Just an FYI, I’m sort of off the grid right now. I broke my smartphone last week and now my laptop is malfunctioning (using M’s laptop right now). So I won’t be online as much until I can get my old laptop up and running again. Fingers crossed.
Any suggestions as to reimaging/cleaning a laptop are welcome!!
Ella Minnow Pea
Author: Mark Dunn
Kindle edition
Goodreads synopsis: Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram (a phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet), “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.
This was an interesting short story. (Short to me as it clocks in at just over 200 pages). It’s a look into extremism, in an odd form. Basically, on the statue of Nevin Nollop is his famous sentence and, because it has been standing for so long, the bonding agent has lost its sticking ability and letters start falling off. The Council claims it is Nollop speaking through the letters and they begin to ban the use of each letter as it falls (if there are multiple letters it is not entirely banned until all fall off). However, effective at certain dates, people must stop using the letters in the written and spoken word. The town completely falls apart, people are banished to the US, some are flogged in public, others are sent to the stockade (all depending upon how many times they have committed the offense). It is a testament to how absolutely crazy and out of control any situation taken to the extreme can be.
People literally die and go crazy because they are no longer allowed to use certain letters of the alphabet. Though that sounds ridiculous, reading each letter and witnessing the increasing craziness, one can almost understand. As family and friends are banished and people are left alone with limited ways to communicate with those who remain, they have trouble coping. It’s sad.
Honestly, the thing I found most amazing was that as each letter was banned, Dunn was able to write so many of the epistles without ever using the letters. For example, “Z” is the first letter to fall; almost the entire book was written without the use of the letter Z. It takes a lot of thought and control to be able to consciously write without using particular letters. In the beginning, people would find other words to use in place of ones they were no longer allowed to use. But as more letters fell, it got harder to write correctly (i.e. grammatically correct) and they even had to begin spelling some things out phonetically or using numerals in place of some words (i.e. 2 for “to” and 4 for “for”). Language fell apart as more letters fell. Oh also, they were only able to write things out phonetically (that is, “ph” for “f” was allowed in writing, but not in speaking).
Wow, I had more to say about this than I thought!
Have you read this? What did you think? Thoughts on extremism (no matter the subject)?
Karen over at “Did You Make That?” is doing a Pattern Pyramid (click on the image to go to her blog post about it and enter!).
Essentially, she received a box of 30+ different pattern sets. She plans to select 6 winners (from the people who posted comments on the post). Each winner will get a mini collection from the patterns (and labels to sew in the garments!). We have until midnight EST tomorrow night (June 29) to enter. Each winner will keep one pattern for themselves and then post the remainder for other people to enter to win. Then they’ll select one winner who will receive the remaining patterns, that person will keep one for him or herself and then host their own pattern pyramid with the leftover patterns…get it?
It’s such a great idea to share and pass around the fun things she received.
I entered! I hope to be one of the first winners to be able to find a pattern and pass on the rest :)
Links to Checkpoint #2 post
So I almost missed this post! Luckily, I recently subscribed to My Reader’s Block via email (and I saw Geoff’s post for it) so I didn’t miss it!
Anyway, a quick reminder: I chose Mt Vancouver, which equals 25 books.
So of the 25 books, I’ve completed 4. So that’s better than where I was at the first Checkpoint (0!): 16%
The four books are:
1. The Map of Time, Felix J. Palma
2. The Twelfth Enchantment, David Liss
3. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
4. Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie
So in addition to marking our progress, Bev has also encouraged us to figure out where we would be on the actual mountain miles-wise.
According to Wikipedia, Mt. Vancouver is 15,787 feet so I’ve gone 2525.92 feet up the mountain!
She also suggested writing a poem using the completed titles and/or a favorite character and/or a book that surprised me.
Since I only read 4 books and the titles are rather short (and I’m not all that creative) I’m going to skip the poem thing. (If you can come up with a poem using those books titles, leave it in the comments!)
So… a favorite character? H. G. Wells from The Map of Time and Bailey from The Night Circus.
