Yesterday, I attended a work function, held at work, and of absolutely ZERO interest to anybody but people who work here. While I was mingling and conversating, I noticed that a co-worker of mine (a man I really admire and am friendly with) addressed his entire half of the conversation to my cleavage.
Inside my head, ten years ago: Oh my GOD, is that guy looking at my rack? He is! He's not even looking at my face - he's just looking at my rack! What a fucking pig! Hellooooooo - I have a face! Why do I even try to talk to guys like this?
Inside my head, yesterday: Oh, my God! Is he looking at my rack? He IS! Why? Do I have something on my shirt? No, I don't - I managed to keep lunch off the front of me today. Then why is he looking at my chest? Well, I *am* wearing the push-up bra and the shirt that makes them look pretty good. And they *are* DDDs. Yep. He's looking at my rack. Awesome.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Lamenting the Loss of My Ever-Lovin' Mind
First, I lost my keys this weekend. I mean, I LOST THEM. Possibly they're lying in a parking lot or on a road somewhere, smashed beyond recognition after having vaulted off the top of my truck, where I presumably left them.
Then, yesterday, I left my computer at home. An hour away from where I work. So I had to go home and I just ended up staying there and working from home. Because WTF else am I going to do? BUT FIRST, because I lost my keys, I had to travel an hour in the other direction to DH's office, where I procured the HOUSE KEY that I would need to GET INTO THE HOUSE.
I also learned this morning that on the soda fountain, even though it LOOKS like the person in front of you is getting water from the spout marked "SODA" in big, generic letters - that's actually CLUB SODA. And no, I don't like it any more now than I did the first time I tried it plain. Club soda needs and deserves vodka. Or a stain that it can work diligently to get out.
Today was the coup de grace, though. I bought tickets to the circus (yes, even though I'm opposed) and have been prepping the kids on the circus trip since Saturday morning. I printed them out this morning in anticipation of the show tonight.
The show is not tonight.
The show is NEXT Wednesday.
Not only will my children be completely hysterical with no hope of consolation when we pick them up from school today and inform them of Mama's Colossal Screw-Up, but neither will the mistake be assuaged by Dance Class, which was being missed for the fantastic circus. Why? Because I left her dance things at home. An hour from where I work.
We weren't going to need them, you know. We were going to the CIRCUS.
Then, yesterday, I left my computer at home. An hour away from where I work. So I had to go home and I just ended up staying there and working from home. Because WTF else am I going to do? BUT FIRST, because I lost my keys, I had to travel an hour in the other direction to DH's office, where I procured the HOUSE KEY that I would need to GET INTO THE HOUSE.
I also learned this morning that on the soda fountain, even though it LOOKS like the person in front of you is getting water from the spout marked "SODA" in big, generic letters - that's actually CLUB SODA. And no, I don't like it any more now than I did the first time I tried it plain. Club soda needs and deserves vodka. Or a stain that it can work diligently to get out.
Today was the coup de grace, though. I bought tickets to the circus (yes, even though I'm opposed) and have been prepping the kids on the circus trip since Saturday morning. I printed them out this morning in anticipation of the show tonight.
The show is not tonight.
The show is NEXT Wednesday.
Not only will my children be completely hysterical with no hope of consolation when we pick them up from school today and inform them of Mama's Colossal Screw-Up, but neither will the mistake be assuaged by Dance Class, which was being missed for the fantastic circus. Why? Because I left her dance things at home. An hour from where I work.
We weren't going to need them, you know. We were going to the CIRCUS.
Monday, June 18, 2007
The Post Where I Reveal My Favorite. Poem. Ever. Today, Anyway.
This was really, really hard because I like so many different poems for so many different reasons.
I looked through everything: Neruda, Auden, Burns, Teasdale, Browning, Keats, Dickinson, cummings, Frost - and more and more. I remembered poems I had forgotten and saw my tastes change throughout my life.
Finally, I remembered it. And this is my favorite poem. Today, anyway.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats
I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
I looked through everything: Neruda, Auden, Burns, Teasdale, Browning, Keats, Dickinson, cummings, Frost - and more and more. I remembered poems I had forgotten and saw my tastes change throughout my life.
Finally, I remembered it. And this is my favorite poem. Today, anyway.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats
I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
The Problem with the Digital Age
It occurred to me this weekend that my kids are going to miss out on an awesome thing by being part of the digital age: cassette tapes.
My kids won't be able to hold the tape recorder up and tape songs off the radio. They won't be able to tape-record themselves reading really annoying kid books out loud to their dolls. Or their siblings. Or just for the hell of it.
They won't know the exquisite annoyance of fast-forwarding through a song you HATE to get to the only song you bought the stupid cassette for in the first place.
And they won't even KNOW they're missing it! How sad is that?
My kids won't be able to hold the tape recorder up and tape songs off the radio. They won't be able to tape-record themselves reading really annoying kid books out loud to their dolls. Or their siblings. Or just for the hell of it.
They won't know the exquisite annoyance of fast-forwarding through a song you HATE to get to the only song you bought the stupid cassette for in the first place.
And they won't even KNOW they're missing it! How sad is that?
Friday, June 15, 2007
I can't remember poetry.
When I was in middle school, I loved Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee."
When I was in high school, I loved Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman."
Now I'm a wife, a mom, and sometimes a sort of intellectual. I know I like Sara Teasdale. I know I like e.e. cummings. I know I like W.H. Auden. (Apparently, I only like people with initials instead of names.)
I just don't know what poem I like best. It's been so long since I've even contemplated poetry - I gave that up as a genre for myself a very long time ago. I'm a tiresome and uninspired poet.
So, Katie has inspired me (see the "slightly savage" blog link to the right). This weekend, I'm going to figure out what my favorite poem is.
When I was in high school, I loved Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman."
Now I'm a wife, a mom, and sometimes a sort of intellectual. I know I like Sara Teasdale. I know I like e.e. cummings. I know I like W.H. Auden. (Apparently, I only like people with initials instead of names.)
I just don't know what poem I like best. It's been so long since I've even contemplated poetry - I gave that up as a genre for myself a very long time ago. I'm a tiresome and uninspired poet.
So, Katie has inspired me (see the "slightly savage" blog link to the right). This weekend, I'm going to figure out what my favorite poem is.
Major can already recognize the scent of a woman.
His comment yesterday morning with regards to my Sensual Amber body splash:
"Mama! You smell like WOMEN!!"
It wasn't until I recounted this to his father a few minutes later that I realized he (Major) has a lisp.
Translation: Mama! You smell like LEMON.
*sigh* It was probably just the lemon-scented Pledge.
"Mama! You smell like WOMEN!!"
It wasn't until I recounted this to his father a few minutes later that I realized he (Major) has a lisp.
