StarNosedMole of Shadow

I had a plan, but I woke up long before dawn and couldn't get back to sleep because I was just generally uncomfortable. I decided to try to do something a tiny bit more purposeful than noodling about on the internet, so I started reading Lent by Jo Walton, which I just got from the library. I can't exactly say that I've finished it yet. Sometimes I read things in a non-sequential fashion. I plunge in and just rip the guts out of it in chunks, paging forward and backward in the story as things occur to me. It's sort of a holographic reading method. People often find this odd. And there are some books that seem to require a sequential process--but not all of them. I think the people who find it odd don't realize that, for me, the point isn't "what is going to happen," because I've read so many stories at this point that I can usually tell what's going to happen sometime in the first chapter, so there isn't really any suspense. I'm more interested in HOW it's going to happen. So, I think I've read the whole book now, but I'll probably do a quick rerun to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'll just say that this isn't one of those books where I knew what was going to happen in the first chapter. There's at least one surprise. And the HOW of Jo Walton's story-telling is usually very satisfying to me. After I put the book down, I realized that it was Wednesday, and I actually had reading to report! How unusual.

Because of this, I didn't get started on my original plan until later than intended. We're working now on moving all the stuff away from the exterior walls in the basement, so the waterproofers can get to work on Halloween. Yes--that's when they're coming. Most of my action figures had been down there. Potential buyers bailed on us. I tried and tried to find a toy donation place that sounded as if it would like them, to no avail. So, today I bagged them all and the Sparrowhawk took them off to Goodwill. I needed to get them out of the basement. I still have quite a few--my Stargate and LotR figures, the Megos, and an assortment of Marvel and DC guys who were my favorites. But seven giant black trash bags full of toys and action figures left the house. I feel okay about it.

P.S. I just saw that Mego is having a whole new wave of toys for Christmas, including Mirror, Mirror sets with the bearded Spock and Kirk in his gold lame outfit. Oh! They are the devil, I tell you--THE DEVIL!! Must . . . resist . . . .