Piksea Ponders...

Who Can Read the Signs?

2011-04-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

Do you know any of those people who see signs everywhere they look? I do, and I've never been one of them. My aunt swore that my grandfather was sending messages to her through Saint Anthony of Padua mailings that came to her house. After my parents died, she found ways to see signs in a bit of channel surfing. She stopped on Everybody Loves Raymond and it was an episode that reminded her of holidays with her, my mom and my grandparents. Then she flipped over to a home shopping channel and they were selling Judith Ripka jewelry. A month or so before my mom died we went to the Judith Ripka store in Atlantic City to find a gift for my aunt's birthday. There was a third channel in that mix, but at some point she determined that this was a pointed message to her. What it meant, I have no idea. I think she felt like it was just contact.

After my parents were gone and people were always talking about these signs and little contacts (from the other side?) but I wasn't feeling their presence, just their absence. I thought that maybe it was because I was so close to my parents while they were alive. There is so much of them in me. They both died way too young and I know how lucky I am that they had my brother and I so young. I know how much they gave me, not just things, but their time and their love and attention and knowledge. I feel so filled with them that I don't know if I would sense them. Sure, there are plenty of times that I give them a shout out. Usually because I see or hear something that makes me think of them. There are still so many things that make me think about them. I didn't feel like they were there, just that they spent my life filling me with little bits of themselves that they shared that triggered memories. I saw the glass half full version, that they left so much of themselves with me, that maybe I was immune to the signs. When I did get my sign, I had to ask for it, but it was definitely worth it.

When my father was alive, he always loved hawks and the bigger birds of prey. Actually, he loved all animals, and the feeling was mutual. Whenever I saw one of those birds, it made me think of my dad. After my dad passed away (seven years ago this month) whenever I saw a hawk flying over the road as I was driving, or flying overhead when I wasn't, I not only thought of my dad, but liked to imagine that we might both be looking at the same bird at the same time, just from different vantage points. To this day when I see one, I send a hello and my love to my father.

When my mother died three and a half years after my father, one of her dearest and oldest friends told me that my mom would send me signs. She said that I would see butterflies. But, I didn't see butterflies. My mom died in October, in fact, we had her funeral on Halloween. About 5 months after I lost my mom, my boyfriend of 6 years and I split up. The way the whole thing went down was pretty messed up. But, after we broke up he kept calling and coming around. Neither of us had any interest in getting back together, but he made a point of keeping contact. Around this time my ex-husband came back from California and he was calling and coming around. Once again, neither of us had any interest in rekindling anything. I was referring to it as the Invasion of the Exes, telling my friends that men couldn't just quit me, they had to wean themselves off of me.

That didn't stop me from feeling like a screw up. For whatever reason, even though I wasn't nursing a broken heart or needing time to heal to move on with my life, I was just stalled. One day I decided that I needed to stop by the cemetery and check in with my parents. I felt like I should be living my life better for them, if I wasn't caring that much about doing it for myself. Sure, I went to work everyday and paid the bills and spent time with family and friends, but everything was just off. I didn't really feel like me. So, I stopped by the cemetery to talk to my parents in person, so to speak. I told them how I was feeling and the whole deal about the signs. That I wasn't sure if I was too close to notice them, or if I wasn't getting them or if I was just oblivious to them (which, if there were missed signs, was totally how it would go with me).

After work, I would go to the local park on my way home and walk on the trails. It felt good and cleared my head and burned off the daily aggravations and excess energy. There was a big back up at my usual exit, so I drove further down the road to head to the park from another direction. About a half mile from the park I noticed a hawk flying over head. This wasn't that unusual, I notice them all the time when I'm driving as they fly across the roadways. What was unusual was that this hawk stayed with me, driving to the park, parking in the lot, and even stayed overhead for the first leg of my walk. I started to laugh and thought to myself that Arlene said there would be butterflies. When I turned the corner, the first thing I saw was a butterfly and I started to laugh. It was different, and certainly seemed more than coincidental, but I wouldn't have run and called anyone to tell them I got a sign.

The next day I went to run errands on my lunch hour. I got into my car and noticed there was a hawk flying over the parking lot at work. That was definitely unusual. I'd never seen one there, or near the office ever before. I pulled out of my parking space, and was headed toward the driveway, keeping an eye on the hawk overhead, when I said out loud, "Where's the butterfly?" and the same kind of butterfly as I had seen the day before flew in front of my windshield. Even I was willing to accept this as my sign. I haven't seen anything like it since, but I asked and that's what happened. And, that's good enough for me.

.... The Cinema

2007-03-26T13:55:00.000-05:00

The Handsome Honey, who was totally not imaginary this weekend, and I went to see Zodiac last night. It was star studded, not with the usual big names, I guess, but with stars that I love. Who can resist Robert Downey, Jr and Mark Ruffalo? Not I. It starred Jake Gyllenhall, but also included Donal Logue and Ione Skye and Clea Duvall and Chloe Sevigney.

