Christmas Lights and Tommy Chong

This has been one of those days that rarely happen to me anymore unless I'm traveling - a whole day gone by during which I've hardly picked up a book. Now, I did write a review for Curled Up with a Good Book this morning on Jason Wright's new novel, Recovering Charles, and I've managed to read 20 pages of Elizabeth Samet's book about teaching English at West Point.

That's it.

Most of the day was spent on one of those annual events I dread the most - putting up the outside Christmas lights. Honestly, it went a little better than usual this year, mainly because I didn't end up at any point with two female plugs or two male plugs facing each other as my only plug-in option. That happened last year and I had to redo one whole side of the yard at the cost of about two hours of extra work. The only problem this year is that it was 81 degrees while I was doing all the work this afternoon. That doesn't do much to get you in the mood for Christmas.

Then this evening, strictly by accident I stumbled upon a movie on Showtime I had never heard of called "He Was a Quiet Man," a surrealistic thing starring Christian Slater about an abused office worker that brings a loaded pistol to the office and proceeds to lose his mind. It was fascinating and it immediately hooked me.

And now, I'm watching a documentary about Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame) and the relatively bogus conviction that earned him a 9-month prison sentence in 2003. What a likable guy - and what a shame that the Federal prosecutors decided to make an example of him. Hey, who knew that Tommy Chong is Canadian? Not me.

But I'm already missing my regular reading; I feel some heavy duty reading coming up from my bedside table tonight.