Saturday in the Park

I finished reading Matched. It's a young adult novel about life in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic society, so comparisons with The Hunger Games trilogy are inevitable. However, the government in Matched was way less cruel and punitive, and claimed to eliminate individual freedom of choice for the sake of its citizens' well-being. It's the classic question of how much freedom we're willing to give up to ensure safety and happiness. Naturally, the seeds of rebellion are planted, and perhaps because this book lays the foundation for a trilogy, it was more informative than action-packed. I'd recommend it to people who liked Hunger Games, even though I think Hunger Games was a lot better.

Next I think I'd like to read either:
(1) The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of the life of Ernest Hemmingway's wife
(2) Minding Frankie, which seems like one of those sweet little stories about quirky characters in an Irish village

In movie news, I finally got The Social Network from Netflix. Yes, I know, I'm timely! Not only that, I'm uninteresting, because I haven't even watched it yet.

What also makes me cool is, right now I'm listening to Chicago's Greatest Hits. (Chicago the band, not the city.) I got the CDs from the library and ripped them to my computer. Who doesn't love "You're the Inspiration"? And what is "25 or 6 to 4" about, anyway?

Other tidbits of information:

• I'm supposed to be "off book" (that is, have the script memorized) for Snow White by next week. I have absolutely zero interest in learning the lines. I think I just need to paint myself in a corner so that it's like, Oh God, I have to have this memorized by tomorrow! and then I'll be motivated.
• My kid needs to get out of my bed. I realize this sounds like an easy task, but if it were, I wouldn't have had him in my bed every night for the last several months. He was never a co-sleeper before. Just one day randomly he decided he was scared in his room, and he crawled into our bed at night. And then the portion of the night he'd spend in his own bed got shorter and shorter, and now I just flat-out give up and let him start the night in our bed. His presence in my bed has had some negative implications for various areas of my life, not the least of which is my eating habits. See, with him in my bed, I don't watch TV or read in my bedroom in the evenings. This means I hang out more downstairs, which is where the kitchen is, which means that I have easy access to food. And with my post-7:00 compromised will power, I end up eating everything in sight, ruining the rest of my good-eating day. Anyway, in an attempt to get Nathan out of our bed, we are buying him a new, more comfortable bed this weekend at Costco. Currently he's still in the converted crib/toddler bed (the fate of an only child, because he never had to give it up for a younger sibling), which means he's sleeping on a hard mattress designed for a baby. Our thought is that if we get him the same comfortable type of mattress we have (assuming Costco still sells the same brand as they did when we bought our mattress), maybe he won't wake up in the middle of the night and come into our bed. It's kind of a last-ditch effort, one for which we don't hold out much hope. If that doesn't work, we'll need to resort to actual parenting and enforcing policies. Dammit.
  
• Yeah, so Weight Watchers is ... umm ... I didn't even weigh in this week, I've been cheating so much.
• At least it has been warmer. We've been able to go to the park every afternoon, which tires Nathan out and makes him fall asleep more easily. Which is an especially good thing because Daylight Savings Time often throws a wrench in bedtimes. Like my Chicago CD says, "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"

Have a good weekend, everyone!