So, the movie is based on Robert Graysmith's book on the Zodiac Killer. I read the book about ten years ago, or so and found it well written and interesting. I guess it must have been when I was reading a lot of true crime books. The movie was very interesting and covered a lot of ground, but it was soo long. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that you need to make a movie last two hours and forty minutes when you aren't going to at least catch the bad guy. The Zodiac killings remain unsolved.

There were some very interesting tidbits, though. The movie is based on Graysmith's book, but they didn't exactly paint him in the most favorable light. It's not that he was unlikable, but he certainly came off as being unliked. I loved when people let him in and opened up to him, but his personal and professional life was a mess.

I found it hard to believe that the cop they based Steve McQueen's Bullitt on wore bow ties to work. Although Mark Ruffalo had a fabulous raincoat.

The hair piece took 15 years off of Anthony Edwards. It was like seeing him the way he was in all those movies when I was a teen. Gotcha! and Revenge of the Nerds, even Top Gun. Amazing how much that can age you.

All in all, good movie, great cast, a little long, but certainly interesting source material.

That is what's rattling around in Piksea's head today!

#6 Unapologetic wise ass

2007-03-07T13:44:00.000-05:00

100 Things about Piksea ~ #6

I am an unapologetic wise ass. Well, that's partially true. Occasionally something will pop out of my mouth before I even knew I was thinking it. I usually wind up apologizing for those things. But, I absolutely do not apologize for being a wise ass. Most of my life my mother would caution me, "Nobody likes a wise ass, Piksea." But, she was wrong. I, for one, really like a wise ass.

I know, they say sarcasm is the weapon of the weak. I think it's most dullards that hold this point of view, because they are incapable of holding their own in spirited conversation. They wouldn't have to be so wet blankety if they weren't such mental and verbal wusses. My family has always been filled with wits and jokers and tricksters. We all grew up well versed in jokes and pranks.

Don't get the impression that I lump my mom in with the dullards. She just was best at harnessing her inner wise ass. She is the epitome of tact and diplomacy. She can rip you a new one with a smile on her face, without ever raising her voice and with all strictly "G" language. She personifies diplomacy when defined as "the ability to tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip." She's really a wise ass with an incredible degree of self-control. As it turns out, she digs a wise ass, herself. She's totally smitten with House, MD, especially Dr. House, himself. It's his acerbic wit that gets her. He's a total wise ass.

I will always wear my distinction as a wise ass proudly. I adore all of my very witty friends. The ability to play well with words is a power that I should be able to use for good or evil as suits my mood.

Although my parents tried very hard to keep my "fresh mouth" in check, or at least to try to get me to think before I blurt, many of their favorite stories to tell were the utterances of said fresh mouth.

Piksea Makes a Plea For Your Help

2007-03-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

I need a favor from anyone who stops by. Please follow this link and sign the petition. You may have seen and signed similar ones before, but please sign this one, as well. Here is the information directly from the Lifetime Television web page:

Sign the Petition
Grammy-Nominated Performer Jewel Joins Lifetime, 12 Million Viewers and Bipartisan Political Leaders on Capitol Hill to Urge End of "Drive-Through" Mastectomies
In September, as part of the network's award-winning Stop Breast Cancer for Life campaign, Lifetime Television and Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Jewel delivered more than 12 million petition signatures to Capitol Hill, urging Congress to pass the bipartisan Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2005 (S 910/HR1849). The bill would allow a woman and her doctor to decide whether she should recuperate for at least 48 hours in the hospital or whether she has enough support to get quality care at home following this emotionally and physically difficult surgery. The bill was reintroduced in 2007 with the support of 14 million signatures from Lifetime's online petition. (Get an more information on this act.)

My mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She'll be getting 4-6 months of chemotherapy, followed by mastectomy. We've already been told by the surgeons that the mastectomy and reconstruction can take up to 6 hours. I can't bear the thought of her enduring all of that, only to be sent directly home afterwards. Please sign the petition.

#4. The Eben Street Girls

2007-02-06T09:52:00.000-05:00

100 Things about Piksea #4

I still see my girlfriends from college semi-regularly. We still don't use our real names, to the point that it's difficult to do it on the odd occasion we deem it necessary. Although our nicknames evolved over time, we still use and answer to them. HH needs me to use the real names and nicknames, just so he can figure out who the hell I'm talking about. My mother never needed me to translate for her. I use the nicknames, she knows exactly who I am talking about, but she always uses the proper given names.

