I should be getting wasted right this second, slugging drink after drink of vodka and cranberry at my cousin’s stag and doe. Instead, thanks to a huge storm that’s sweeping eastern Canada, I’m sitting at home on Saturday night, sober as a church mouse. Ah well. Maybe I should start drinking alone.

I’m reading: Ever so many things! Earlier this week I read Bernard Cornwell’s Gallow’s Thief, a historical mystery about a painter accused of a countess’s murder. It was okay, but a little predictable. Then I picked up Reay Tannahill’s Passing Glory a Scots historical novel that spans the 50 years between Queen Victoria’s death and Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. First published in 1989, it tells the story of the Britton family as they fall in and out of love, live and die through two world wars, and struggle to keep afloat during labour strikes and recessions.

I love sprawling, hundreds-of-pages-long sagas where you need to look at a family tree to keep all the players straight. It’s so great to experience someone going from a gawky young girl of 11, to a lover, wife and mother, and eventually to a matriarch with a large family of her own. And Reay Tannahill’s books don’t fell overly melodramatic—nobody’s getting raped and kidnapped and left for dead. They’re just living their lives and making horrible decisions and accepting the consequences. I think it’s neat to see how people lived in other times; how they spent their time. It must be why Gosford Park is one of my favourite movies ever. Well, that and Clive Owen. Mmm.

I’m watching: Firefly, still. I have two episodes to go. It’s pretty neat. Also Survivor, which started this week. I can’t wait for Amazing Race to start. It seems like forever since that show’s been on.

I’m listening to: Also ever so many things. I picked up Amelia’s Por Avion a few weeks ago, and it’s been on pretty constant rotation. It’s a live album, and quite lovely. I’ve also been spending a lot of time listening to The Decemberists in the last week or so. They’re so my male Rasputina! And I’m digging on Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary when I’m not listening to the above two artists.