Translation: Mama! You smell like LEMON.
*sigh* It was probably just the lemon-scented Pledge.
Monday, June 11, 2007
My children are fisherpeople.
How's that for gender-neutral?
Yesterday, we went to a fishing contest for kids in our town. My stepdad went with us and we had a BLAST.
To set the scene for you, Major has a Spongebob Squarepants fishing pole, and Maddy has a Disney Princesses one. They got them for Christmas, and yesterday was the first chance they've had to actually use them.
The contest cost $5/child for cash prizes. Whoever catches the biggest fish, wins. (Spoiler: We didn't win. ) I wander around on the opposite side of the little city pond, which is liberally stocked with catfish, and pay the entry fee. I chat a bit with the old fellas who run the contest and measure the fishes.
So, we sit down on the banks of the little pond and my stepdad (hereafter: Pop) attaches the kids sinkers and bobbers and hooks and we bait the hooks. The kids try casting and nearly take their own eyes out with the flying hooks, so Pop and I do it for them and we sit down and wait. We're waiting less than 30 seconds before Major has a bite - a serious bite! Pop helps him reel it in, and it's a big old catfish! Major is so proud and happy he looks like he's about to burst. He wants to hug the catfish, but we're already stringing it on the stringer to take it and get it measured. We take a quick picture and then set off around the pond, where the old fellas praise Major heartily for such a great job and measure his fish: 14 inches! He's in Second Place and the man from the newspaper takes his picture.
The next fish is Maddy's, and it's about 10 minutes later - after a lot of casting and lost worms and hopeful glances at the bobber, Maddy lands a 16 inch catfish! She, unlike Major, would not like to hug it. She doesn't even want to touch it. As we're reeling it in, the old fellas start hollering across the pond "GOOOOO MADDY!!!! YAY MADDY!!!" She's so proud. The newspaper man takes her picture, too.
Maddy ends up with three catfish - 17, 16 and 14 inches. Major ends up with two catfish - 14 and 13.75 inches, and a little bluegill (maybe 4 inches?) that he caught and landed ALL BY HIMSELF. He reeled it in, landed it and then stepped on it for good measure.
It was fun. I took pictures on my mom's camera, so as soon as she downloads them, I'll post them!
Yesterday, we went to a fishing contest for kids in our town. My stepdad went with us and we had a BLAST.
To set the scene for you, Major has a Spongebob Squarepants fishing pole, and Maddy has a Disney Princesses one. They got them for Christmas, and yesterday was the first chance they've had to actually use them.
The contest cost $5/child for cash prizes. Whoever catches the biggest fish, wins. (Spoiler: We didn't win. ) I wander around on the opposite side of the little city pond, which is liberally stocked with catfish, and pay the entry fee. I chat a bit with the old fellas who run the contest and measure the fishes.
So, we sit down on the banks of the little pond and my stepdad (hereafter: Pop) attaches the kids sinkers and bobbers and hooks and we bait the hooks. The kids try casting and nearly take their own eyes out with the flying hooks, so Pop and I do it for them and we sit down and wait. We're waiting less than 30 seconds before Major has a bite - a serious bite! Pop helps him reel it in, and it's a big old catfish! Major is so proud and happy he looks like he's about to burst. He wants to hug the catfish, but we're already stringing it on the stringer to take it and get it measured. We take a quick picture and then set off around the pond, where the old fellas praise Major heartily for such a great job and measure his fish: 14 inches! He's in Second Place and the man from the newspaper takes his picture.
The next fish is Maddy's, and it's about 10 minutes later - after a lot of casting and lost worms and hopeful glances at the bobber, Maddy lands a 16 inch catfish! She, unlike Major, would not like to hug it. She doesn't even want to touch it. As we're reeling it in, the old fellas start hollering across the pond "GOOOOO MADDY!!!! YAY MADDY!!!" She's so proud. The newspaper man takes her picture, too.
Maddy ends up with three catfish - 17, 16 and 14 inches. Major ends up with two catfish - 14 and 13.75 inches, and a little bluegill (maybe 4 inches?) that he caught and landed ALL BY HIMSELF. He reeled it in, landed it and then stepped on it for good measure.
It was fun. I took pictures on my mom's camera, so as soon as she downloads them, I'll post them!
Monday, April 9, 2007
Easter was a day for funny things.
Major clobbered himself in the forehead twice with hard-boiled eggs because he thought they were cascarones (confetti eggs, dear Yankees).
Not once, but twice. And he crumbled them up in his fingers, hoping to free the confetti.
And yes, he was mighty pissed when he realized there was no confetti.
Not once, but twice. And he crumbled them up in his fingers, hoping to free the confetti.
And yes, he was mighty pissed when he realized there was no confetti.
It's Scarier Than Black Pots.
Yesterday, we had to take a tour of the kids' great-great-uncle's place while the daddies were making sure the Easter Bunny had come by. Great-Great-Uncle's place is full of small palm trees and black pots because G-G-U got them at rock-bottom prices when a palm-tree truck turned over on the highway. (You think I'm kidding. Unfortunately, I am not.) We're wandering around in the cold, killing time and Maddy says:
"I think we should go back now. I'm getting scared."
I say, "What's scary? Why are you scared?"
"I'm scared of all of these black pots. These black pots are very scary. We should go back."
We start going back and there are lots and lots of black pots along the way. At the very end of the trail, there is a white pot.
I say to Maddy "Look out! There's a white pot at the end of the trail! Don't look at the white pot!"
She replies, "White pots are OK, Mom. White pots are OK. Black pots are not OK."
I guess I'm clear now.
"I think we should go back now. I'm getting scared."
I say, "What's scary? Why are you scared?"
"I'm scared of all of these black pots. These black pots are very scary. We should go back."
We start going back and there are lots and lots of black pots along the way. At the very end of the trail, there is a white pot.
I say to Maddy "Look out! There's a white pot at the end of the trail! Don't look at the white pot!"
She replies, "White pots are OK, Mom. White pots are OK. Black pots are not OK."
I guess I'm clear now.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
I'm aging.
In less than a week, I'll be celebrating my last twenty-something birthday. Monday is my 29th.
My twenties were not the same as most people's twenties. I got married at the age of 20 (but would have done it at 19 if I could have), bought my first house at 22, had my first baby at 23, had my second (and last) baby at 25. I've had a bunch of different jobs at a bunch of different companies (but I appear to have settled down now). I've taken college classes but not graduated. I've learned countless things and gone countless places, including Canada later this year.
What new stuff can possibly await me in my thirties?
