Security by Gina Wohlsdorf - Another book I probably won't finish

I just... It looked neat on the shelf and I liked the concept. An ultra-deluxe high-rise with top security is infiltrated by a murderer. The perspective is from the cameras on the floors and grounds and sometimes the page is split for simultaneous action. Unfortunately, it's not holding up. The camera perspective is just a gimmick; the list of cameras at the start of each chapter is essentially meaningless. The perspective is sometimes right there with the characters and sometimes like they are being watched from afar. (Cameras generally don't have audio so that would make it hard to keep the pretense up but it would be interesting if it was done right.)

Now, this would be all right if the story, or the characters, were any good. Tessa is the designer/overseer of this big building, getting ready for the grand opening. Her leather jacket wearing, motorcycle stunt riding foster brother comes to talk to her. They met when they were 8 and 10, respectively. They haven't seen each other in years. There's sexual tension and it's way awkward not least because it's implied by the text and by another character that Tessa was very fortunate to get placed in the same home as this hottie. When they were preteens. It's mentioned several times that Brian is in shape but he's not, like, vain. And he's not too buff. Brian is also the type who doesn't listen to his love interest when he's told "no" or "go away". And it's really obvious from the text that that's okay because Tessa doesn't really want him to leave. She can't keep from being giggly and smiling while he tags along with her around her work place after she told him to skedaddle.

Franklin, the manager, is a person "only another narcissist could like" and he's gay. This is how he is introduced and it is later explained that he made up a story in his head about how his life was hard because he was gay but really everyone was kind and accepting and why would he think being gay can be challenging? He's sabotaging the hotel for the competition. The killer kills him within the first fifty pages but it's better to say he's tortured to death for no apparent reason. We are lovingly told how 22 bones in his body are broken and his jaw is broken and his screams reach the empty tenth floor and then he's bashed in the skull with a paperweight and dumped in an industrial dryer from which wafts his moans and the smell of burned meat. The maid just gets stabbed to death. I'll leave someone else to interpret this.

Then there's Henri, the fat, farting arrogant French chef who exclaims "Mon Dieu!" and "Zut Alors!" at regular intervals. He had damn well better turn out to be a spy from, I don't know, Wyoming or somewhere because otherwise this is the author's idea of humor. Also, the kitchen and ballroom are on the nineteenth floor which is a recipe for logistical headaches and disasters.

So, the "Killer" is roaming around, picking off lonesome people for no as-yet known reason but he appears to have a compatriot on the cameras and that's who is narrating the book. Sometimes. Sometimes the narrative is neutral and sometimes it's clearly the unknown watcher, who has way too much of an interest in Tessa. The way all the characters are described makes them seem slightly gross and pathetic and quite frankly I would be fine with the Killer throwing them all down an elevator shaft. This somewhat takes away from the tension.

You know what? I don't need to read anymore about the randomly sadistic gigantic Killer or Tessa and Brian's somewhat incestuous love story.

I'm going to continue reading Jamaica Kincaid's Annie Jones which is a much better book. Eleven year old Annie is growing up in Antigua and as she gets older and starts to turn into a young lady she notices that her mother, who she is very close to, is now treating her differently. It's a sort of slice of life book with reflections on growing up and daily routine and love for parents and the discovery of death. New schools, new friends, new observations.

Verizon Fios Review - Five Minutes of Phone Menus

My internet was down. I tried to call Verizon. Took five minutes to go through their byzantine phone menu. The recorded message kept trying to deter me from calling, telling me to go online to report a problem. You know, with the internet I didn't have. I was put on hold. After 15 minutes it cut me off. Tried to call again. Couldn't remember what esoteric combination of button presses got me to where I was. Kept asking me for my pin. Not sure where it is. Just want to say their service is down, not access payment options. They also throttle service but I'm complaining about their non-help number now not the fact that they don't give you entirely what you pay for. Service isn't bad generally.
But let's put it this way. Hope you never need help because while they charge you for service you may not be getting, they won't talk to you so you can get help.

I want to review the experience somewhere because it was so frustrating and made me feel so helpless but I don't want to sign up with another organization to complain. So I'll complain here. You want to give honest feedback on a shitty service but you have to allow access to your personal information to some other site and acquire yet another password. I'll post it here. No one will see it but it'll be out there.