A book that surprised me? Maybe surprised by how much I enjoyed The Night Circus, as I’ve told many people it is my favorite book read this year. Peter Pan surprised me in that I realized the Disney version was more kid-friendly and Peter a more likable character.
I definitely want to finish this list by the end of the year. With a couple of vacations requiring airplanes (and involving laying on the beach), I know I’ll definitely be able to tackle some of these without a problem. Maybe I’ll save the Kindle ones for my vacations so I won’t have to carry any…
This is definitely one challenge I will do every year because it’s nice to “clear off” the shelves. 
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Kindle edition
Goodreads Synopsis: The gripping novel of a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences surrounding his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic Mr. Edward Hyde. The work is known for its vivid portrayal of a split personality, split in the sense that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality each being quite distinct from the other…
”man is not truly one, but truly two” (p 78)
I know I’ve kind of fallen off the face of the blogosphere, but I’ve been busy lately and not really feeling like jumping online when I get home from work. But I’ve missed joining in on the weekly memes, though it has been a nice break. I’m hoping to get back into things this week.
Anyway, some new things:
1. You can check out my final sewing projects in Sewing Funtime (7).
2. I started my own bread starter following the recipe in the book Friendship Bread by Darien Gee (see my review here). Today is day 9, so tomorrow I can bake! Fingers crossed
3. I’m going to be an auntie again two times this year (nephew #2 and either niece #2 or nephew #3, once they find out) Technically, they are my cousins’ babies, but we’re all so close that we’re more like sisters so we’ll all be called “auntie” (though my first niece and nephew actually ARE my niece and nephew).
4. I’m finally starting the blanket for nephew #2…found a fun, easy pattern. (and now I’ll need to figure out what to do for the next baby!)
5. I got some really great feedback from one of the Directors I support at work which was really great to hear.
6. I’m thinking of going back to school part-time to get my MBA. I’ve only just started looking into it, so it’s nothing definite and I’d have a few things to do (like accumulate the extra money for it and take the GMAT). The great thing is that my work will provide tuition reimbursement.
I think those are the main highlights of what’s been going on…
Even though I haven’t been posting, I have been reading posts almost every night (reading the ”blogs I follow” feature, anyway!)
What have you been up to?
We had our last class this Thursday night. It went by so quickly. But it was fun
We finished our pajama pants! I think we were all really proud of ourselves for making them. Everyone had different patterns and they all looked great. In retrospect, I probably could have gone down a size instead of going up, but hey, it’s the first pair of pants I ever made! (My biggest issue is that the pant legs are so wide…I have a big bum, not legs!…and maybe that the crotch seam is a bit long)
TA-DA!
from the side
I know the picture quality isn’t great. I had to take it through my mirror since I was home alone. The pant legs are a little long, but that’s because I didn’t do it according to my inseam. Just because I’m slightly shorter than average doesn’t mean I have to get petite clothes!
Anyway, it only took the first 45 minutes to finish the pants (setting up, watching the demonstration and then doing it). Julia (the instructor) was very excited when we finished our pants and encouraged us to put them on so she could see.
After the pants were done we took the next hour-ish to make our last pillow. It’s a bolster pillow. I told M he could pick out the fabric for it last week, so he picked a nice, bright orange (reminiscent of Rickie Fowler – the golfer who wears a bright orange golf outfit every Sunday). This pillow was WAY easier than I was expecting. In fact, the hardest part was – well, there was no hardest part. Everything we had to do with this pillow we had learned doing the other projects.
the ribbons on the ends aren’t all that manly
I’m seriously considering jumping right into Level 2 instead of waiting a session cycle. They’re having a deal right now on summer classes and I would save 30%. And I have my basic “equipment” so really all I would need to buy is fabric/thread. It’s the same time, just on Tuesdays instead of Thursdays, which still works with my schedule.
I know I’ve been MIA for the past week, but after doing the Armchair BEA, I decided I needed a small break. But only when I wrote the title for this post did I realize I missed a Sewing Funtime post for last week’s class…womp womp.
