Boredom Breeds...

I'm confined in 2000 square feet of space, with the occasional trip to run errands or windowshop at the mall. Since I really hate the idleness of doing "nothing", I've tried to make myself busy, and been pretty fruitful in my endeavors. Here are a few things I highly recommend you do if you get a spare moment (or few):

1. Read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. It's science fiction written in elegiac prose-- insight into a world in which human clones are manufactured, grown to adulthood and harvested for viable organs. Disturbing and unsettling yet simultaneously beautiful in its striking nostalgic familiarity, Ishiguro's powerful tale gives a recollection of one former clone's experience at a sheltered boarding school for cloned children in the lush countryside of England.
   
   
2. Check out the Dixie Chicks' new album, Taking the Long Way. It's not country-country, for those of us against country music. It's more country-inspired lyrical music, like its predecessor, Home, far from the upbeat tongue-in-cheek tunes of Fly and Wide Open Spaces. Why the change? Well, that's what makes it all interesting: In 2003, the Chicks' lead singer, Natalie Maines, made a political remark at a concert in London: "Just so you know," she said, "we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas." And oh, the backlash. It included mass radio-station hosted Chicks cd crushings, vandalism of the Chicks' homes by angry fans, and threats on Natalie Maines's life. The Chicks have spent a good two+ years trying to come to terms with the drastic changes their lives have undergone, and their new music tells all:
   
   "It's a sad story when a mother will teach her / Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger. ' And how in the world can the words that I said / Send someobody so over the edge / That they'd write me a letter / Sayin' that I better shut up and sing / Or my life will be over / I'm not ready to make nice / I'm not ready to back down / I'm still mad as hell..."
   
   
3. Browse through Slate.com (introduced to me by Eric), and especially David Plotz's blogging of the Bible. It's a funny, very readable, and educational account of the Bible as Plotz goes through it, chapter by chapter. Having never actually sat with the Good Book myself, it's the perfect way for me to learn the biblical stories I only know tangentially.
   
   
4. Watch MI3. Seriously, I hate Tom Cruise too. But who doesn't love the essence of MI? And JJ Abrams? Lost, ALIAS, and Felicity, folks. This guy knows how to trip. you. out. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is pretty slick as the bad guy, and there's a whole sly Vatican scene (who needs Dan Brown when you have JJ Abrams?). And take it from me, you actually sort of start forgetting Tom Cruise's insanity, and start admiring his dimples and perfect teeth and muscles and live-action superhero aura and... ...well, just go see it. It's pretty brutally suspenseful, but we could all use a little rise in blood pressure sometimes. Isn't that what MI is all about?
   
   
5. Call me. I'm bored. Yeah, I'm serious.