My tongue is numb. My lips are numb. My ears are numb. But the five cavities that mysteriously appeared in the last six months have been drilled and filled. So, yay. I'm feeling slightly traumatized, though---which may be a perfectly reasonable reaction to having people poking around in your mouth for an hour and a half, I don't know---and since I can't talk to anyone without chomping my tongue to bits, I figured I'd come here for a little journal-chatter.

Not that I have anything to say. Of course. So a meme it must be....

Fortunately, I've several Lissa-provided memes to catch up on. Mwahahahaha!

Gakked from ludzu_alus:

1. One book that changed your life.
The Lord of the Rings. I read it when I was 11, and it was the first book I encountered that introduced me to fantasy as a genre. I'd read The Chronicles of Narnia already, but I had absolutely no awareness at the time that there was more like it. But The Lord of the Rings was a doorway to Anne McCaffrey, Patricia C. Wrede, Robin McKinley...and the realization that *this* was what I needed to write.

2. One book that you've read more than once.
Illusion by Paula Volsky. I've read it three times, which is rather a miracle, since in general I never re-read books: I remember the details far too well to enjoy the journey a second time. But with Illusion, there were so many good moments, each made better by the journey to them, that I'd wait a couple of years and then dive into it again. Now I mostly cheat: I open the book to my favorite bits and simply read those.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island.
The Bible, which I'm sure is rather cliche for a Christian to assert. But as I said, I don't really enjoy re-reading most books. But the Bible would be something to study as well as read, which would engage my mind much better in tedious moments than a novel would.

4. One book that made you laugh.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's *exactly* my sense of humor---smart, goofy, occasionally subtle---and sometimes what he says is so unexpected that I laugh at the surprise of it.

5. One book that made you cry.
Many books have made me cry: Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, half the Harry Potter books, Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring (although those were tears of frustration more than sadness), but the book that made me cry the most recently is Connie Willis' Impossible Things, especially the novella, "The Last of the Winnebagos." Good grief. Actually, "good grief" describes it rather well. Superb writing; I highly recommend it, especially since not all the stories are sad...and all of them are very, very smart.

6. One book that you wish had been written.
Jane Austen's Sanditon. I mean, yes, it's been finished by "Another Lady," but I'd love to see how Austen would have written it.

7. One book that you wish had never been written.
There's not really a book I wish had never been written, although there are certainly those I wish I hadn't read: Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice, Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. When I think of the time I could've spent reading other things instead.... Alas.

8. One book you're currently reading.
I've been working my way through The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre for three months or so. The stories aren't scary so much as grotesque, and the images and feelings of paranoia stay with me for so long after I read each story that I have to wait awhile before I can dip into another one. I'm hoping to finish it by the end of the year, but we'll see....

9. One book you've been meaning to read.
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a Cyrano-recommendation, so I know I'll enjoy it, and I've been further tantalized by Cyrano's assertion that the John Carter character represents, in his reaction to Dejah Thoris, the way most men feel about the women they love.

Bonus question: What book scared you the most?
I don't tend to read very many scary books, as such, but Neil Gaiman's Coraline definitely gave me gooseflesh and a sneaking suspicion that All Was Not Right.

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