I'm finished having children, so now it's just a matter of watching them grow. I've got more places to go (Scotland is on the table for the summer after my 30th birthday), and, presumably, more things to learn. I've got a few goals for my thirties as well: 1) lose 140 pounds. Hopefully, I'll have the Lap-Band to help me out with that. 2) Run a marathon. 3) Get a business plan (and capital!) together for the bookstore I want to own one day and 4) Get out of debt. Pay off the house, everything. Get the money together for my kids' college.
On the morning of my 25th birthday, my brother (who is five years younger) called me. He said: "Happy birthday! Did you hold your hands up over your head when you woke up this morning and yell 'WHEEEEEE!!'??"
Confused, I said "What?!"
"This morning, you started the downward slope of your twenties. It's alllll downhill from here."
Next year, I'll be 30 - he'll be 25. You can bet I'm going to call him first thing that morning and ask him that same exact question. For me, I will have just changed rollercoasters.
My twenties were not the same as most people's twenties. I got married at the age of 20 (but would have done it at 19 if I could have), bought my first house at 22, had my first baby at 23, had my second (and last) baby at 25. I've had a bunch of different jobs at a bunch of different companies (but I appear to have settled down now). I've taken college classes but not graduated. I've learned countless things and gone countless places, including Canada later this year.
What new stuff can possibly await me in my thirties?
I'm finished having children, so now it's just a matter of watching them grow. I've got more places to go (Scotland is on the table for the summer after my 30th birthday), and, presumably, more things to learn. I've got a few goals for my thirties as well: 1) lose 140 pounds. Hopefully, I'll have the Lap-Band to help me out with that. 2) Run a marathon. 3) Get a business plan (and capital!) together for the bookstore I want to own one day and 4) Get out of debt. Pay off the house, everything. Get the money together for my kids' college.
On the morning of my 25th birthday, my brother (who is five years younger) called me. He said: "Happy birthday! Did you hold your hands up over your head when you woke up this morning and yell 'WHEEEEEE!!'??"
Confused, I said "What?!"
"This morning, you started the downward slope of your twenties. It's alllll downhill from here."
Next year, I'll be 30 - he'll be 25. You can bet I'm going to call him first thing that morning and ask him that same exact question. For me, I will have just changed rollercoasters.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
We also saw Meet the Robinsons.
We had long promised the kids that we would take them to see Meet the Robinsons on the very first day. We looked at a few of the reviews and were not so sure we wanted to do it.
Plot: This one is going to be tough to sketch, so I'm going to have to do it very, very vaguely, because there are lots of "OH!" moments in this movie. Basically, there's this kid named Lewis who can invent things. He's an orphan, abandoned at an orphanage as a baby. He's had 124 adoption interviews and never been adopted. He decides he wants to find his birth mother and starts inventing a "Memory Scanner" so he can delve into his memory and see what she looks like (it's not clear how seeing what his mom looks like is going to help him find her, but hey - this is a kid's movie). It just so happens that a big company called Inventco is going to give the winner of the elementary school science fair an internship with their company, so Lewis plans to demonstrate his Memory Scanner there for the first time. The only problem with this is that a man has come back in time to foil his plan and ruin his life. And a boy named Wilbur Robinson has come back to stop that man. Lewis ends up going into the future with Wilbur and meeting Wilbur's crazy family, which was, to me, the best part of the movie. Because it's Disney, it all works out fine in the end (and had the whole theater crying happy tears for Lewis), but I'm not going to tell you HOW. It would spoil it.
The reviews said that there were seven screenwriters for this movie, and that you could really tell. Yes, it's frenetic, but it's supposed to be. And Mike and I boiled it down to this as we walked out of the theater:
This is a movie for geeks. If you are now, or have ever been, a geek, you will LOVE this movie.
Because we live in a small Texas town, there weren't too many geeks in attendance at our showing, and hence, a lot of really confused people walking out of the theater. We weren't at all confused. Maddy and Major BOTH just LOVED it, and Major was able to repeat back to us all the main plot points. It hit on all the right levels.
On a scale of Clifford the Big Red Dog: The Movie to Narnia, it's right up next to Narnia. It might even become the new benchmark. I laughed SO HARD at this movie, because I'm a total geek.
Plot: This one is going to be tough to sketch, so I'm going to have to do it very, very vaguely, because there are lots of "OH!" moments in this movie. Basically, there's this kid named Lewis who can invent things. He's an orphan, abandoned at an orphanage as a baby. He's had 124 adoption interviews and never been adopted. He decides he wants to find his birth mother and starts inventing a "Memory Scanner" so he can delve into his memory and see what she looks like (it's not clear how seeing what his mom looks like is going to help him find her, but hey - this is a kid's movie). It just so happens that a big company called Inventco is going to give the winner of the elementary school science fair an internship with their company, so Lewis plans to demonstrate his Memory Scanner there for the first time. The only problem with this is that a man has come back in time to foil his plan and ruin his life. And a boy named Wilbur Robinson has come back to stop that man. Lewis ends up going into the future with Wilbur and meeting Wilbur's crazy family, which was, to me, the best part of the movie. Because it's Disney, it all works out fine in the end (and had the whole theater crying happy tears for Lewis), but I'm not going to tell you HOW. It would spoil it.
The reviews said that there were seven screenwriters for this movie, and that you could really tell. Yes, it's frenetic, but it's supposed to be. And Mike and I boiled it down to this as we walked out of the theater:
This is a movie for geeks. If you are now, or have ever been, a geek, you will LOVE this movie.
Because we live in a small Texas town, there weren't too many geeks in attendance at our showing, and hence, a lot of really confused people walking out of the theater. We weren't at all confused. Maddy and Major BOTH just LOVED it, and Major was able to repeat back to us all the main plot points. It hit on all the right levels.
On a scale of Clifford the Big Red Dog: The Movie to Narnia, it's right up next to Narnia. It might even become the new benchmark. I laughed SO HARD at this movie, because I'm a total geek.
We saw The Last Mimzy.
So, we've gone to the movies quite a bit recently (or, at least, quite a bit for US), and so I thought I'd tell you about the two movies we've seen these last two weekends.
Last weekend, we went to see The Last Mimzy. Plot: A five-year-old girl and her older brother (I'd guess he was probably about 9?) find a mysterious box on the beach. Inside the box are some glowing things that intrigue the brother, and a stuffed rabbit that intrigues the sister. The longer they keep the mysterious stuff, the more amazing the kids become. They can draw things they've never drawn before, and the little girl becomes telekinetic, etc. The parents start to get really freaked out (the mom MUCH more than the dad - I wanted to SHAKE the mom, but I hate Joely Richardson anyway.) and they enlist the help of the boy's science teacher (Rainn Wilson) and his girlfriend who reminds me of Idina Menzel but isn't. The whole plot turns when one night the boy is messing with some of the mysterious toys and he sets off a nationwide blackout. The Dept of Homeland Security (headed up by Michael Clarke Duncan) gets involved and suddenly we get to find out exactly what this is all about.
