• Was woken up by my biggest earthquake to date last night at 4:40am: 4.2 on the richter scale, 2 miles from Oakland, lasted about 10 seconds. No damage, cats were not impressed.

• Why do I feel like I'm trudging through Chamber of Secrets? Started this morning and am 2/3 through. The dueling scene seemed contrived, and the mandrake-repotting unnecessary. What's wrong with me? OTOH I do have a pet reverse-Star Trek theory ie that the even ones are weaker than the odd ones (though 5&6 are outstanding exceptions, so maybe that blows the theory). And it seems so...thin! I mean, plot and theme-wise. OTOH, the last two books I read were Persuasion (good) and White Teeth (very good) and I thought those were just barely meaty enough to be satisfying. Just. Perhaps it is time to read Infinite Jest now, after all. Or maybe Gravity's Rainbow. Hmm, actually that sounds good. Oh dear. At least I know Half-Blood Prince has convoluted flashbacks and thingies.

• For some reason my last post doesn't show up even when I hit refresh. Hmm.

Labels: getting old ?