From the first few pages you know this isn’t the typical journal. It’s unashamedly sensual and beautifully written. Anaïs Nin’s sexual — and don’t forget emotional — awakening is surrounded by such deceit but that tends to get lost in the poetic language. She is a narcissist but what an interesting one! Anaïs lives the charmed life in Paris in the 1930s and she lays out her secrets in this excerpt from the journal from the most important year of her life, the reader gets pulled in because Anaïs makes her coming-of-age sound like something romantic. Even if to live that life would be to live a lie. From her passionate and worshipful lover Henry Miller — a fellow writer who adores her writing — to her husband, Hugo, who keeps her living in comfort and who she at turns loves and despises. She has a string of men, including her psychoanalyst. Her lack of shame is the cherry on top in this excerpt.

Oh, the writing.

If you’re the sort who needs each book to have a point this might not be for you. The same if adultery is a major sticking point in your enjoyment of a book.

Soft Shock (acoustic) by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs – This song is so delicate, quite unlike a lot of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs older music. I like the acoustic version a fair bit more than the main version. When I first heard Zero on the radio I thought I’d be disappointed with the new album but then I heard this song and some of the other acoustic versions.

Book of the Moment

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve been a fan of Holmes since childhood but I finally got my hands on this two volume anthology for about $2 and in near mint condition. I found tha t I’d not scraped the surface with the two books I’d owned previously. I still have to say my favorite is “A Study in Scarlet” for old times sake. Holmes continues to surprise me and I was pretty amused that there were cases he was unable to solve or in which he was tricked (Irene Adler). I’m sort of apprehensive about the new movie I hear is coming out. Robert Downey Jr. looks nothing like my idea of Holmes. However, I’m certain he can act the part.

Script of the Moment

I’ve been working with IPB 3.0 a fair bit. Created an application for multi-avatars for the forum in which members can upload a set amount of avatars and choose different ones for each post. Also, created a few hooks such as the ability to post your status to Twitter via the forum and added the ability to show statuses in posts if the member so chooses. It’s been fun working with the apps and hooks feature, challenging and fun.

I’ve also been steadily working on myFanlisting. I’d abandoned the project ages ago and had removed the script from my site. However, I’ve started rewriting it completely. It uses some of my last work on phpFan but has a number more features and goes beyond a collective script.

Different sections underway so far:

affiliates (also with the ability to request affiliation with the collective or fanlisting and add a button)

codes (also with the ability to donate codes)

collective (self-explanatory, a formatted list of owned fanlistings displayed under their categories and/or all fanlistings)

joined fanlistings (a formatted list of joined fanlistings displayed under their categories and/or all joined)

pages (ability to add different pages such as the rules or about section for the collective or a specific fanlisting)

wishlist (top fanlistings, other wishlisters, fulfilled wishes)

main (statistics for each fanlisting)

Different from phpFan features planned or done:

custom permalinks

file templates (instead of phpFans mySQL based templates)

cleaner code

breadcrumb navigation

complete pagination with back/forwards and first/last links, as well as showing only five page links before and after the current page (First < … 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 (the current page) 12 13 14 15 16 > Last

gravatars for the members list

ajax for forms but will work without

Planned Sections:

members

update form

join form

keep-in-mind

conversion script

statistics (for collective)

If you have any suggestions for the script I’d be more than happy to hear them.

We’ve all seen the lists, we’ve all thought, “I should really read that someday,” but for all of us, there are still books on “The List” that we haven’t actually gotten around to reading. Even though we know they’re fabulous. Even though we know that we’ll like them. Or that we’ll learn from them. Or just that they’re supposed to be worthy. We just … haven’t gotten around to them yet. What’s the best book that YOU haven’t read yet?

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

I read the passage from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce in one of the many Norton Anthology books I’d acquired through school. Some of it was lovely toward the end but I didn’t understand what Joyce was trying to say. It was a lot of wordplay with names of rivers and religion. I’ve been officially scared off from Finnegans Wake because I’d need to turn on my critical thinking cap and slog through pages of what reads like pretty nonsense. I know I managed to come up with some analysis in lecture when I read it but that was about four pages and the class never came to a conclusion. It was a very muddled explanation we came up with. I’m still sad I’d forgotten my book when the teacher brought a recording of Joyce reading the text.