Really, this is a movie for older kids. Maddy got it and she liked it (because, really, there was a five-year-old girl with a stuffed animal!), but Major was totally in it for the glitzy special effects. For the record, there is one scene where the Dept of Homeland Security storms their house, but I don't remember them having guns or anything, and it wasn't NEARLY as terrifying as the men in the white suits in ET.
All in all, it was cute, but not the best movie ever. Parts of it were completely unbelievable. On a scale of Clifford the Big Red Dog: The Movie to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I'd probably give it a Home on the Range. Not my favorite, but not painful to watch, either. We'll probably end up buying it out of the $5.50 bin at Wal*Mart when it gets there.
Last weekend, we went to see The Last Mimzy. Plot: A five-year-old girl and her older brother (I'd guess he was probably about 9?) find a mysterious box on the beach. Inside the box are some glowing things that intrigue the brother, and a stuffed rabbit that intrigues the sister. The longer they keep the mysterious stuff, the more amazing the kids become. They can draw things they've never drawn before, and the little girl becomes telekinetic, etc. The parents start to get really freaked out (the mom MUCH more than the dad - I wanted to SHAKE the mom, but I hate Joely Richardson anyway.) and they enlist the help of the boy's science teacher (Rainn Wilson) and his girlfriend who reminds me of Idina Menzel but isn't. The whole plot turns when one night the boy is messing with some of the mysterious toys and he sets off a nationwide blackout. The Dept of Homeland Security (headed up by Michael Clarke Duncan) gets involved and suddenly we get to find out exactly what this is all about.
Really, this is a movie for older kids. Maddy got it and she liked it (because, really, there was a five-year-old girl with a stuffed animal!), but Major was totally in it for the glitzy special effects. For the record, there is one scene where the Dept of Homeland Security storms their house, but I don't remember them having guns or anything, and it wasn't NEARLY as terrifying as the men in the white suits in ET.
All in all, it was cute, but not the best movie ever. Parts of it were completely unbelievable. On a scale of Clifford the Big Red Dog: The Movie to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I'd probably give it a Home on the Range. Not my favorite, but not painful to watch, either. We'll probably end up buying it out of the $5.50 bin at Wal*Mart when it gets there.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Actual 100 Books List of 2007
Here are the books I've actually read so far this year, in my quest to read 100 books. (It's actually really doable, you just have to read at least 8 books a month.)
December 2006
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Naked Republicans by Shelley Lynch
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
My Secret by Frank Warren
The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner
January 2007
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs
Dance Upon the Air by Nora Roberts
Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts
Face the Fire by Nora Roberts
Smitten by Janet Evanovich
Full Bloom by Janet Evanovich
A Loving Scoundrel by Johanna Lindsey
February 2007
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
The Pursuit by Johanna Lindsey
Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
Bittersweet by Nevada Barr
The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts
Elvis and Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley
March 2007
The President’s Daughter by Barbara Chase-Riboud
All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Red Lily by Nora Roberts
Hey, I never claimed they were all works of literary genius.
Currently reading: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Next up: About a Boy by Nick Hornby and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
December 2006
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Naked Republicans by Shelley Lynch
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
My Secret by Frank Warren
The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner
January 2007
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs
Dance Upon the Air by Nora Roberts
Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts
Face the Fire by Nora Roberts
Smitten by Janet Evanovich
Full Bloom by Janet Evanovich
A Loving Scoundrel by Johanna Lindsey
February 2007
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
The Pursuit by Johanna Lindsey
Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
Bittersweet by Nevada Barr
The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts
Elvis and Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley
March 2007
The President’s Daughter by Barbara Chase-Riboud
All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Red Lily by Nora Roberts
Hey, I never claimed they were all works of literary genius.
Currently reading: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Next up: About a Boy by Nick Hornby and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I stole this from Christy.
It's a list of 100 books. You bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you want to read and leave the ones you're not interested in plain.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) - I totally have this book and have never cracked it.
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) - This is actually on my bedside table, waiting for me to finish my Nick Hornby binge.
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
So, that's 45 from that list that I've read, and I want to read 22 more. Not bad.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) - I totally have this book and have never cracked it.
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) - This is actually on my bedside table, waiting for me to finish my Nick Hornby binge.
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
So, that's 45 from that list that I've read, and I want to read 22 more. Not bad.
Friday, March 9, 2007
My kids are really awesome.
There are just some things I want to remember about my kids.
*******
Maddy calls scissors "zizzors."
*******
Major calls Thomas the Tank Engine "Thomas the Wank Engine."
*******
A few weeks ago, in the car, my son looked at my daughter and said "I. Am going to GET YOU. I am going to wait until you're in your room and I'm going to GET YOU."
Alarmed, Maddy said, "What?!"
And Major replied, "Oh yeah. I'm going to get you."
*******
Celebrating the Big 0-3
A couple of weeks ago, we had Major's birthday party at the local Zoo. He had a few little friends from school come along. The Zoo gave him his own birthday train for just the participants in the party and he could not have been a happier little dude. Whenever someone would show up for the party, he would yell "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!" with all the excitement of a child who had been waiting for his birthday for about four months - or since his sister's birthday. He got lots of wonderful presents and was just as absolutely thrilled as I had hoped he would be. It was a perfect party. He had a cupcake with birthday candles and we sang - it was the perfect 3rd birthday. It even had tigers.
Have You Terrified Your Three-Year-Old Today?
The next day, that Sunday, we took the children to the rodeo to ride rides and have fun. They rode the ponies, visited the petting zoo, took cowboy pictures and basically had a fantastic time. After all that, we went over so they could ride rides. They rode the carousel and a motorcycle ride and some other kiddie rides. THEN, they discovered a ride called "Ladybugs," which was a train with lots of little hills that went around in a circle and then stopped and went around that same circle backwards. It didn't look too fast or anything, and Major was tall enough to ride it. He and Maddy got on and off they went. As it went faster and faster, he looked more and more dismayed until he was full-on sobbing. Halfway through, the ride slowed down and then stopped in order to go backwards. I asked the operator if he could stop the ride so I could retrieve my hysterical boy.
He said: "Why? He ain't hurt."
I said: "You're right."
The ride carried on and then when it was over, Mike retrieved Major, who was sobbing so hard he could barely breathe.
I am a horrible mother.
I cuddled him, but he cried for nearly 20 minutes and kept saying "SO SCARED! IT WAS SO SCARY!"
It started raining right then, so we went home. I still feel terrible about it, though.
*******
I recently went on a trip. On Monday night, I was tucking Maddy into bed and she said "Mama, I missed you a really lot."
