FINAL READATHONING POST

Yeah, it's 10:30. I was going to read about Minnesota, and then I said screw it and went to get on my computer.

So, I spent this week saying (to myself) I wasn't going to be reading Sophie's Choice for the readathon, annnnd that's pretty much most of what I did. But I now only have 142 pages left, which is SO exciting.

I'm discovering so many awesome authors through State by State. I never read essay collections, but since this was about Things That Make Us Different But Still Unified, I had to get it. Because I fall for that every time. Anyway, John Hodgman wrote about Massachusetts:

Emerson said there is a "wise silence" inside all of us, and in it, a kind of divinity—an intuitive personal spirituality, that when we are attuned to it, makes all of reality an echo of our soul. Or something. No one really knew what he was talking about.

In honor of Massachusetts, here're pictures from my pilgrimage there last year for my 25th birthday (I have plans to marry both John Adams and Nathaniel Hawthorne):

That bust of Hancock was huge. HUGE. And randomly placed.

I took this photo illegally in the John Quincy Adams library.

Abigail Adams sat on that sofa. That's all I'm sayin'. Also that I love John Hodgman.

Oh, and I hate William T. Vollman. But that's another story. And maybe he's a great guy, but I hate his writing a whole lot.

In other readingness, despite sneering at Game of Thrones, I did place a hold on a library Kindle copy ages ago, and it came in. I looked at the first chapter today. I mean, it's readable. And that's fine. But it's too...ok, it's too this: "It was a splendid weapon, castle-forged, and new-made from the look of it. Will doubted it had ever been swung in anger."

Just...ugh. Like...the guys who enjoy that are the guys who do Civil War reenactments. Frickin' "castle-forged." It just takes itself too seriously. But before you all jump me in a dark alley as I walk away from this post, lemme tell you that I had issues with the series before reading any of it. So I fully admit that I am a Prejudiced Reader Who Does Not Like George R.R. Martin.

HAPPY READATHON, YO.