What's been goin' on with me

ME
I wrote a wee bit about my religious background on Mabel Talk, if anyone's interested.

FOOD
As I cook things from my vegan cookbooks, I go to the VeganEats tab at the top and update it. It's divided by vegan cookbook. So if you're ever curious about buying this or that cookbook, you can see which ones I end up using the most. But I only started doing this a few months ago.

HEALTH

So I've been on Elavil for a couple years now--it's the daily preventative headache drug I take. It's made a huge difference in terms of keeping the daily headaches at bay. If I'm not stressed out, and I'm not menstruating, I can go for a week or two without headaches.

Then I tried a second drug, Nadol, which didn't seem to make any difference. I was at work at the time, and under a lot of stress. When I went off it, I was no longer at work and very relaxed. And I went through two really bad weeks--the week I was menstruating and the week after. Which leads me to believe the drug might have been helping a bit. But not enough to warrant continuing to take it.

Awhile ago I went onto drug #3, Topomax--I've been increasing the dosage every two weeks. This is the drug that gives me pins and needles in my arms (that's ok), pins and needles in my feet (less ok - actually SUPER ANNOYING LIKE MY FEET ARE IMPLODING!), less sweating (that's really convenient, I can forget to wear anti-perspirant even!) and last week I finally got up to the full dosage. Just in time to get my period.

The first full day of my period, Friday, I fought off super headache all day, with super drugs. Fight fight fight. Dull throb of low grade headache all day, went to bed this way. But since Saturday I've been headache free. Haven't taken one pain killer. I'm almost afraid to say it. It's the loveliest menstruation week I've had in ages.

I even had some stress, and it didn't bring headaches either. Fingers still crossed.

TV
I've been working my way through all the Blackadders lately. I started with 3 and 4, then back to 1 and now I'm on 2. The whole thing is just so brilliant, and exactly what I've been in need of. 

BOOKS
Finished one today. Now I've either got to start something new, or pick something off my backburner list. I'd finish Julius Caesar but I keep losing it.

Ali Velshi

I finished the Canada Reads book today: Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis. It's about a guy, Angus, who is strong-armed intro running as the Liberal MP in a riding that's always been completely Conservative, where he has zero chance of winning. But a last minute scandal throws the Conservative out of the running, and he ends up winning. He has no desire to be re-elected, so he goes about being an MP of Conscience, if you will--making decisions based on what he thinks is best for the country, not best for his riding, or for his political career. The book was originally self-published because Fallis couldn't find a publisher for it, until it won the prestigious Stephen Leacock Humour Award. It's now reached bestseller status for winning the battle of the books on Canada Reads--well defended by CNN reporter Ali Velshi, who argued it was an antidote to political cynicism, and he hopes it will inspire some real Anguses to run in future elections.

Here's the 2-star review I wrote on Goodreads--there are no spoilers.


My short review: I liked the characters, I was interested in the politics, it was a pleasant read, but man it was badly written.

My long review: I don't blame every publisher for famously turning this book down, the writing is AWFUL. 1. there's too much of the author in the book. What are the chances of two English-language-usage-obsessed people meeting each other? Very slim. It would have been charming for the narrator to have this obsession, or the protagonist Angus. But for both to be this way, it just felt like the author was being a sanctimonious pr**k.

2. He's terrible at describing settings and people. In a humor novel long descriptions just invite you to pass over them, unless you're very very brilliant. Otherwise a few well chosen words is funnier. (PG Wodehouse: "She looked like something out of the Book of Revelations.")

3. Our hero Angus had no failings. He had one small plan go awry, but everything else he did went over brilliantly.

4. Not very suspenseful. Really, there was no suspense to the book at all. No tension. No arcing plot. No bad guy, no antagonist, no goal, nothing to strive for, no tension. The book just wandered along until a sudden mild spike in tension in the last chapter. It looks like the sequel has an antagonist, so it might actually be better.

5. The first few chapters of the book could have been cut, they added almost nothing to the book. Just a lot of blaaa blaaa blaaa. I would have given up if I hadn't listened to the Canada Reads debates, and been spurred on by Ali Velshi's excited descriptions of Angus. I spent the whole beginning of the book just waiting waiting waiting for Angus to get elected.

6. The character of Muriel is so prominent in the beginning chapters of the book, and then becomes a ghost once Angus is elected. You could have completely removed her from the book, it would hardly have affected the plot.

7. You could have removed the narrator's romantic interest from the book and it would hardly have affected the plot. I hesitate to call her a romantic interest. She was there, she and the narrator fell in love in about two seconds. There was no romantic tension, it wasn't drawn out at all, there was no fun love story to keep the reader hooked, no fun subplot to jolly me along. It just existed. It needn't have.

8. All the 5 star reviewers on amazon said it was gut bustingly funny, and it won the Stephen Leacock award for humor. I thought the book was amusing at times, when Angus was Doing His Thing. But I never laughed at loud. Fallis didn't know how to build up the right kind of tension, so as to surprise me with the Angus Moments. I never had that edge of the seat 'Oh my God no no no -- he's gonna do it! OH NO!' moment that I get in really outrageous books. I always knew Angus would do the outrageous thing, so it wasn't suspenseful, which made it less funny. Also, the fart jokes and dog poop jokes weren't funny. Pete 1 and Pete2 were amusing, but Fallis never did anything really funny with them. The finale would have been funnier if we witnessed it in first person, rather than hearing it after the fact. The Leacock People and I just don't share the same funnybone.

Fallis looking shocked that he won

The good: Except for having no faults, Angus was a great character. Everyone else was likable. I wanted to see them win.

I was interested in seeing how a Canadian political campaign works, and then how daily government works. So I enjoyed the setting and the insider knowledge.

It was a quick read, and I always returned willingly to the book. I'd be temped to give it three stars just because I didn't find it an onerous read. But in the end... there were so many things technically wrong with it... I just don't think I can. If I hadn't heard it defended on Canada Reads, I don't know if I would have made it past the first few chapters.