Thursday, March 8, 2007
I've Read Some Things: Part 3 of 3
The other book I read this week was Anita Shreve's Light on Snow.
This one, I really, really liked. The ending was again, too quick, and the size of the print on the page really made me realize how short a book it was: it was almost like a novella to me. I'm OK with that, though, because it was on the clearance rack at Half-Price Books, and I got it for $1. You can't beat that. (Coincidentally, that's exactly how much I paid for A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, which I'm reading next, out of sheer and immutable curiosity.)
Without diving too deeply into it, Light on Snow is written in the voice of 12-year-old Nicky, who lost her mother and little sister in a car crash two years ago and was forced by her grieving father to move out in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. One day, while taking a walk, father and daughter discover a baby, abandoned in the snow. They scoop the baby up and take her to the hospital. The paper writes a story about it and the baby's mother reads it and ends up visiting their home. She gets stuck there because of a snowstorm and it goes from there.
I thought it was one of the most genuine books I've read in awhile. Shreve captured the voice of a twelve-year-old very believably. She showed the struggle of the child to understand this horrible thing she has seen - and then the struggle to place the baby's mom in the whole puzzle, when she really just wants the baby's mom to love her and become part of the family.
There's an amazing optimism to the character of Nicky. She is the total opposite of her father - a person who, when something horrible happens to him in the loss of his wife and daughter, shuts himself off from everyone and everything. Nicky just wants to reach out and live, and it's an amazing dichotomy.
Anyway, highly recommended, that one.
Now, to talk about my kids...
This one, I really, really liked. The ending was again, too quick, and the size of the print on the page really made me realize how short a book it was: it was almost like a novella to me. I'm OK with that, though, because it was on the clearance rack at Half-Price Books, and I got it for $1. You can't beat that. (Coincidentally, that's exactly how much I paid for A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, which I'm reading next, out of sheer and immutable curiosity.)
Without diving too deeply into it, Light on Snow is written in the voice of 12-year-old Nicky, who lost her mother and little sister in a car crash two years ago and was forced by her grieving father to move out in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. One day, while taking a walk, father and daughter discover a baby, abandoned in the snow. They scoop the baby up and take her to the hospital. The paper writes a story about it and the baby's mother reads it and ends up visiting their home. She gets stuck there because of a snowstorm and it goes from there.
I thought it was one of the most genuine books I've read in awhile. Shreve captured the voice of a twelve-year-old very believably. She showed the struggle of the child to understand this horrible thing she has seen - and then the struggle to place the baby's mom in the whole puzzle, when she really just wants the baby's mom to love her and become part of the family.
There's an amazing optimism to the character of Nicky. She is the total opposite of her father - a person who, when something horrible happens to him in the loss of his wife and daughter, shuts himself off from everyone and everything. Nicky just wants to reach out and live, and it's an amazing dichotomy.
Anyway, highly recommended, that one.
Now, to talk about my kids...
I've Read Some Things: Part 2 of 3
So, next I read All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve.
While I think I liked the book (I'm strangely undecided about most of what I've read of Shreve's work), I struggled with the male voice of the protagonist because it's stereotypical. Then I start thinking about it and, for the time in which the book was set (1900s), it's understandable that the male voice would be stereotypical, and an effort to break free from that stereotype could be seen as not genuine to the time period. So it's a struggle for me, and I think I may be looking at it very narrowly.
The other problem I had was that it wrapped up SO quickly! All of these tangled webs, and the resolution was happened so fast! And while I sort of understood the impetus for the big throwdown at the end, it seems sort of a weak reason for all of the waves it caused, if that makes sense.
All in all, I think it was a solid book. Maybe I should read it again.
While I think I liked the book (I'm strangely undecided about most of what I've read of Shreve's work), I struggled with the male voice of the protagonist because it's stereotypical. Then I start thinking about it and, for the time in which the book was set (1900s), it's understandable that the male voice would be stereotypical, and an effort to break free from that stereotype could be seen as not genuine to the time period. So it's a struggle for me, and I think I may be looking at it very narrowly.
The other problem I had was that it wrapped up SO quickly! All of these tangled webs, and the resolution was happened so fast! And while I sort of understood the impetus for the big throwdown at the end, it seems sort of a weak reason for all of the waves it caused, if that makes sense.
All in all, I think it was a solid book. Maybe I should read it again.
I've Read Some Things: Part 1 of 3
Sorry - this is going to be about a month's worth of posts in one single day. I've been slacking, but I've got a lot to talk about.
I'm attempting to read 100 new books from 1 December 2006 to 1 December 2007. I've read 25 so far, so I think I'm doing pretty well.
I read a book this month by Barbara Chase-Riboud called The President's Daughter.
The book was about Thomas Jefferson's natural daughter, Harriet Hemings, born to Sally Hemings in the late 1780s or early 1790s. Jefferson allowed her to run away at the age of 21, but she was never freed. He freed a couple of his sons upon his death, but not Sally Hemings (although the book alleges she didn't want to be free), and not his daughter. Nothing really is known about Harriet Hemings after she ran away, so Chase-Riboud created a life for her based on one of her brothers' "confessions" that was published in a newspaper long after Jefferson's death.
An interesting thing I learned in the book is that the Hemings children were only one-sixteenth black, so none of them had African-American features at all. Harriet Hemings was said to resemble Jefferson so strongly that visitors to the house were completely taken aback by it.
So, the hardest part of the story for me to understand was why this woman seemed to dwell so seriously on getting caught or getting outed or her secret. Her life went on for years and years after she ran away, but she was never able to just bury that within herself. I think that might speak more to my ability to self-deceive than any actual problems with the concept, though.
And then I finally figured it out - the reason she couldn't get it out of her head was because she was raised a slave. So black was not only a color to her, it was an entire state of being, because she was raised so completely differently from her white half-sister.
So, now I get it. And I recommend the book - it was very, very engrossing. I read it in two days.
And then I read two Anita Shreve books, which are upcoming in this space.
I'm attempting to read 100 new books from 1 December 2006 to 1 December 2007. I've read 25 so far, so I think I'm doing pretty well.
I read a book this month by Barbara Chase-Riboud called The President's Daughter.
The book was about Thomas Jefferson's natural daughter, Harriet Hemings, born to Sally Hemings in the late 1780s or early 1790s. Jefferson allowed her to run away at the age of 21, but she was never freed. He freed a couple of his sons upon his death, but not Sally Hemings (although the book alleges she didn't want to be free), and not his daughter. Nothing really is known about Harriet Hemings after she ran away, so Chase-Riboud created a life for her based on one of her brothers' "confessions" that was published in a newspaper long after Jefferson's death.