We have an annual summer get together. We used to have it early summer in Wildwood. At the reunion weekend, we played the traditional Saturday night game of "chandeliers" quarters. In chandeliers you have one glass for each person and one in the center. If the quarter goes into an individual's cut, they drink, if it goes into the center cup, everyone drinks, and the last person finished has to drink the middle cup. When a person gets a quarter into any cup(s) five times in a row, that person gets to make up a rule, usually fairly ridiculous and hart to follow, especially after all that drinking. If you break a rule, you drink. Rules generally include no cursing, no saying the word "drink," etc.

In our group someone would inevitably institute a rule where we couldn't use nicknames, but had to use our real names. This was followed by an introduction by our real names, and then a complete inability to follow the rule. Old habits die hard and the booze doesn't do much to help.

With my college pals I have accumulated some of the silliest, craziest, funniest and most exciting adventures, anecdotes and memories in the years we've been friends. I think there's a permanent bond between people like us. I mean, we've known each other for longer than we haven't known one another. I can't imagine how much I would've missed out on if it weren't for having Buzbee, Nasty Girl, Monko, Chauncey, Swabby, Zoid and P-Noid in my life. Hmm, come to think of it, this is about the time that someone usually schedules the Hussy Convention, which is generally dinner, drinks , a lot of laughs and a sleepover.

#3 - My Marital Stats

2007-02-02T10:29:00.000-05:00

100 Things About Piksea ~ #3

I have been engaged twice, married once, divorced once, and am currently shacking' up with The Handsome Honey. I can't even count how many guys I dated up until HH and I went on our first date, which was 5 years ago, the beginning of January.

I think it's safe to say that I probably wouldn't know half of them if I tripped over them and I am known for my memory. Others, I think I would expect to look just like they did back in the day. Often I say young men who remind me a lot of a guy I dated a million years ago. It would be so odd to run into a boy I haven't seen since we were both teens, only to find that cute adolescent is now a bald, paunchy man who is quickly approaching middle age. My goal is to be timeless and I'm afraid to admit how much I spend on skin care and anti-aging products in a vain and pathetic effort to achieve it. I see myself everyday, so I don't notice the changes as much, but I think a good twenty year absence would make for very different looking lost loves, don't you?

#2. My first Concert

2007-01-17T10:01:00.000-05:00

100 Things About Piksea
# 2. My First concert

My first "rock" concert was at Steel Pier (which was demolished a couple of months ago) in Atlantic City when I was 4 or 5 years old. My parents took my brother and I, and the boy who lived across the street to see The Bee Gees. Yes, The Bee Gees. I vaguely remember the trip and I don't remember the concert at all. I do remember an unfortunate incident involving my brother and a little person at the Planter's store. At least I think it was a Planter's store, because I remember Mr. Peanut walking around. And, this may or may not have been where Phyllis Diller scared the crap out of me at the wax museum. I'm not sure if Madame Tussaud ever had a place in Atlantic City. If not, the Phyllis Diller incident happened when my family spent a couple of months in San Francisco when I was a little older.

Christmas meme, part 6

2006-12-19T13:29:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAS MEME, PART 6

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? That's another hard to answer question. I love the cookies that my mom and I bake. I love most of the holiday desserts, though. After my great grandfather died and we started to spend Christmases with our more immediate family and never with our entire extended family, people would gravitate to our house on Christmas Eve. My mother would bake and clean out the bakery cases to have plenty of stuff available for guests. The guests usually brought stuff, too. We'd have people snacking and laughing and chatting for hours. They either came before or right after midnight mass, so sometimes it would be 2:00 before the house cleared out and we could start our Christmas.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I love tradition and have a tendency to be resistant to change, so I like them all. I like that visiting and gathering and the time spent with family. I'd have to say that my favorite is probably the time my mom and I spend together baking. This year we've cut down the kinds of cookies we're making (but we usually add some in as we go along). I'll spend tomorrow night and Thursday night with her in the kitchen making the butter cookies we use the press for (someone has to get the rhythm of how many mechanical hums before just the right amount of dough is on the pan) and the viennese pretzels which are very delicate and not to be made alone, and probably another cookie or macaroon or two.
17. What tops your tree? Every year I say that I am going to buy a proper tree topper, say a pretty glittery star, or something to that effect. Then I take out my decorations and unwrap the corn husk angel that I found among my grandmother's things after she died. I'm not sure if it was finished, or if was ever intended as a tree topper, but she's really sweet and simple and as soon as I unwrap the tissue with her inside, I know that she's what I want on top of my tree.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Definitely giving. I am an excellent present giver. I love going out or surfing the web to find the perfect gifts for my friends and family. I don't usually get the impression that people generally pay as much attention, or put as much thought into it as I do. That's okay, but I never get how it happens. I think it's because I'm pretty intuitive, so I get a sense for people and I'm good at melding personality and style and finding something that will be to the recipient's taste and will be flattering, or interesting, or whatever (depending upon the kind of gift).

