My in-laws have a wide collection of books. Some line bookcases in the living room - these are the reference books, the photo albums, the cookbooks, the encyclopedias. Other boxes of books sit in storage in the basement, waiting to be opened one day. Still others line a set of shelves heading downstairs - popular fiction from the 1950s onward sitting next to non-fiction books that will teach me French or Spanish, biographies of infamous men, and cast-offs from various libraries and book sales from my travels and their travels
This weekend I picked up the novel
Alaska by James Michener and haven't been able to put it down. At this rate I'll finish the thing by the end of tomorrow, and for a book that measures at 900 pages, that's a pretty good clip.
I've read Michener before, starting with
The Source in a high school global studies class. Michener's standard style is to take a place (or, for his novel
Space, a concept), and weave a set of stories throughout history, beginning with the start of time itself and ending with present day. You get used to his weighty, layered historical detail after a few hundred pages, and if you can get past the sheer volume of his words, the pages reveal a compelling story. This book makes me want to go to this strange state and travel around for a bit, and I imagine that the author would take this as a compiment if he were still alive

.
It's hardly a bit of light summer reading - but it does give me an idea - would anyone here like to start up a book club? Something like, we read the same book, then post about it at some point(s). There are a few other Michener books I'd like to try, but I need to take a break after this one, maybe with some non-fiction or a really trashy chick-lit paperback.
ladycroft, thanks for reminding me -- I washed a load of clothes with a Chapstick in the pocket of a jacket and ruined a bunch of things, too -- damn, had forgot about that. Nasty stuff, Chapstick.
i washed a tube of hemp chapstick (and dried) which left oil stains on all my clothes. couldn't get it out. boo.
Thanks to overstock.com, a new set of sheets is on the way. I made a valiant attempt to use nail polish remover on a rather large spot on a shirt, but it ended with me having made an even bigger mess of the shirt, ink on the sink, and blue fingers.
Maybe the moral of the story is that I shouldn't ever spend more than $5 on a piece of clothing; that way, if I stain and/or rip it, I don't feel so darn bad.
My worst laundry experience was when I went to the beach with my father and he put a load of dishes into the dishwasher. The reason this qualifies as a "laundry experience" is because he mistook a jar of white powder the timeshare's owner had placed under the sink for dishwasher detergent, when in fact it was powdered laundry detergent.
We were up until 3AM cleaning up the remnants of the unintentional "foam party" in the condo's kitchen that resulted from my dad's attempt to launder dishes.
if it's really just solid white, and already ruined (i.e. you can't make it worse)- it's worth a try to just bleach the hell out of it... like qtip straight bleach onto a spot and see if it does anything... That sucks though. :( sorry to hear it.
My worst laundry expirience - well, this is kind of gross.
One Saturday morning, after working the night before, I was washing my chef pants, work unders and t-shirts when I noticed a pair of my girlfriends black panties from the same night on the floor. Trying to figure out why they were down there, I gave them a good look and saw a very nasty white stain in the crotch.
I don't know what the fuck it was but I always had the feeling that this insecure girl was cheating on me.
Needless to say a few months later the girl left me for someone else. But thanks for reminding me of that. There's nothing like the feeling of being told I love you by someone who's been around the entire neighborhood.
Oh Kara, so sorry to hear about the laundry disaster. Did you pick up some of that dye remover stuff, just to give it a try? "Ritt" or something like that...
For the record, I once left a very nice wristwatch in my pants pocket and not only washed it but threw it in the dryer as well. To say that it was pulverized would be putting it lightly.
Also, I once shrank one of (e:chicoschica)'s favorite wool sweaters down to Cabbage Patch Kid size.