An interesting thing I learned in the book is that the Hemings children were only one-sixteenth black, so none of them had African-American features at all. Harriet Hemings was said to resemble Jefferson so strongly that visitors to the house were completely taken aback by it.
So, the hardest part of the story for me to understand was why this woman seemed to dwell so seriously on getting caught or getting outed or her secret. Her life went on for years and years after she ran away, but she was never able to just bury that within herself. I think that might speak more to my ability to self-deceive than any actual problems with the concept, though.
And then I finally figured it out - the reason she couldn't get it out of her head was because she was raised a slave. So black was not only a color to her, it was an entire state of being, because she was raised so completely differently from her white half-sister.
So, now I get it. And I recommend the book - it was very, very engrossing. I read it in two days.
And then I read two Anita Shreve books, which are upcoming in this space.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Just Write.
For months, I've been wrestling with myself - with my muse, I guess - sometimes trying to write, sometimes trying not to write. In any case, the blank page is indeed like a bull, just like Papa Hemingway said.
Ideas are there. Ideas are always there. It's getting them out the way that I want them that's the hard part.
It's also hard recognizing when something is just a small something, or when it's a larger something, needing time and fleshing out.
Add in the pressure I put on myself to write and it starts to feel like a duty more than a gift.
When I was a kid, I just wrote. That's what I did. I had a Trapper Keeper full of stuff - things I never wanted anyone to see. Sometimes people saw them anyway. But I never had this sort of verbal bottleneck that I have now. If it was there to be written, I wrote it.
It's harder now. I'm sure that part of it is a fear of rejection - part of it's an idea that I know what's "marketable" and what isn't. As if marketability has ever been my reason to write. Writing, for me, has just been what I do. I wrote my first poem at the age of five, and I've never stopped writing since.
Is it crap? Yeah. A lot of it's crap. Some of it is even award-winning crap. One piece is award-winning, published crap. But I wrote it.
I'm trying to remember that writing is what I do. And I'm trying to straighten out the bottleneck.
It's not as easy as it used to be.
Ideas are there. Ideas are always there. It's getting them out the way that I want them that's the hard part.
It's also hard recognizing when something is just a small something, or when it's a larger something, needing time and fleshing out.
Add in the pressure I put on myself to write and it starts to feel like a duty more than a gift.
When I was a kid, I just wrote. That's what I did. I had a Trapper Keeper full of stuff - things I never wanted anyone to see. Sometimes people saw them anyway. But I never had this sort of verbal bottleneck that I have now. If it was there to be written, I wrote it.
It's harder now. I'm sure that part of it is a fear of rejection - part of it's an idea that I know what's "marketable" and what isn't. As if marketability has ever been my reason to write. Writing, for me, has just been what I do. I wrote my first poem at the age of five, and I've never stopped writing since.
Is it crap? Yeah. A lot of it's crap. Some of it is even award-winning crap. One piece is award-winning, published crap. But I wrote it.
I'm trying to remember that writing is what I do. And I'm trying to straighten out the bottleneck.
It's not as easy as it used to be.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
It's Farther Down Than You Think.
Tonight, I finished reading A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. It was a really thought-provoking book for me, apart from the fact that I've about decided that Nick Hornby is one of the most insightful authors I've read in a long while and I'll probably end up reading everything he's ever written (probably by the end of the year, because that will count towards my New Year's Resolution of 100 Books This Year [16 down, 84 to go!]).
The book is about four people who meet on New Year's Eve on top of a tower. They've all gone there for the sole purpose of flinging themselves from said top-of-tower. Three of them are British, one American. They sort of band together and become a little family unit in and of themselves, stemming directly from the single moment where they all simultaneously chose to go on living.
The choice to go on living is one that some of us have to choose to make on a daily basis. You can take that in a broad sense ("Today I choose not to lay down in front of that bus.") or in a narrower sense ("Today I choose to pay attention when my kids/husband/boss is/are talking to me and really plug into this world.").
I'm the narrower sort.
I sometimes feel like my entire brain is wrapped in cotton. I have to make a conscious effort not to check out and listen to the wind-chimes in my head while people are talking to me. Sometimes, I have to make a conscious effort to live in the now.
I don't know that that makes me special - I think it just makes me tired.
At one point in the book, the little group reconvenes on the top of the tower, whereupon they witness someone actually doing what they contemplated. They try to talk him down - try to get him to join the "gang," but he stares at them and then scoots over the edge. This single event brings utter clarity to the group as a whole: whatever store of courage one has to have to actually end it, none of them truly have that.
This brings up another interesting, and, sadly, timely issue for me. To me, this is the difference between people who actually eat the gun, actually asphyxiate, actually overdose, and people who fuck around in bars doing recreational drugs, sleeping with dangerous people, drinking themselves stupid and riding on the hoods of cars around the block. (I have done two of those things - can you guess which ones?)
It's the difference between people who do these things not because they truly want to kill themselves, but more because they want someone to look and say "wow - she has a real death wish" and wonder why - just take an interest in them, no matter how fleeting - and the people who have a very serious and real desire to end it all right this second because nothing will ever change their minds.
It's the people who don't care what other people think about them anymore who have the nuts to actually do it.
My mother's cousin actually did it on Christmas Eve. She ate the gun. She quit caring what other people thought - she just did it.
She also thought my grandmother is a prophet.
What's the point? There is no point. There is only food for thought. I'm not saying you have to reach out to every unstable self-hater shooting smack in the bathroom of your favorite club. I'm not even saying you have to suddenly understand Paris Hilton. (And if you do suddenly understand her, I demand to know what brought this little epiphany on, and if we should keep you away from bars and dangerous people.)
I'm just saying, think about it.
The book is about four people who meet on New Year's Eve on top of a tower. They've all gone there for the sole purpose of flinging themselves from said top-of-tower. Three of them are British, one American. They sort of band together and become a little family unit in and of themselves, stemming directly from the single moment where they all simultaneously chose to go on living.
The choice to go on living is one that some of us have to choose to make on a daily basis. You can take that in a broad sense ("Today I choose not to lay down in front of that bus.") or in a narrower sense ("Today I choose to pay attention when my kids/husband/boss is/are talking to me and really plug into this world.").
I'm the narrower sort.
I sometimes feel like my entire brain is wrapped in cotton. I have to make a conscious effort not to check out and listen to the wind-chimes in my head while people are talking to me. Sometimes, I have to make a conscious effort to live in the now.
I don't know that that makes me special - I think it just makes me tired.
At one point in the book, the little group reconvenes on the top of the tower, whereupon they witness someone actually doing what they contemplated. They try to talk him down - try to get him to join the "gang," but he stares at them and then scoots over the edge. This single event brings utter clarity to the group as a whole: whatever store of courage one has to have to actually end it, none of them truly have that.