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? I like them all, in moderation. I love the modern versions as much as the classics. I'm a big fan of the Whirling Dervishes version of The Grinch Song, especially since they use the most important line, "The three words that best describe you, are as follows, and I quote, stink, stank, stunk." I used to tease Sparky with that one all the time. But, then, he was the creator of the infamous "You Suck" note, so he should have had a better appreciation of it.

20. Candy canes, yuk or yum? Yuk. I like mint, but I prefer mine sugar free and bite size. I'm not a big fan of dripping and slurping. Oooh dirty.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas meme, part 5

2006-12-18T13:13:00.000-05:00

Christmas Meme, part 5

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? I'm going to have to say dread it. I liked it as a kid, when it meant days home from school and spent sledding. I lived in Minnesota for 4 1/2 years as a kid and I was used to snow. We skiied and ice skated and managed to live regular lives in a cold climate. Now, it's mostly a pain. I have to worry about the people who never learned to drive in the snow and are skidding all over the roads.

On the other hand, I really do love the look of fresh snow nestled into tree branches and coating the grass. I don't want to shovel it and I don't like being cold and I don't like have to swerve out of the way of skidding cars whose drivers have a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other, but I really do love the way the snow looks, when it's fresh and the world looks so clean and perfect.

12. Can you ice skate? My family is better on wheels than blades, but yes I learned to ice skate as a little kid and spent more time doing it in Minnesota. My high school there had an indoor ice arena and we even had a cheerleading squad during hockey season, who cheered on ice skates. I haven't been on ice in a long time, but I did get back on skates this summer after a few year hiatus and it felt as good and easy as it always was.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? It's way too hard to pick one favorite gift. There are the many new bicycle Christmases, and my precious Baby Tender Love ( I didn't even name her. I actually called her Baby Tender Love. ) There was the moped Christmas. My parents had us totally convinced that we weren't getting them. Then on Christmas morning, the last box we each opened had a Honda jersey and a Snoopy keychain with moped keys. We found the mopeds and the helmets in my father's office, just waiting for us. There was the Christmas that I got my first engagement ring and announced my engagement to my family and the first fiance's family. I've lived a pretty good life, all things considered and I've gotten so many gifts, personal and material that it's kind of hard to choose any one gift.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? It's the tradition and the family stuff. When my grandmother died, my mom couldn't bear to do any of the things my grandmother did, or to make any of the things she made. The reminders were too painful for her. I kind of pressured her into picking them up again, though. To me, those things made me feel closer to my grandmother and her memory. I wanted all that she had created over the years to stay with us. I didn't want to lose any of that. Sure, some things change little by little as our lives and needs change, but we still make a point of being together and doing as much of the traditional things as we can.

I really miss the way we did it when my great grandfather was alive. He wanted all of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren around him, so we all gathered around him every holiday. This kept me in touch with my aunts, uncles and cousins. Now, everyone drifts apart and we don't see each other nearly as often as we should, or I would like to. My cousins have kids that have to be reintroduced to me when we see each other. I miss that closeness I felt with 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins, even.

Christmas meme, part 4

2006-12-15T12:49:00.000-05:00

Christmas meme, Part 4

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? In my family the rule was, "As long as you believe, Santa comes." We all still believe.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Our immediate family Christmas became Christmas Eve. As a kid that's when we got all our gifts, except the ones from my parents and Santa. We always had the traditional seven fishes dinner, followed by mass (when I attended) and then we regathered for gift exchange. We opened gifts, one person at a time, by age (oldest to youngest). As adults, the holidays got complicated again. There were our own families to visit, as well as those of our significant others, so Christmas traditions have become a little more flexible.

When I was working in crisis intervention, I made a point of being Santa for the kids in the shelter. My family donated a lot of money and gifts, plus what I bought on behalf of the agency and the other donations that came in. I would wind up at the shelter putting all of the gifts together and organizing them so they would be ready as soon as the children woke up. Often at 2 or 3 in the morning, my mother would call asking me to come home so we could exchange gifts.

I remember a Christmas eve about 15 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law and I all got new rollerblades for Christmas, so at 3:00 a.m. we were outside in our pajamas and coats skating around the neighborhood, testing them out.

As I said last time, when we were kids we opened three gifts from my parents on Xmas Eve. They were always a robe, pajamas and slippers so we would look pretty in the photos she took on Xmas morning.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? My mother always had the most control freak Christmas tree, ever. She often made a lot of the decorations and ornaments so she could have exactly what she wanted. We always tease her about never putting up any of the ornaments we made as kids. She might have kept them out for a while (she also didn't believe of anything marring the clean surface of her fridge, no posters on the walls of bedrooms, etc), but they went out with the trash, shortly after their presentation. One year my cousin, the brainy and beautiful Little Squirt thought herself far superior to my brother and I, when she bought an ornament at her school's store that she knew my mom would put on the tree. It was an apple (at that time my mom's tree was apples and red/green plaid ribbons ~ her tree topper was this amazing red/green plaid bow with long streamers that went down the tree as a sort of garland which she made herself) with #1 aunt written on it. You should have seen the smug look on her little face when she looked at us as it went right up on the tree. To really drive home the point of the extent of my mom and her control freak tree, all of her wrapping paper matches her tree decorations. We were not allowed to put any of our wrapped presents under the tree. We could bring them into the room when we handed them around for opening, but we could not have presents under the tree that did not go perfectly with her decorations.