Anyway, in the last two sewing classes we worked more on our pajama pants. I’m so excited for the way they’re coming out! We actually got to put them on (over our clothes) this week to determine where our waistband and pant hemlines needed to be. I sewed up the inseam of the pants and we added the elastic for the waistband (we didn’t do a drawstring because learning how to make buttonholes is more involved and not part of level 1, I guess). Anywho, all that is left to do on the pants is hem the pant legs! I’m so excited
M says “peace, man” when he sees my pants; he thinks they’re hippie
the waistband
the instructor gave us ribbon to add to the back of the pants to use as a tag..so clever!
I’m a little sad that we only have one class left 
But we will finish our pants and then make a bolster pillow (I still need to get those materials!).
We learned a bit more about what happens in level 2: a seat cushion, a pillow with piping, a table runner, and 3 sample curtains…all in 8 weeks! (and I thought 3 pillows and a pair of pants was ambitious!)
Oh and I also give WAY more credit to the people who do stuff like this for a career. It’s a lot more work than I expected, so I definitely have a new respect for the contestants on Project Runway… how they can do all they do in such a short amount of time is beyond me!
~
Between the two classes I got an awesome addition to my sewing collection. And by collection, I mean I just started it! Anywho, M’s (that’s my boyfriend) uncle is like a picker, he goes to yard sales and flea markets all the time. We visited him last weekend and he mentioned he had a sewing box. Obviously I was intrigued. So he took it out for me to look at. I opened it up and there were so many spools of thread and random sewing paraphernalia inside! We gave him $10 for it and took it home:
vintage-y, no?
TA-DA!
removable tray with some notions
zipper, lace for seam edges?
scissor sharpener
buttoneer — button maker?
Dritz electric scissors
Now if only I had a machine…. (still working on getting my mom’s back, though I don’t really have the room for it here in my apartment).
I recently received the Sunshine Award from Kelly at reading with analysis. Thanks so much Kelly!!
The Sunshine Award in given by bloggers to other “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.” (thanks for the definition Kelly).
As with most of the other blog awards out there, this one has a few rules…
The questions:
)The new recipients:
1. Snobbery
2. Shhh…Mommy’s Blogging…
3. Love and a Six-Foot Leash
4. Red Lips and Academics
5. Adventures in Borkdom
6. The Oddness of Moving Things
7. Mrs. Pea’s Perspectives
8. Highest Form of Whit
9. Should Be Reading
10. Second Lunch
All of these blogs have inspired me with my blog in their own ways and helped me to better my blog. So thank you, to each of you!
There are many other blogs out there that are fun and interesting to read, too! Have fun exploring the blogosphere!!
Friendship Bread
Author: Darien Gee
NetGalley review
NetGalley synopsis: In the quiet community of Avalon, Illinois, Julia Evarts wonders how to move on with her life. Though her husband and five-year-old daughter give her anabundance of love, Julia still reels from a tragedy that has left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend. Meanwhile, across town, widow Madeleine Davis takes great pleasure in serving up delectable treats and cozy comforts at her tea salon – now, if only she had some customers to enjoy them. And famed concert cellist and recent Avalon transplant Hannah de Brisay finds herself at a crossroads when her career and marriage come to abrupt ends. The three strangers forge a friendship at Madeleine’s Tea Shop, and soon their camaraderie extends to everyone in Avalon in the guise of a unique and wonderful gift. But even as Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.
Life and loss, friendship and community, food and family: Friendship Bread tells a spirited, remarkably moving tale about the triumph of hope.
This is my second NetGalley review, and again a new edition (this was originally published last year).
I enjoyed reading this book very much! The characters were real, believable and well-developed. We met many characters within the first few chapters and at first I wondered how many new people we would continue meeting and wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy constantly starting new story lines. But it wasn’t like that at all! After meeting the major characters within the first 4-5 chapters, there were random chapters that I thought of as “vignettes” for lack of a better word. Whenever I read one of these random chapters, I was able to see how the town was connected by the Amish Friendship Bread.
