One month already?!?

Today is my one month blogging anniversary, my blogiversary if you will. I can't believe how fast the month has passed...on the 5th January I was still missing Paris (where we spent New Year's) and was on day five of my new non-smoker self. On Feb 5th I'm loving London again and haven't even thought about cigarettes in weeks. I was comedy proud of myself on Saturday night, as I managed to wait outside the theatre while the Husband parked the car and not only didn't want to smoke but actually felt a little sorry for the smokers standing out there with me. Which must be some sort of non-smoking turning point. And then one of the actors was smoking on stage and I thought the smell was obnoxious - I've well and truly turned! The play (David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow at the Old Vic) was fantastic, helped by my crush on Jeff Goldblum no doubt. I generally don't like Mamet, as I found Oleanna and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (the only other Mamet plays I've seen) tiresome, but I would recommend this one. The Husband loved it, which was handy as I'd gotten the tickets as his birthday present. Mamet always makes me wonder about whether a play should be readable or not. Oleanna was easy to read, but I just didn't buy it as a performance, which to me makes a weak play...whereas I struggled with Henry V but was gripped by the RSC performance I saw in Stratford last autumn. I sometimes think a play only read is a lesser thing, as it's a performance and a text. It's like only reading songs.

A friend has a wonderful food blog (Treat a Week - he's such a foodaholic, and I can vouch for how good some of these recipes taste!), and reading his posts got me thinking about blogging myself. I work full time and have also been studying law by night for the last three and a half years (the end is in sight - I finish in June and it's going to be great to "just" work!). The work/study combination is at times terrible for my reading (my telly watching's also suffered but that's really no bad thing). I started to think how a blog may help my reading, may help me to reenergise and expand my horizons, may help to remind me that there's life beyond work and text books and case law and revision. So I started to mull over the idea of starting my own blog. I even mentioned it to the Husband, who was his usual supportive self (he's got far more faith in my than I do!).

After all my thinking about it I actually signed up to Blogger on a bit of a whim at the end of the first week back at work in 2008. My "official" aim is to actually look up words I know instead of just skipping over them, hence the name of the blog. Hmmm, that promise hasn't actually survived so well. I'm still noting words down, and where I found them, but finding the time to actually look them is proving elusive. Probably because I'm discovering this whole amazing world of bloggers! I love to wander through blogs, it's amazing what you find. Though thank god I discovered bloglines, or I think I'd spend all my free time wandering through the litblogosphere and never get any of my own reading done!

I want to write up my thoughts on Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (I initially disliked it, but got more into it and ended up thinking it's a worthwhile debut - I'll keep an eye out for Joshua Ferris in the future) and Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (I loved this book, I think it should have won the Booker, although Darkmans is sitting in my TBR pile as I write this so I may revise that opinion when I get around to that book). I'm currently reading Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin (my second Reading Dangerously book) and I'm finding it an intense experience. I read a little before pausing to digest, so it's a more thoughtful reading experience than other books I've read recently. Unfortunately, I've got a Property exam coming up on the 16 Feb so I'm just going to have to go and study and leave the world of books for pleasure behind for a while...