This brings up another interesting, and, sadly, timely issue for me. To me, this is the difference between people who actually eat the gun, actually asphyxiate, actually overdose, and people who fuck around in bars doing recreational drugs, sleeping with dangerous people, drinking themselves stupid and riding on the hoods of cars around the block. (I have done two of those things - can you guess which ones?)
It's the difference between people who do these things not because they truly want to kill themselves, but more because they want someone to look and say "wow - she has a real death wish" and wonder why - just take an interest in them, no matter how fleeting - and the people who have a very serious and real desire to end it all right this second because nothing will ever change their minds.
It's the people who don't care what other people think about them anymore who have the nuts to actually do it.
My mother's cousin actually did it on Christmas Eve. She ate the gun. She quit caring what other people thought - she just did it.
She also thought my grandmother is a prophet.
What's the point? There is no point. There is only food for thought. I'm not saying you have to reach out to every unstable self-hater shooting smack in the bathroom of your favorite club. I'm not even saying you have to suddenly understand Paris Hilton. (And if you do suddenly understand her, I demand to know what brought this little epiphany on, and if we should keep you away from bars and dangerous people.)
I'm just saying, think about it.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Maddy is a Big Kid.
Tonight, after the Super Bowl, we were brushing Maddy's teeth and she decided that now would be a good time for me to pull her incredibly-loose bottom-front tooth. She cried about it, because she was scared, but she held her Daddy's hand and I pulled it.
It didn't take much pulling, and there it was, in the palm of my hand.
The tears stopped immediately and were replaced with a beaming, if a little soggy, smile and all the pride a five-year-old girl can muster.
There was a little blood, but we took care of that quickly and with a minimum of fuss. She couldn't quit looking at the new space in the mirror - the pride was just shining through that brand-new gap in her teeth.
"Next year," she says, "a new tooth will grow in. A big tooth. Next year."
"Sooner than that, I hope," I reply.
"And now, the Tooth Fairy is going to give me money." Money is a bit of an abstract concept to her right now. It's mainly something she puts in her piggy bank.
We looked around a little bit and found a black silk pouch that my grandmother had given me. It used to hold one of her necklaces - a piece of jewelry I'll always associate with her, because it was a signature item of hers for a long time. We put the tooth in the pouch, and put the pouch under her Cinderella pillow, close to the edge, so the Tooth Fairy won't have to root around under there for very long.
Then we called Grandma, and we called Nana and Maddy told them her news. Not so very long ago, we were calling so two-year-old Maddy could announce delightedly "I pee-pee on the potty!" Now she says with quiet pride: "My tooth was loose, and then it came out!"
In the morning, she'll find two Sacagawea gold dollars in the pouch under her pillow. I wanted to give her five dollars, but her dad said that he had gotten twenty-five cents per tooth, and inflation wasn't quite that bad. (We compromised at two.) Tomorrow, she'll show all her friends at pre-school her new dental profile. Tomorrow night, she'll show all her friends at band practice.
Tonight, I blink back some tears and try to hold on to my little girl. She's not-so-little anymore, and getting bigger faster than I can get myself ready.
It didn't take much pulling, and there it was, in the palm of my hand.
The tears stopped immediately and were replaced with a beaming, if a little soggy, smile and all the pride a five-year-old girl can muster.
There was a little blood, but we took care of that quickly and with a minimum of fuss. She couldn't quit looking at the new space in the mirror - the pride was just shining through that brand-new gap in her teeth.
"Next year," she says, "a new tooth will grow in. A big tooth. Next year."
"Sooner than that, I hope," I reply.
"And now, the Tooth Fairy is going to give me money." Money is a bit of an abstract concept to her right now. It's mainly something she puts in her piggy bank.
We looked around a little bit and found a black silk pouch that my grandmother had given me. It used to hold one of her necklaces - a piece of jewelry I'll always associate with her, because it was a signature item of hers for a long time. We put the tooth in the pouch, and put the pouch under her Cinderella pillow, close to the edge, so the Tooth Fairy won't have to root around under there for very long.
Then we called Grandma, and we called Nana and Maddy told them her news. Not so very long ago, we were calling so two-year-old Maddy could announce delightedly "I pee-pee on the potty!" Now she says with quiet pride: "My tooth was loose, and then it came out!"
In the morning, she'll find two Sacagawea gold dollars in the pouch under her pillow. I wanted to give her five dollars, but her dad said that he had gotten twenty-five cents per tooth, and inflation wasn't quite that bad. (We compromised at two.) Tomorrow, she'll show all her friends at pre-school her new dental profile. Tomorrow night, she'll show all her friends at band practice.
Tonight, I blink back some tears and try to hold on to my little girl. She's not-so-little anymore, and getting bigger faster than I can get myself ready.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Nick Saban is a Racist.
Who knew? He's a lot of things, but I never knew racist was one of them.
For those of you who may not know, Nick Saban used to be head football coach at Louisiana State University. He left LSU to be the head coach of the Miami Dolphins (in the NFL) and at the end of the regular season left Miami to be the head coach at the University of Alabama. This in spite of several denials - even up to the morning he accepted the Alabama job - and lots and lots of declarations that "he wasn't going anywhere."
So, integrity? None found. But this??
According to ProFootballTalk.com, Saban was talking to reporters in a supposed "off the record" discussion on January 4th, after his introduction as Alabama's head coach - but, a tape recorder was indeed rolling. And on it, he said:
[quote]My friends are okay with it. The rest of those guys? One of my, one of my guy on the board -- you guys won't be able to put this on the thing -- was walking down the street, one of the Board of Trustees guys like these people around here and sitting up on the stage today at LSU, is walking down the street yesterday before the Sugar Bowl. He calls me. There's a guy working in a ditch. One of those coon-ass guys that talk funny. I can't talk like him but he can. Most people in Louisiana can. And he says, 'Hey, you see where Coach Saban signed up with Alabama?' You know however they talk. And the Board of Trustees guy says, 'Yeah, I saw that.' And he says, 'That son of a bitch. I feel like he's f--king my wife.[/quote]
Audio can be found here: http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm You've got to scroll down a bit.
Possibly just as puzzling to me is the fact that several readers of ProFootballTalk.com have written in to say that "coon-ass" is not a racial slur in the South. I'm sorry - I live in Texas and if you ain't talkin' about the rodent or the hound, it's a damn slur. I have never heard it used otherwise.
I'm betting, though, that Alabama won't even reprimand him. It is the University of Alabama, after all. Roll tide.