I'm either going to take my mother for a walk or go back to playing Thief.

There's no actual content here or Fish in Exile

I read one more chapter of Fletch. In it he has a call to the finance expert at his paper where we get a chapter long info dump of the rich guy's backstory and finances. Excuse me while I try to drum up some enthusiasm. Wait...wait...nope, no, not happening. I'm just not feeling it. I'm too tired for this nonsense. My mother got out of the hospital barely a month ago after her heart transplant and I just don't have the energy for this long-winded exposition.

Which is why it's weird that I read in entirety Vi Khi Nao's Fish in Exile. Because that was pretty ridiculous as well. Mythological callbacks and metaphors abound in this tale of a couple who lost their twins to the sea. So many metaphors, so many allusions. It's a serious story with serious grief and some of it is quite well portrayed and yet. Part of the way Ethos and Catholic Romulus (yes, those are their names) handle their grief is by buying pair after pair of fish (as a pair of proxy children, named Dogfish and Pistachio) and putting them in dresses and "walking" them until they die and then starting the process all over again. I understand what it's supposed to mean in regards to their grief and guilt but it's just too silly. And the metaphors. The entire book is metaphors and similes. "I watched the pluvial curtain let down her translucent laces."  She's saying it's raining. But she just said that in the previous sentence. "Snow was predicted, but rain comes heavily in sheets." It's repetitious for no real reason other than to use fancy words. It doesn't truly add anything. Tons of this. "And soon, like a child that blooms into a hand, I fall asleep."  "I sipped from the well of the Corona." (He's drinking a beer.) "I don't understand women or cameras. My thoughts are outnumbered by white diminutive dots." The entire first part of the book from the point of view of Ethos is so dream-like and metaphor heavy that it's almost impossible to figure out what is going on. He can't make love to his wife. She's turned cold. He puts daisies down his underwear. She's not thrilled by this. He eats the daisies. They taste like tobacco. He has a haversack he keeps putting bread and butter into. There's also the neighbor couple who were present at the tragedy and Ethos' mother.
At the core of the story is the loss of two children and everyone's guilt about what they could have done to prevent it's happening but you get the full story so late and before that no one's guilt makes sense.

One more thing to share. I have a Library of Health 1935 edition of the 1916 book, edited by B. Frank Scholl. Twenty books in one volume, it was a health library for housewives to use to care for their families. (No internet!)

From the section on Self-Care for Women, on exercise and nutrition and how you can't change your natural body type but you can take care of yourself.
"This individual perfection will be each person's own type of beauty, and if this is brought out as nature intended, will be most attractive and delightful." p. 1635.
You are an individual not made to be fit to someone else's mold of beauty; take care of yourself and let your God-given loveliness shine.

Fletch by Gregory McDonald, chapters 1 - 5

So, I have a decision to make: Should I continue to read Fletch? Because quite frankly it's made out of shit. Well, that's not quite accurate. I've read five chapters and what it's actually made out of is 1970s adolescent boy power fantasies. And being a woman who wasn't alive during the 70s, I'm not sure I'll be able to make it all the way through without straining whatever muscles you use when making expressions of disgust. So, what do we have.

We have Fletcher, who, while dictating his notes to one of those old fuck-off tape recorders at the end of the second chapter, literally refers to himself like this:
"What Stanwyk doesn't realize is that I am the great hotshot young reporter, I. M. Fletcher of the News-Tribune, who so dislikes his first names, Irwin Maurice, that he never signs them. I am I. M. Fletcher." p.13
Okay, one: Thanks, author, for giving us that information in an entirely natural way. Tying in to one, Two: Nobody speaks like this, at least not un-ironically, and if they do, nobody wants to speak with them. Maybe this is why he has to tell it to his tape recorder. Three: Ugh.