My aunt's tree is huge and filled with memories of everywhere she's been. I always loved her tree. She's also a control freak, in her own way, but her tree is filled with souvenirs and memorabilia of her life and travels.

I'm completely out of control. I buy ornaments that I like when I see them. My tree is pretty much a mishmash of the things that make me happy. If anyone gives me an ornament, it goes on my tree. My tree is generally unsafe for cats and small children, most everything on it is big and shiny. I have a 6" mercury glass cucumber on my tree (Macy's had a tree filled with mercury glass vegetables one year). I have an enormous red mercury glass Christmas bulb hanging from a branch, and someone gave me a huge metallic yellow light bulb to go with it. I like all of my decorations. I have a lot of Disney stuff, some Ancient Egypt, a lot of beach stuff, a lot of snowmen and many moons, suns and stars, often as Santas or snowmen. It's kind of a fun tree. I like it.

Christmas meme, part 3

2006-12-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

Christmas Meme, part 3

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? That is too hard of a question to answer. Our holidays were spent visiting so many locations. Each relative had a specialty that I loved. My mom and I still bake cookies together every year and enjoy the time we spend doing it. I even do quite a bit of my own baking now, with more and more people wanting more and more of my cookies. I was wearing out a hand mixer every December until Mr. Handsome Honey bought me my last hand mixer and a Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer, which I adore.

7. What is your favorite holiday memory as a child? I think it was the circus that was Christmas for us. On Christmas eve we would go to see my maternal grandfather's family in South Philly. Most of them lived on one block, so we would travel from house to house visiting aunts, uncles and cousins while delivering my grandmother's presents and baked goods. Then we would head home, late, to see the stacks of presents under the tree. We would exchange presents with my grandparents and my aunt (my mom's sister). Then we were each allowed to open the top three presents on our pile from the parents. They were always the same: robe, pajamas, slippers. I think I mentioned that my mom is a little bit of a control freak. She wanted to make sure that her photo album wasn't filled with pictures of my brother and I in my father's old t-shirts and our undies on Christmas morning. To ensure that we would be our most photogenic, she provided the wardrobe on Christmas eve.

On Christmas morning, we had to wake our parents before we were allowed to go downstairs. They would sneak down ahead of us and make sure the tree was lit and everything was up and running in the proper order. We'd have a little bit of time to open the rest of the presents from my parents, play with the stuff Santa brought and then we'd have to race to get ready for the visiting. We'd start out heading to my father's parents and we'd do the presents and the visit and a meal, consisting of whatever my interesting thing my grandmother came up with. Some years it was a canned ham, one year she bought the whole wrapped deli package of turkey, the lunch meat kind. Then there was the year she went all Stouffer's and the table was covered with the tins she had unboxed and heated in the oven. She also put the most enormous candy canes I've ever seen in our stockings every year. My dad would shatter them and then pick at the pieces.

After the grandparents, we would go spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with my mom's family. When my great grandfather was alive Christmas rotated between two of my great aunts. All the aunts, uncles and cousins would be there. It was great. Since we were so many people, we went beyond the traditional fare for holidays. We always had escarole soup (Italian wedding soup) and lasagna before the traditional American holiday courses of turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, salad, etc.

By the time we got home we were usually too exhausted to play with our new toys and too overstimulated to sleep. I figured that was the reason that school was closed for the next week. We needed that time to play with all of our new toys and games. I had all those new books to read and records and tapes to listen to.

To be continued...

Christmas meme, part 2

2006-12-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAS MEME, PART 2, DAY 2

3. Colored lights on the tree/house or white? I like white lights on the tree, because my ornaments are really colorful and I like the way the light just enhances them. My tree is filled with lots of big, shiny ornaments, mostly mercury glass. Whenever members of my family spot really big, usually very garish, sparkly shiny ornaments, they buy them for me. Every vacation I pick up something to go on my tree. I love my ornaments. I like spending time looking at them, rearranging them on the tree. There is no rhyme or reason, so I sometimes divide the tree up into themed areas. I'll put my ancient Egyptian stuff together ( I have King Tut's sarcophagus, his death mask and a big gold ball symbolizing Ra, the sun god), and the Disney stuff together, and the beachy stuff together, etc.

