2017 reading goals

2016 was a mighty good year when it came to reading. I found myself gripped with a sudden and never ending hunger to read and ended the year with 26 books under my belt, more than doubling the 12 I read the year before. Not bad, considering my goal was 15 books. So with the dawn of a new (and hopefully better) year, I figured it would be a good idea to come up with some goals.

I'm going to set the number of books I want to read this year to 15. I didn't think I could meet that number last year, but I proved myself wrong, so that should be an achievable number for me. I was tempted the set the number higher, but I don't want to go off half-cocked and set it too high. At the same time, that 15 is the minimum that I want to read and I sure as hell going to try and exceed it.

I want to increase the number of books written by women. I just did a tally and I only read books by six women. I don't know what would be a good number other than more than six.

I was thinking of diversity as well. As best I can remember, Kazuo Ishiguro and Octavia Butler are the only two non-white writers I've ever read. Not great. Even worse with queer writers, which is a big fat zero. I plan on upping the numbers on both if I can.

Another thing I want to do is read more non-SF&F fiction. I have a bunch that I've picked up over the years that are just sitting on shelves or boxed up, so I may as well put an effort into reading them. At the very least I want to read Les Mis and some of the Charles Dickens I have.

So to sum it all up: 15 books minimum, more women, queer, and writers of color, and more non-SF&F. If I manage any of this, I'll be amazed.

Yogurt out of here

I bought two packs of some sort of cappuccino flavored yogurt drink at the grocery store on Tuesday. I've never been a fan of yogurt, but my mom wanted it (for context, I live with my parents as a caregiver/helper due to their health) so we got it. I didn't try one until yesterday and what follows is the exact sequence of events:

1. Grabs a bottle from the fridge and heads back to my bedroom.
2. Opens bottle and takes a drink.
3. Pause, then walks back down stairs.
4. Hands bottle to mom since she loves the stuff.
5. Leaves and joins the Trappist monks so that I may atone for my horrific decision to try it.

I don't like yogurt because of the taste. It doesn't matter what the flavor is, yogurt has a taste to it that I just cannot stand. Bad enough I have some of it sitting in my belly right now.

An unfortunate bump in the blogging road

So you might have noticed that despite my newfound commitment to blog on here more that I haven't since the 19th of last month. I had reason and boy, is it ever the shittiest: my dog, Smokey, died.

It happened on the 22nd. Smokey had been sick for a couple of days prior and the vet diagnosed him with heart failure and that even with medication he could have died at any time. He was also in terrible pain and discomfort, so we made the decision to put him to sleep. He was a great dog and my best friend and I'll always miss him.

Needless to say that his death was a blow and I lost any interest I had in posting on here until now. So I'm going to do the only thing I can and start my blogging commitment anew. Again.

Tomorrow.