The story was a really great one. It was emotional, funny in parts, about loss and recovery, family, friends and a “tomorrow could be better” attitude (which was taught to our main character Julia). At first I was kind of mad at Julia. Mad because her husband was also dealing with the tragedy that estranged her from her sister. (The tragedy was something that I generally identified before it was explained to the reader, and I’m sure many other readers picked up on it as well) Yes, she has suffered a tremendous loss, but so had her husband and her family. And her relationship was different from that of her husband’s but he was also suffering and didn’t know how to help her. She pushed him away. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens in real life in similar situations (and I hope this is something that I will never experience). (Sorry for being so vague, though I’m sure you’re kind of guessing what the tragedy was). Luckily, their relationship does get better with work, of course, but we see the progress of how to come back from such a loss. Julia finally learns that family is what can help you come back from a dark, unhappy place:
“…he is her family and she wants him, regardless of what condition he’s in, to be a part of her life. That’s really it, she realizes. That’s family in a nutshell. You take them as they are, and you love them, no matter what.”
I really enjoyed seeing the progression of the friendships and the Friendship Bread. The Bread spreads throughout the community and it was a wonderful thing. Madeline and Hannah are truly good people and good for Julia to have befriended. They helped bring her back to the world, all by chance and with a little help from the Friendship Bread. I love that Julia and Madeline (and again the Bread) help Hannah realize she is a strong, wonderful woman who has more to offer the world than her music. I also liked that Hannah turned to food. Someone who had barely done more than use a microwave became someone so comfortable and commanding in the kitchen. She took control of her kitchen and her life.
Madeline is the older woman mother/grandmother/aunt figure that everyone loves. She has life experience but doesn’t thrust it down everyone’s throats. She is gentle and kind, but knows when to speak up. But she has her own past pains, too. Through a minor “accident”, she ends up with a happy ending which she was never sure would actually happen.
Edie, a fairly new person in the town, works for the local paper. She is the character that I didn’t really care for. I thought she had a “holier -than-thou” type attitude at times. She felt that everyone should always do things to help the greater good (don’t spend the extra money on those clothes you want, send it to a third-world country to help other people). She writes a really stinky article about the Friendship Bread “epidemic” (I wrote a note in my Kindle at the end of the article: “terrible”). And even though she writes a nice article in the end after an amazing event occurs, I still don’t think it fully redeemed her character. And I don’t think she was a very good girlfriend to her great boyfriend. There was an exchange in the book between Edie and her boyfriend in which she said he is too good for her and he agrees and I wrote a Kindle note agreeing, too.
Connie started out as a minor character that I really liked, so I was happy (and not completely surprised) when she made a larger impact later in the story.
So now I know you’re curious, what the heck is Amish Friendship Bread??
The basic idea of Amish Friendship Bread is this: You begin with a starter (aptly named, no?), then after 10 days of kneading the starter and adding some ingredients, it is ready to be baked, but first you must split it into 4 equal parts. You use one of those quarters to make your Friendship bread and then distribute the other new starters to friends so they can make their own breads. I absolutely love this idea and was super excited to see a recipe to create my own starter as well as numerous recipes to make different kinds of breads (and even brownies and pancakes!)
I want to try this sometime soon. Though I don’t know many people who bake and would be afraid to make a lot because each starter makes more starter (it’s explained in the book). Apparently, you can get a lot of information on it if you Google it. I guess this has been around for about 30 years. I haven’t Googled anything yet, but according to the book, no one really knows why it’s called Amish Friendship Bread.
I definitely recommend this book!! And if you’ve read it, I would love to hear your thoughts. And if you choose to read it after reading my review, come back and let me know what you think!
(image courtesy of randomhouse.com and synopsis is from the Net Galley page. The image links to the Goodreads book page).
The Twelfth Enchantment
Author: David Liss
Goodreads Synopsis: Lucy Derrick is a young woman of good breeding and poor finances. After the death of her beloved father, she is forced to maintain a shabby dignity as the unwanted boarder of her tyrannical uncle, fending off marriage to a local mill owner. But just as she is on the cusp of accepting a life of misery, events take a stunning turn when a handsome stranger—the poet and notorious rake Lord Byron—arrives at her house, stricken by what seems to be a curse, and with a cryptic message for Lucy. Suddenly her unfortunate circumstances are transformed in ways at once astonishing and seemingly impossible.