It doesn't matter to me what color the lights on the house are. I've been in my house for six years and I've never done outside lights. I have an evergreen bough with red lights that goes on the bannister in my foyer and white lighted candles in my windows. Have you ever seen the red candles in windows? I guess they might look more like real flames, but they always make me think of the glowing red pigs' eyes in The Amityville Horror , so they kind of weird me out.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? My mother always did. I don't. I'm 5'2" and I just don't put anything up that has to go up high, that I don't absolutely have to. I don't mind climbing, I think short people have to be excellent little monkeys. I never really think about mistletoe, either. I guess it's just a tradition that I never really embraced.

5. When do you put up decorations? It became my tradition to put my tree up on Black Friday while watching the movie Dogma. I refuse to leave the house, other than to go to my mom's for the traditional day after Thanksgiving leftover lunch. Any shopping that I need to do, I can do other days. Since I'm home bound for the day, it seems the perfect time to put up the tree and decorations. For a few years Comedy Central would show Dogma on Black Friday and I decided that it made for a good tradition. The last couple of years they haven't shown it, so I pop in my DVD.

This year, I spent half of last week putting up my tree. The darn thing mocks me. I couldn't get the branches to look right, then the lights caused all kinds of problems. I took them off and put them back on twice and still wasn't that happy with it. I wound up covered in scrapes and welts and scratches from spending so much time farting around with the tree. I also didn't watch Dogma. I know, shame on me. Instead I was watching Farscape, Season 1 on DVD. It's pretty good. I'm a sucker for a good guy and the main character is such a good guy.

Okay, that's it for today. Tune in later for more Christmas meme and Christmas memories.

Christmas meme, part 1

2006-12-12T10:38:00.000-05:00

There is a Christmas meme going around and I thought it might be nice to include some holiday memories in my ponderings. Since I have the habit of going into too much depth usually, I think I'll break the list down and cover a couple of the 20 questions a day. That will get us to the holiday itself. So, here goes.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate, definitely. I used to love it with heaping spoonfuls of Marshmallow Fluf melting into it. Now, I like it with a shot of Malibu rum.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Mommy and Daddy wrapped presents (well, Mommy wrapped presents from Mommy and Daddy) and put them in perfect neat piles, my presents being matched up perfectly to the corresponding box in my brother's pile. Mommy is a little bit of a control freak. ( I love you Mommy!!!) She also had one side of the tree designated to me, the other side to my brother (usually left side for me (I'm a lefty), right for him.

Santa makes the toys at the North pole. He doesn't wrap them. He sets them up all assembled and batteried up and charged and ready to go when they are discovered on Christmas morning. He also uses Mommy's tree system ~ Left side for me, right side for the brother and the center was all sharesies. I never understood how some people got wrapped presents from Santa. I really didn't get how they could possibly have to spend Christmas morning hunting down batteries for toys and putting them together. My parents might have been bleary eyed by the time we started on our many Christmas day journeys to see family, but all our gifts were ready to go on Christmas morning.

100 Things about Piksea

2006-11-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

1. I Have a Puppy Named Pickles.

Actually, Pickles is eight years old, but you'd have a tough job convincing him that he's not a puppy. Pickles is a pound puppy, or what is now called a rescue dog. He was almost a year and half when his original owner brought him to the animal shelter. She was sick and was afraid she wasn't going to be able to care for him much longer. Sparky and a friend stopped in the animal shelter and met Pickles, a black cocker spaniel, with a white chest (so he sort of looks like he's wearing a tuxedo) and fell in love.

Now, Pickles is a lover and a charmer. People tend to fall for him. His tail starts wagging and he's so excited to meet new people (we're all dog toys to him) and that tends to be infectious. A really friendly dog tends to bring out the best in people. Sparky went to play with him every night after work while he was trying to get me to agree to adopting a dog.

I was working full time, going to school four nights a week. We lived in a tiny little house that was sort of hard to navigate with it's four story open metal spiral staircase. We didn't have the time or space that a dog deserved. I think dog, I think grassy yard and kids and people to be around for him all the time. I thought a dog deserved better than we could give him. I wasn't thinking that if we didn't take him, he was more likely to be euthanized than find a family in the suburbs to love him, especially at a South Philly animal refuge. I couldn't be responsible for the death of any animal. The reason I avoid animal shelters is because I wouldn't be able to leave without as many puppies, bunnies, etc. as my little Honda Civic could hold. So, of course, I gave in.

Sparky brought Pickles home the following Sunday. I think he was hoping to be his big hero. Somehow, he expected Pickles to be eternally grateful to his savior and to live his life that way. The two of them walked into the house, Pickles charged for me and never looked back. He is a total mama's boy.