I should probably also mention that National Signing Day is coming up here, in an immediate fashion. Saban has been recruiting heavily in Louisiana, and even if Alabama doesn't reprimand him, this will bite him in his racist ass. Why on earth would a black recruit go play for a guy like this? Or, for that matter, if he was really just referencing Cajuns, like so many have said, why would a Cajun?
For those of you who may not know, Nick Saban used to be head football coach at Louisiana State University. He left LSU to be the head coach of the Miami Dolphins (in the NFL) and at the end of the regular season left Miami to be the head coach at the University of Alabama. This in spite of several denials - even up to the morning he accepted the Alabama job - and lots and lots of declarations that "he wasn't going anywhere."
So, integrity? None found. But this??
According to ProFootballTalk.com, Saban was talking to reporters in a supposed "off the record" discussion on January 4th, after his introduction as Alabama's head coach - but, a tape recorder was indeed rolling. And on it, he said:
[quote]My friends are okay with it. The rest of those guys? One of my, one of my guy on the board -- you guys won't be able to put this on the thing -- was walking down the street, one of the Board of Trustees guys like these people around here and sitting up on the stage today at LSU, is walking down the street yesterday before the Sugar Bowl. He calls me. There's a guy working in a ditch. One of those coon-ass guys that talk funny. I can't talk like him but he can. Most people in Louisiana can. And he says, 'Hey, you see where Coach Saban signed up with Alabama?' You know however they talk. And the Board of Trustees guy says, 'Yeah, I saw that.' And he says, 'That son of a bitch. I feel like he's f--king my wife.[/quote]
Audio can be found here: http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm You've got to scroll down a bit.
Possibly just as puzzling to me is the fact that several readers of ProFootballTalk.com have written in to say that "coon-ass" is not a racial slur in the South. I'm sorry - I live in Texas and if you ain't talkin' about the rodent or the hound, it's a damn slur. I have never heard it used otherwise.
I'm betting, though, that Alabama won't even reprimand him. It is the University of Alabama, after all. Roll tide.
I should probably also mention that National Signing Day is coming up here, in an immediate fashion. Saban has been recruiting heavily in Louisiana, and even if Alabama doesn't reprimand him, this will bite him in his racist ass. Why on earth would a black recruit go play for a guy like this? Or, for that matter, if he was really just referencing Cajuns, like so many have said, why would a Cajun?
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
PSAs Don't Work
For the last few weeks, I've been seeing all of these adorable ads for flu symptoms starring Mumble Happyfeet from the movie, well... Happy Feet. And every time I see one, I think "Awww, how cute - it's Mumble!" And that's all I think. I never really soak in the whole point of the PSA. That is to say, until today, I couldn't tell you what the symptoms of the flu are. Today, at Major's pediatrician's office, I learned them firsthand, because I have them. Fever, Aches, Chills, Tiredness and Sudden Onset of Symptoms. So, FACTS. And now I will probably associate that cute little penguin with disgusting illness. And, also, just so's you know - you might not even have congestion or a sore throat or anything more than a dry cough. Which is what I have. And that's my personal Public Service Announcement to you.
So: What Everyone Wants To Know.
This weekend, Colts over Bears. Indianapolis has a quarterback that wants this REEEEEAL bad. Chicago has Sexy Rexy. Yes, he is sexy. But he likes to throw to the other team. Chicago's defense is awesome, but here's a quote from Peyton Manning a few years ago: "I tell you it's Easter, you hunt for eggs." He said that to one of his receivers. He means bidness. I may come back with numbers analysis later this week.
Much like Deal or No Deal, I'm continuously sucked into American Idol. It's not particularly good, but here I am anyway. Although, this is where they found Jennifer Hudson.
It's a crappy segue, but I'm going with it anyway.
I saw Dreamgirls on Sunday with my friend Katie, and was blown away. I love that show, and I was sort of worried about what Hollywood was going to do to it. I ended up loving it. Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy deserve every possible accolade. It was just fantastic. Of course, I'm biased because I loved the original. One thing I was surprised about, though, was how blatant they were about the fact that this is all loosely based on Diana Ross and Mary Wilson. There was nothing subtle about that. They even recreated very famous Diana Ross photographs with Beyonce. So, that surprised me. It was super, super good.
This entry is sort of disjointed, and I'm totally blaming that on the flu. Because normally, I'm awesome.
So: What Everyone Wants To Know.
This weekend, Colts over Bears. Indianapolis has a quarterback that wants this REEEEEAL bad. Chicago has Sexy Rexy. Yes, he is sexy. But he likes to throw to the other team. Chicago's defense is awesome, but here's a quote from Peyton Manning a few years ago: "I tell you it's Easter, you hunt for eggs." He said that to one of his receivers. He means bidness. I may come back with numbers analysis later this week.
Much like Deal or No Deal, I'm continuously sucked into American Idol. It's not particularly good, but here I am anyway. Although, this is where they found Jennifer Hudson.
It's a crappy segue, but I'm going with it anyway.
I saw Dreamgirls on Sunday with my friend Katie, and was blown away. I love that show, and I was sort of worried about what Hollywood was going to do to it. I ended up loving it. Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy deserve every possible accolade. It was just fantastic. Of course, I'm biased because I loved the original. One thing I was surprised about, though, was how blatant they were about the fact that this is all loosely based on Diana Ross and Mary Wilson. There was nothing subtle about that. They even recreated very famous Diana Ross photographs with Beyonce. So, that surprised me. It was super, super good.
This entry is sort of disjointed, and I'm totally blaming that on the flu. Because normally, I'm awesome.
Monday, January 29, 2007
A Momentous First Post
Gmail suggests I should write something about scooters. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about scooters.
I'm not convinced I know much about anything, which will likely be the focus of this blog. I think, tonight I intend to do a little recaplet of Heroes, and maybe tomorrow I'll cover a quick review of Dreamgirls which I saw this weekend.
And can I just say that I hate Deal or No Deal, while finding myself inexplicably drawn to it?
You can probably expect copious discussion of food, sports (I am a Sports Gal - I'll watch anything except BASEball), running (or trying to learn how to), music, parenting, writing and whatever else is floating around in my brain.
So, maybe this is really a teaser post - teasing you for the Momentous First Post. Coming soon, to this blog right here.
I'm not convinced I know much about anything, which will likely be the focus of this blog. I think, tonight I intend to do a little recaplet of Heroes, and maybe tomorrow I'll cover a quick review of Dreamgirls which I saw this weekend.
And can I just say that I hate Deal or No Deal, while finding myself inexplicably drawn to it?
You can probably expect copious discussion of food, sports (I am a Sports Gal - I'll watch anything except BASEball), running (or trying to learn how to), music, parenting, writing and whatever else is floating around in my brain.
So, maybe this is really a teaser post - teasing you for the Momentous First Post. Coming soon, to this blog right here.
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