So, in order to make his character relatable and likeable, at least to a certain type of man, we learn several things about good old (young!) Fletch. He was in the Marines and won a Bronze Star but hasn't gone to pick it up because he doesn't care or something. Two, he's been married and divorced more than once and his ex-wives are continually trying to get alimony from him. One of them left him because she feared him after he threw her cat out the window of their seventh floor apartment. This is relayed in such a way that it's clear the readers are supposed to side with Fletch and think she's being ridiculous. She is not. He doesn't like his editor, Clara. This is an interesting bit. It's the bit where the awesome male character who is top notch at his job is being impeded by the female who is (the male informs us without actual proof) incompetent but has her position because she is supposedly sleeping with the boss. Something Fletch never fucking shuts up about. In fact, his harassment of her is constant.

"I love you, too, bitch." "Don't get any crumbs in Frank's bed." "You sound relaxed and subdued, like just after sex." "...how is our editor-in-chief, Frank Jaffe, in bed?" "As a cooking writer. You know nothing about hard news. You know nothing about features. You know nothing about the mechanics of this business." "...you are totally unqualified and, I might add, totally incompetent. Go to bed with Frank if you like..." "...bitch editor." "You don't know what you're doing." "If you do that, Clara, you'll be dead before me. I will kill you. Make no mistake." "Christ, I wish I didn't have to talk to you, you're such an idiot." "Stupid bitch."
Most of that is in one conversation.

Also. Fletch is shacking up with an exploited 15 year old heroin-addicted child prostitute. So there's that.

I can already tell that Fletch is going to be made to look like a genius because everyone else is dumb as a brick. He calls up business offices and doctors and they just give him private information because... he says he needs it.

Also, he steals stuff from the newspaper library which is deserving of death by a thousand papercuts, frankly, and would be the worst of his character traits if he weren't a pedophile.
Have I mentioned he's apparently sleeping with a child? Because that should probably be mentioned multiple times. If it turns out he really is just living with her without any actual sex then awesome. He may be a thieving duplicitous misogynist pet killer but at least he wouldn't be a pedophile.

Oh yeah, what's the mystery. Some guy hires Fletch to kill him because he has terminal cancer and wants to leave the insurance money to his family without going through the pain of his illness. He's rich, it sounds like a story. Whatever. I'm sure there will be intrigue of some sort and Fletch will never be wrong and everyone else is just an idiot who gets in his way because other people are stupid but especially girls. God, it's like some of them might get to be your boss or something but man, it's cool. They're actually stupid bitches who only got the job because they're fucking the boss. You're still the man and way smarter than that stupid whore, guys, just read my Self-insert character and slip into the warm power fantasy of a really weird and gross man.
Also, something about drugs on the Beach. Who is the main supplier? Where is Fat Sam getting them? I'll try to contain my enthusiasm for the outcome of this mystery. Clearly, it's just as interesting as what Fletch cleverly titles "The Murder Mystery." I can see why people hire him to write words down.

Maybe I'll read another couple of chapters just to see if he can top pedophilia as his worst character trait. That's hard-going but I believe in him! He is the great hotshot, after all.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

I cannot rave enough about this book. I finished it in July and I find myself wishing I could experience it all over again for the first time.
A little girl, having just recently lost her mother, spends the summer on an island with her father and grandmother. It's told in episodes. They find and foster a cat. Another little girl comes to visit. A man brings them fireworks for midsummer. There's exploration of the different parts of the island. Her father starts a garden.
What's brilliant about this book is the way the girl, Sophia, who is about six, works through her grief in her interactions with the world and others. There is only one brief mention of the mother's death but the sadness and bewilderment and rage and loss comes through in what Sophia focuses on and how she relates to the rest of the world. She can become terribly angry at things for no real reason. She suddenly has a need to build an entire imaginary world out of driftwood and stones and becomes deeply upset and scared that a storm might have washed them away. Her father goes out during a storm and her quiet dread is palpable.
The biggest relationship is with her grandmother though. They explore together, argue, build a town. She relies on her grandmother for advice and then challenges it. Her grandmother is clearly trying to do her best to help her granddaughter through a quiet, empty time filled with little understood emotions but she herself knows that her time is passing. There are important things she wants to pass on but she can no longer remember how to say them. She has little energy although she does her best to keep up.
There's a light that shines through this book. Everything ends eventually. But everything continues as well and there's so much out there to explore.

Am I back? I have no idea.

I have had my better job for one year. Better pay, better benefits, a demanding but fair boss, better commute, occasional telework... Let's try to keep this up. Now I need a car that's not twenty years old and needs new parts.