Watching

2006-11-28T10:04:00.000-05:00

I watched season one of the USA series The Dead Zone last week. Anthony Michael Hall does not qualify as fantasy boyfriend of the week. Sorry. On the cover, he looks downright creepy. But, I do like him much better than I did in Edward Scissorhands where he was such a jerk, and, he has come a long way since he was Farmer Ted and the original Rusty Griswold.

The Dead Zone is based on the Stephen King book, which, along with the original movie with Christopher Walken, I remain very vaguely. I was enjoying the series. I like when characters have more facets and dimensions. So often, on tv, at least, the good guys are human, but the bad guys are infamously superhuman, totally bad. They aren't very interesting to watch. I like that everyone has bad and good all mushed up inside of them, leaving almost anything in the realm of possibility. Here, the people seem very human and interesting. I'm a sucker for those kinds of things that we all wish were possible, or wish that we could do, but sadly accept that they aren't real or possible at all.

Up until the end of the first season's episodes, I was liking the characters and, despite the overused stern look that is forever appearing on Johnny Smith's face, I even liked him a lot. Then, they did something really weird. The penultimate episode of the season has Johnny getting tried for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. Too campy. Too lame. The final episode of the season was better, though, also another dredged up from the campy coffers plot, with a Native American who shares Johnny's gift and they see each other through time and save a tribe of American Indians from being incinerated by a meteor some 500 or 600 years ago.

The other stuff I've been watching:

Two seasons of Wire in the Blood that I watched on dvd. That Robson Green guy won't make my fantasy boyfriend list, but I love him as Tony Hill anyway. He would go on a fantasy friend list. I would definitely want to pal around with him, figure out what makes him tick, have long discussions on intuition and evidence and all that fascinating stuff

* ~ Beach Girls a Lifetime network miniseries with Rob Lowe and Julia Ormond. It was okay. I watched the whole thing the other day while I was painting my bedroom. I think it's only been sticking in my mind because I stayed up lated to see it through, so it was the last thing pouring into my brain before bed.

* ~The Libertine ~ I'm pretty glad that I was facing away from the television the entire time this was running, it was seriously bizarre. I love Johnny Depp and to watch him play a guy who starts losing pieces to syphilis is not pretty. In fact, bleah!

So, that ends todays episode of Piksea's Couch Potato Chronicles. I hope to be back with something of more interest to say soon.

This Week's Boyfriend

2006-11-22T12:20:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's been forever since I did the blog upkeep around here. So sorry about that! This isn't my primary blog and even that one is woefully behind and I post 2-3 a week over at Fausti's Book Quest. I've been reading and I've been pondering, but I haven't been writing. The internal dialogue here is going strong. I should probably turn the insanity down a notch and write it down instead of keeping my vivid fantasy life going so strong.

I've been watching oodles of TV on DVD these days. I got a little portable dvd player (it's all pretty and red) and I spend my lunch hours curled up in the backseat of my car, in the park, with my lunch, enjoying some quality programming. The backseat of my little Honda Civic is surprisingly comfortable. It's so nice and cozy. I used to go to the park right up the street from the office and read or write while I ate lunch, but now, I've just added another option.

This brings me to this week's fictional and/or unattainable boyfriend. He's not even someone I watched on videotape or DVD this week, which is usually the case, because I rarely watch live TV anymore. Last night I noticed that BBC America has started to run the new Doctor Who. I never watched the old Doctor Who(s), but when Television Without Pity started recapping it, I thought I should check it out. So, I borrowed the first season from my library and really really liked it.

This week's fantasy boyfriend, is, therefore, none other than Season One Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston. But, only as Doctor Who. Did you ever see him as Iago in that updated version of Othello? We all know that Iago is seriously bad news, but this guy really brought on the all out evil. Sure, you've taken a good look at him and can't see what the fuss is about. I'm not necessarily drawn to conventionally handsome (which is why I'm always surprised by my total love and devotion to Mr. Handsome Honey, who is, epitomizes conventional handsomeness). I usually prefer them quirky. The Doctor is such a great character. He's smart, sweet, heroic, powerful. So, yup, he's this week's fantasy boyfriend.

Girls' Weekends

2006-08-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know. Once again I am seriously remiss in my blogging here.

On August 11, I got home from work and it was such a gorgeous night, I planned on spending it on my deck with a book and my puppy Pickles. The Handsome Honey is usually home fairly early on Fridays, so I defrosted some ground turkey and rolls for turkey burgers, made up a big salad, cleaned the table and set up all my lanterns and candles on the deck. HH came home and fired up the grill and we had a lovely dinner. Just as I was thinking about cleaning up and dragging out War and Peace, since I am so woefully behind in my reading, to spend the night on my lounge chair, book and puppy in my lap, lots of citronella oil chasing away the buggies and giving me light, HH asks if I'm ready to go.

