded me of Island, by Charles Abbott, about which I simply must spread the word. It's out of print, virtually nobody's ever heard of it (that it was a first novel, published pseudonymously after the author's death, may have something to do with that), and thank goodness Elaine recommended it awhile back, because it's quite good, and I never would have known. Check your local library. Order it from another branch, if you must. Just read it. (But you don't have to take my word for it... Here's Elaine's entry on the subject, which quotes bits of it, and sold me on it in the first place.)

• Does a bulleted list really work here?

• Beats me.

• Finally... this entry was composed while sipping Stash Sandman PM tea and munching on some Jaffa Orange flavored tea biscuits. Thanks again, Mary Anne! :-)