With the world undergoing an industrial transformation, and with England on the cusp of revolution, Lucy is drawn into a dangerous conspiracy in which her life, and her country’s future, are in the balance. Inexplicably finding herself at the center of cataclysmic events, Lucy is awakened to a world once unknown to her: where magic and mortals collide, and the forces of ancient nature and modern progress are at war for the soul of England . . . and the world. The key to victory may be connected to a cryptic volume whose powers of enchantment are unbounded. Now, challenged by ruthless enemies with ancient powers at their command, Lucy must harness newfound mystical skills to prevent catastrophe and preserve humanity’s future. And enthralled by two exceptional men with designs on her heart, she must master her own desires to claim the destiny she deserves.
The Twelfth Enchantment is the most captivating work to date of a master literary conjurer.
So that is kind of a long synopsis of the book! I finished reading this a couple of weeks ago but am only now sitting down to write the post. It was a decent book and fairly predictable in some areas.
Sometimes it seemed that the writing tried too hard to be “old”. By “old” I mean mimicking the writing of books written in the 1800s or so. It didn’t really detract from the book (as it took place in the 1800s) but I just thought it felt slightly forced. The characters were fairly well written, some better than others. The main characters were definitely the better written ones as we were able to “see” them more.
The ending was predictable though there was a slight twist at one point that I wasn’t expecting.
The belief in magic was definitely a lot more prevalent in that time period and a number of historical fiction novels I read had some element of it. I thought the magic in this book was good. It was well written and more natural/philosophical than wand waving. I really enjoyed the following quotation about magic:
“Magic implies some sort of exception from the rules that govern the world, something outside nature, but if these things were magic in that sense, those spells could not be written down. There could be no knowing if a spell would work from one time to the next. But these things you teach me to do – they are governed by laws. A spell cast in the same way, under the same conditions, with the same level of concentration – it will work the same way every time. If that is so, is not magic simply another kind of natural philosophy, though a more obscure one?”
The magic described here makes me think more of alchemy than “hocus pocus”.
The Twelfth Enchantment was fine to read, but I don’t know if I’ll be re-reading it any time soon.
(Full disclosure, I also feel like this is a half-hearted review, since I waited a bit after I read it to write it)
Today is the last day of ArmchairBEA. It flew by!! Today’s post is a chance to ask the experts anything about blogging. (or if you’re an expert or have learned a few things along the way, a chance to share your tips, hints and tricks).
I’m certainly no expert, but I do have a few things to share that I’ve learned in my 8 months…
1. Visit, read & follow other blogs!
2. COMMENT.
3. Use tags!
4. If your blogging platform offers a “draft” feature, use it! Especially if you post multiple times a week; you can work on your posts a little bit at a time. If you’re reading a book for review, you can also add notes to remind you of certain points you want to mention in your post.
5. To get more traffic, join challenges (if you have specific topics for your blog, like books) or weekly memes.
Now for my questions…
1. Do you think it’s necessary to eventually monetize the blog?
2. How do you partner up with local libraries/bookstores/etc.?
3. How do you turn down a review request tactfully?
4. How do you manage to keep your passion for what you write?
I’ve really enjoyed participating and only wish I had more time to visit more blogs and get my posts up earlier! I would love to attend the BEA in NYC at some point in my lifetime and maybe meet some of you there!
Also, I was a Twitter Party #3 winner and was able to fill out the Giveaway form for one of the prizes: Super excited!
The Twitter parties were fun and I figured out it was way easier to join them from my computer as opposed to my phone.
Today’s topic is going “beyond the blog”: monetizing, writing reviews at other places, invitations to events, etc.
I haven’t done anything beyond my blog except for recently getting approved to review books from NetGalley. That’s really exciting but at the same time a little nerve-wracking as now there are people expecting a review. And of course, if they have such confidence in their work, they want to see a good review.
I think it would be great to get my reputation to the point where people would seek me out. I would love to have the opportunity to be invited to special events because of what I write. And I’d rather get the recognition for my reviewing before making money off of it. Primarily, this is still a blog for pleasure, though. And I enjoy writing about books and meeting other bloggers. I would never want it to feel like a chore.
