OMG

I forgot to post a blog yesterday!

And I didn't realize it for almost a whole day.

Well, in any case, I'm doing much better on this 30-day challenge than on the last!

Yesterday was really nice. Ari and I had a relaxing morning, then later in the afternoon we met our friends Jenny and Matthew for drinks at the rooftop bar of Whole Foods in Gowanus. Then, we went to dinner at Bar Corvo with a few friends and coworkers to celebrate my friend Carol's 30th birthday.

Today, I had brunch with my cousin Graham and his boyfriend Scott, at their adorable apartment in Bushwick. They made us breakfast! Then we came home and I basically napped for two hours, and Ari went to his church gig.

Then I FINISHED the LOTR SERIES! Huzzah! So Ari and I watched the final movie in the series as well. It was a good weekend.

Return of the LOTR

I've finished taking my 3-book-long break from reading the LOTR series. During my book "vacation," I read an amusing book of essays by Nora Ephron, a series of depressing short stories (Golden Boy, Emerald Girl), and finally a best-seller from a couple of years ago, called The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. I already quoted that last one on a previous post - I generally enjoyed the book, although the main character was surprisingly unpleasant.

So now I'm back to reading the final book in the trilogy: The Return of the King. I have to admit, even though I enjoy Tolkien's writing style and think that he is pretty darn good at creating interesting characters and worlds, I'm ready to be done with it, and I'm less than halfway through. I will probably feel sad when I finally finish it, though.

Plus, it has this sweet 1990s cover (this is the biggest image I could find):

image via

That's Aragorn wearing a "helm" with wings coming out from either side of his head. Yup.

Am I a geek yet?

I've been working on the Lord of the Rings books, partly as a favor to Ari (he has been asking me to read them for years) and partly because I just want to finally read them, and I figure summer is a good time to do it. I've finished book 1 and 2, and got about 60 pages into the third book before realizing that I just need a break from Tolkien.*

Despite feeling the need to take a break, I have gotten pretty involved in the story. There have been multiple points in both books where tears have been shed -- usually on the subway, which is when I get most of my reading done. I am not ashamed to cry to public! That's actually part of becoming a real New Yorker, I believe.

So this week, now that MAD MEN is done (*sob sob sob*) and we are not ready to try watching Breaking Bad again (it's gonna happen someday!), I suggested to Ari that we watch the first two LOTR movies, so that I can compare them to the books so far. I asked his permission to speak over the films and make comments about how the movies diverged from the books, and which parts I thought were done well, or poorly, and he agreed to let me talk during his precious movies. So last night and tonight we watched the first movie: The Fellowship of the Ring. And it was pretty darn good. Too many battle scenes and the orcs are really ridiculous, but otherwise, quite well done! Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson) is still my favorite. I had a crush on him in high school, and I have a crush on him now. He's pretty without being too pretty (like Legolas).

Anyway, that is my deep analysis of the movie. Once I finish the third book, I think I'll be done with fantasy for a while. Or who knows, maybe I'll give Dune a try. But first, I'm going to read something by Nora Ephron. I feel like that's about as far from Tolkien as I can get right now.

*To be completely honest, I also took a break midway through the second book to read The Girl on the Train.