not even close to 100 books, June and July.

I feel like I read a lot more than this, but I got really bad about keeping track of what books I read. (Edit: I remembered one more!) Here is what I can remember from June and July

40. State of Wonder Ann Patchett A lovely book about scientists!
39. In the Garden of Beasts Eric Larson
38. The RedbreastJo Nesbo Did you finish the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books and wish that there were more books set in a frozen dystopian socialist nightmare with sex crimes and ne-onazis around every corner, but maybe with better editing and characters instead of obnoxious unrealistic caricatures? Then you should read the Harry hole books by Jo Nesbo. (Seriously, they are really good!)
37. Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks
36. Nemesis Jo Nesbo
35. The Devil's Star Jo Nesbo
34. The History of LoveNicole Krauss Beautiful!
33. East of Eden John Steinbeck. For sister book club. Love steinbeck, love this book

32. The Crucible Arthur Miller
31. A Discovery of witches Deborah Harkness
30. Cutting For Stone Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife Tea Obreht
27. Swamplandia! Karen Russell
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
25. Galore, Michael Crummey
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

Sunscreen fail

I went to the beach today! it was great! Not the awesomest beach in the world, but secluded and not busy ( a miracle considering it is approximately 2349809234 degrees with 7 billion percent humidity on the east coast today). I did not take pictures of the beach becacuse I forgot my camera. I did however, take pictures of my hilariously ineptness at applying sunscreen. On the plus side, my sunscreen works because the protected area of skin remained the shade of bluish white that I pride myself on, even in winter. On the minus side, I missed about 50% of my legs.

Also, I wore giant sunglasses. You can tell, because I now have giant white circles on my face. ( excuse the cheesy myspace style portrait and excessive sweat)

not quite the jersey shore- level goggle lines you see on faces in federal hill, but pretty obnoxious.
God bless aloe+lidocaine, in an aerosol can.
And now, i am going to a movie. I don't care which one.

Not to brag

But I win at dinner:

Grilled cheese with brie, argula and fig jam, carrot salad with lemon and mint!

90% awesome, 10% epic disaster

So I went to Boston for the Fourth of july! It was such a cool place to be on the fourth-surrounded by people in their very best flag t-shirts, wandering about historic churches and meeting halls where the whole party got started.

The day was almost entirely awesome-we wandered around the parks and markets and the riverfront, stopping frequently for drinks and food. I tried mussels (a brave step for someone who vomits at the smell of most seafood). We ended up at a Mexican restaurant in Cambridge where we had an actual dinner accompanied by some ill advised tequila shots. Dark fell, and it was time to head back to boston for the fireworks. And then things went south. Due to a lot of factors, mostly involving drunken belligerence, we walked back to boston. Despite my repeated warnings that we only had 45 minutes after the fireworks ended to get back to the train station to get our train back to Providence, and thus we needed to watch the fireworks from the riverfront subway stop, we did not take the short, five minute subway ride back to the riverfront, but instead walked. The map below shows our path. You may have trouble seeing the scale, but our trip was nearly five miles (after wandering around boston for most of the day).

I've helpfully illustrated with self-explanatory symbols the points where my feet started to bleed, the point where we stopped to watch the gorgeous, gorgeous fireworks over the river, and the point where I realized that the cop had misdirected us to a much further subway station than we wanted, that we were likely were going to miss our train, that I was going to have to sleep in my clothes on a couch of a friend of a friend and turned into a total bitch. We did indeed miss the train, slept on spare beds at the home of a friend of a friend, took the six AM train back to providence and drank gallons of water. My feet are still bruised and shredded,and today is the first day I can walk relatively painlessly. Not the best fourth of july ever, but far from the worst and certainly one to remember.