I’m posting late today!
First, let me talk about the Twitter parties. Last night Twitter party #1 was held at 11pm EST, so I was in bed before it started. I caught up on some of the tweets this morning on my way into work. Looks like it was a lot of fun!
Anywho, today Twitter party #2 was held at 12pm EST, so I popped in a bit while on my lunch break at work. I was happy that I could contribute and I started following a few new people and got a few more followers, so that was definitely fun!
Ok, moving along to today’s topic: Networking.
Even though I’ve been blogging since October (so for roughly 8 months), I still feel like a newbie and have a lot to learn. I’ve never really considered “networking” in this process, but after seeing what some people use as networking, I guess I was inadvertently doing it myself. I’m on Goodreads with over 700 total books on my bookshelves (with over 400 of them on the To Read queue alone!) and I’m part of a book club that was created here on WordPress but we moved to Goodreads for ease of discussion, etc. And I have my blog linked to Twitter so if I have Twitter followers they’ll see the links to my posts. I had my blog linked to my Facebook page for a while, but then decided to take it off (mainly because I didn’t like how it made it look like I had over 900 followers since I have 800+ friends on FB). (My Goodreads account is linked to FB though).
I talk about my blog with people and I definitely interact a lot with other bloggers through weekly memes, reading challenges and now the ArmchairBEA. Using these features seems more like networking to me. For example, I had never heard of Dewey’s Read-a-Thon and after seeing some fellow bloggers participate, I definitely want to join in for the next one.
Not that long ago I heard about NetGalley from Geoff at The Oddness of Moving Things and signed up. I requested a few titles and got turned down. After a short period of neglect, I got back on it and requested a few more titles. Imagine my surprise when I got accepted! So I’ve been rejected twice and excepted 5 times! It’s a great way to get my blog out there. My first NetGalley review can be found here and I got a really nice email from my contact at the publisher after I published my review, which made me feel great!
But for offline networking, I definitely want to get into author signings and book events. There is the Boston Book Festival held in (you guessed it) Boston. (at least I think that’s what it’s called) and it sounds really interesting and would be something I’d like to attend. (And Geoff – see above for a link to his site – mentioned that he heard they are looking for community lead sessions…go to his site and ask him about it!) I would love to look up some other events that would be easy to attend and aren’t costly. And I definitely would LOVE to get to BEA at some time in my life.
I saw this great idea on Twitter today during the ArmchairBEA Twitter party:
I think it would be awesome if after#armchairbea is over we could put up a list of bloggers by city/state? May make it easier to meet up
Today is Day 2 of the Armchair BEA. Today’s posting topic is the Best of 2012. I’m taking this to mean the best books I’ve read so far in 2012, not that were published in 2012.
So far I’ve read 20 books since January 1, so I’m going to pick my top 5.
1. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
As you may have seen already, this is one of my favorite books. Morgenstern paints such a vivid and wonderful picture of a circus infused with magic. The characters are fantastic and the story is truly a memorable one. There is also an online game based on the book: nightcircus.co.uk. (you can sign in using your Twitter or Facebook accounts, too).
2. Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
A really interesting read and a great look into 80s pop culture. Interesting to see how we can become so consumed by technology (and scary too!)
3. The Map of Time, Felix J. Palma
A great historical fiction that includes some well-known historical people (H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper to name just a couple). I really liked the H.G. Wells character and wonder if the real person could have been anything like this character? (Also, I kept thinking about H.G. Wells from the Syfy show Warehouse 13.. hehe)
This is my favorite animated Disney movie. But I only read this story for the first time earlier this year. Well, Disney made it more kid-friendly and softened the character of Peter Pan a bit.
5. The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1), Jasper Fforde
I read this a while back and didn’t really remember anything about it, so I decided to read it again. While it may not be the best piece of literature, it is an enjoyable story and I look forward to reading the others in the series.
(Each title links back to my review on the book).
Today is also the first Twitter party (scheduled for 11pm EST), but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay awake for it…plus, what exactly is a Twitter party? hehe