I came across this prompt on Plinky, a nifty site I came across through another blog a few days ago.

How To Be a Perfect Person In Just Three Days by Stephen Manes

How To Be a Perfect Person In Just Three Days! by Stephen Manes.

I read this book during childhood a few times. It had the protagonist doing silly things like tying a broccoli around his neck in a vain attempt at following the steps to be perfect that were outlined in a book he had found. The last step was to stay up all night drinking weak tea. Sounds pretty easy in the age of the Internet, right? Except all he could do was move his arm to bring the weak tea to his lips, anything else would make him fail. He fails and fails hard.

This book made me realize there it is impossible for anybody or anything to be perfect. It’s important to try for your best but perfection would quickly become boring! Would anybody appreciate the good things they have in life if everything was good or would somebody’s good qualities stand out if everything about that person was perfect?

Maybe reading this book worked too well and I never aimed for my best in a lot of things – excepting writing, coding, and English courses – but it kept me from becoming miserable about the fact that I am far from perfect.

I bought:

• Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
• Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis
• The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
• The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D’Ambrosio
• Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
• The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

I’m particularly interested in Patricia Highsmith’s novel because I’m currently reading The Cry of the Owl for school. Since she seems to be such a miserable writer and I’ve heard good things I’m interested in the book with the character I’m somewhat familiar with to start off.

This is the highlight of what has been a busy and stressful month.

I started the editing of the semi-incestuous story during a break at school and really need to get back to it. I’ve added about 300 words and am about a page and a half in. Not quite sure if the editing is going to be enough to turn in but I want to turn it in anyway, even if I write a new story. I need to start thinking about the essay for my portfolio, I think I’m going to intersperse the editing process of the semi-incestous story in it.

I’m thinking about submitting some of the poetry I’ve written in the past two years to some literary magazines. Wish me luck if I decide to go through with it!

We workshopped the semi-incestuous story last week and it got a pretty good reception. I also got some help from another individual online – desperately need to reply to that! I think that will be the story I want to revise first and foremost. I think it needs more work than the other story even though the ending is leaps and bounds better.

I desperately want to buy books. I’m nearly done with the stack of books I bought last spring and I know I could get good deals on them on the Internet. Shipping killed me last time and doubled the price tag. However, I will probably hold off until after Christmas. I want to read more Jeanette Winterson, I want to read Lolita, I want to read Cloudstreet, I want to read more poetry. I’ve moved away from poetry and that makes me sad.

Been debating buying a new domain for going on six months. Just can’t bring myself to do it just yet. Have an eye on a few names. It’s wasteful but oh-so-tempting.

I hardly ever write in here. My life has been clopping along at a more even keel than in the past. Worked a bit more on the pieces of my past I write down. Super-secret shoes and stupidity. It’s interesting, remembering. It doesn’t feel like it happened to me.

A lot of stress because we were moving and now we’re not. Spent a few days in hell while dozens of groups of people came to lookat our house. I kept imagining people were going through my things. Though why would they. Lots of anger and some breakdowns into tears because of stress. Never mind last week when I cracked because of lack of sleep and an argument with my father. The arguments are coming more frequently now that he’s been around more often which leads me to believe that it’s absence making the heart grow fonder rather than real growth that kept us friendly since the divorce. Love him, though, and respect him. I just can’t see eye to eye with him on a lot of things. Not really political or social beliefs, more an unwillingness to compromise on his part and partially on my part.

Been reading a lot, working through all my books. A lot of Bret Easton Ellis. Lunar Park was beautiful, I found I preferred it to the others.

Last summer before I get my BA. I haven’t gotten the short story class yet but if one more person drops the class the spot is mine. Think good thoughts for me, I need this. Though considering how often I don’t write I don’t think there’s too many people hanging on my every word. (;