How odd

What a difference a week makes. I had been having problems oversleeping lately. This week I decided to change my alarm clock time from 6am to 6:30. I didn't think it would make that much of a difference, but I haven't been late this week. At least I don't have to feel guilty.

The foyleswar community has some lovely icon batches for the last few weeks. Check my memories for all of the posts, including a great intro post for the series I found.

Getting back into reading

Reorganizing my bookshelves has one good side effect. I actually feel like reading again. I've been having a bigger block on that for awhile now. I probably need to get my eyes checked out again just to see if the prescriptions need recalibrating. After the orthotics are paid off though. Part of it was just environmental, finding the comfortable spot and now being able to see my collections properly. I can go to a shelf and have a relatively good chance of finding what I'm looking for. I also may loosen my reading habits. I tend to have two gears - speed reading and slow drawl. I tend to do the the former with old friends and the latter with newish books I care about. I guess I'm afraid I won't remember them in high gear. I still need to find that middle ground, even if it means loosening the reins a little with the new books.

The reading problems has probably caused some of the writing block as well. It's one of the oldest pieces of writing advice they give you. Read, read, read, and read some more, especially in your field. Guess what I really haven't been reading lately? Buying, yes, but not sitting down and reading. I'm debating whether to try that 50 books in a year challenge. The weekly challenge isn't going to happen.

Being at the theczech's place for board games reacquainted my love for old Hitchcock movies. I wound up watching most of "Rear Window" last week on one dull night off the On Demand service. Unfortunately something happened and I couldn't get back to it, even when it was supposedly saved. In an ironic twist of fate, I actually bought the dvds for that and "Vertigo" on some binge awhile back. I discovered them when I was organizing the dvds. All I need is "To Catch a Thief" to finish my favorites. Instead of watching it again, though, I went and found the original Cornell Woolrich story "It had to be murder" at the library:

I didn't know their names. I'd never heard their voices. I didn't even know them by sight, strictly speaking, for their faces were too small to fill in with identifiable features at that distance. Yet I could have constructed a timetable of their comings and goings, their daily habits and their activities. They were the rear window dwellers around me.

( Rear Window story spoilerish )

I also read Monica Ferris' contribution to the "Murder Most Crafty" anthology. More geared towards the project, knitting with beads, than the actual mystery, but that is sometimes the flaw with the crafty mysteries in general.