lornagrl

The Poe Shadow

The infamous Poe Toaster has left his annual gift with no mishap  even though nearly 150 spectators were on the scene. 

Each year on  Edgar Allan Poe's birthday a stranger leaves a rose and a half bottle of cognac on the writer's grave.  It is believed  the tradition started in 1949, but a former church historian and advertising executive has claimed he developed this scheme as a publicity stunt in the 70's.  However Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum disputes this. Nevertheless, I'm sure it's a great show.

I picked up The Poe Shadow at Barnes and Noble this weekend.  It's a fictional account of a lawyer investigating the mystery around Poe's death.  It was assumed Poe died of alcoholism but the cause of death has never been confirmed.  Poe was found wandering, and incoherent in the streets of Baltimore  in clothes that did not belong to him and taken to Washington College Hospital where he died four days later.  One theory is he was a victim of cooping, a practice  common at the time where people were forced against their will to vote numerous times for a specific candidate. Victims were often drugged, plowed with drink, and taken to various polls which may explain the strange clothes.

Perhaps next January, I will take a take a trip to Baltimore.

Too many books..not enough time...

My surgery is scheduled for November 12th. 

While my last MRI was excellent, there is still a slim possibility that I have some remaining cancer cells in the breast and possibly diseased lymph nodes.  I have opted for a double mastectomy with reconstruction. This means that they will be reconstructing the breasts with fat from my stomach (shut up). 

A positive way of looking at this: I am having a boob job and a tummy tuck. 

In the next few weeks I have to prepare for being somewhat out of commission for a month or so.  For example today I stopped at Barnes and Noble to buy my Christmas cards.  I was a bad girl last year and actually skipped the Christmas cards.(well I did send some electronic ones)  I am determined to get my cards out by Thanksgiving this year and since I will be recovering from surgery on that day I thought it best to buy the cards today.  While I was there I picked up two books -- that's two books to add to the growing list of books that I "intend" to read.

Like most New Yorker's I do most of my reading on the subway. Unfortunately there are many books I'd like to read that are the size of cinder blocks, so I either don't get to read them or worse, start to read them and get tired of hauling the book around and leave it at home in favor of The New Yorker or a physically lighter book such as The Catcher in the Rye or Breakfast at Tiffany's.

This is hard for me because I'm a bit obsessive about finishing a book before starting a new one. When I set a book to the side for any reason I feel like I've cheated on my boyfriend or something. So while I was standing on line at BN waiting to fork over my credit card for some yet more books to add to my collection, I decided to make a reading list of all the books I've abandoned and will try to get through them all while I'm convalescing.