Apparently, he decided that we would be seeing The Descent that night. I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. He said, "It's a girl power movie, you love those." True, I do love the girl power, but I knew this was a horror movie and I'm not a fan of those at all. He was comparing it to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I countered that Buffy was sanitized for television, just the way I like my icky stuff. I love Buffy, but I liked the idea that bad guys are green or fangy or somehow obvious. I prefer my evil overt. Really, I like the characters and the relationships, and, of course, the language. Joss Whedon is genius. Plus, he writes the best men. This is the guy I would have liked to have created all men.

So, we go, despite my many many reservations to see The Descent. It was bloody and gruesome and so not girl power. HH kept saying things like, "Look, I told you it was a girl's movie, they killed off the only man in the cast in the first five minutes." It was not a girl's movie. He was all up for some scary fun, but it was gory and violent and, well, bleah!

On the drive home, HH says that he's noticed that I have two girls' weekends on the calendar in the kitchen. He wants to know if when I get together with the girls, do we go down into caves and fight monsters. Ummm, no. "Actually, honey, the only thing we fight on girls' weekends are corks out of wine bottles."

This weekend I had a completely monster free girls' weekend with my cousin AM at her shore house. It was lovely. We went to the beach and the boardwalk and had drinks and shopped and went out to dinner. It was just perfect.

Now, HH has already worked out the sequel to The Descent. Although, honestly, there can't be a sequel. Not that that's the kind of thing that stops these horror movie guys. Just the other day I saw a poster in the window at Blockbuster for a movie, which must have been direct to video. It was called "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer." The Descent ends and really, I think that poor girl would be spending the rest of her days in a padded room, securely in a strait jacket and with constant and massive doses or Thorazine in her system. And that is as happy of an ending as she could get.

Rubber Ducky Regatta

2006-08-15T08:57:00.000-05:00

The Cape May County United Way holds the annual Rubber Ducky Regatta as a fundraiser. I've been going for the last four or five years to see the race and enjoy the day. It's not exactly like it's tough. They hold it at one of my favorite places, Wildwood, New Jersey.

So, on Sunday (8/13/06) my mom and my niece and nephew joined me for the day at the shore and to cheer on the little duckies. We had the entire Wildwood experience in a day. We had Mack's pizza, I got to spend time in the bookstore. We had french fries, funnel cakes and cotton candy. We went on the rides and walked the boardwalk. It was a very nice day. The weather was beautiful and the sun was shining.

Here is a picture I took with my phone of the ducks piling up at the finish line. As usual, I didn't win any of the prizes, but I got a lot for my $5 donation and spent a terrific day with my family. So, I guess I really did win!

It's Riddle day! Oh, yippee.

2006-08-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

I heard this riddle the other day and thought I would share it with my adoring public (so kidding about that last part). I'm pretty sure if pressed to come up with a riddle of my own, it would be somewhat akin to Bilbo's in The Hobbit, you know, where he asks, "What's in my pocket?" and then it was really just him talking to himself anyway. But, lucky for you, I did not come up with this riddle.

Here goes:

You are in a two story building. On the first floor are three light switches. On the second floor are three lights. The switches operate lights on the second floor. How do you figure out which switch works which lights? You can not see the lights from the first floor and you can only go upstairs one time.

Answer will be posted in comments.

-For the record, my solution was to call an electrician from downstairs and have him put the switches for the upstairs lights, upstairs where they belong (leaving one to see going up, if necessary) and then go upstairs to show the electrician what lights you are talking about. I was told I was wrong, but it sounded like a pretty good idea to me.

Song Blogthing

2006-08-10T09:22:00.000-05:00

Whenever I come across a blog thing like this, I feel compelled to try it out. I got this one from Adrienne's blog and of course, as with most of these, we got the same answer. We also share the same birthday. There could be something to that. We're not separated twins as we sometimes contend, especially since we're separated by not only distance, but 8 years.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my "What's your theme song?" blogthing. So, what's your theme song?

Your Theme Song is Back in Black by AC/DC

"Back in black, I hit the sack,
I've been too long, I'm glad to be back"

Things sometimes get really crazy for you, and sometimes you have to get away from all the chaos.
But each time you stage your comeback, it's even better than the last!

What's" Your Theme Song?

Piksea Ponders Men

2006-08-09T09:04:00.000-05:00

I realize I have been seriously delinquent in my postings, but that's mostly because I was so busy pondering things that I just couldn't get around to writing. I'm trying to make up for that now.

I've been thinking a lot about boys and dating and all that mess that those two things entail.

Girls ~ Have you ever noticed how men get when you say anything about other men?

I've come up with a theory. Men are like Christopher Columbus.

What does this mean, you may ask. Well, I'll tell you. Every man likes to believe that he has discovered the New World. In actuality, the Vikings landed on those shores ages ago. And who knows how many others have landed in the mean time?

Piksea the Photographer

2006-08-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

This is sunset at Sunset Bay in Anglesea, New Jersey. I took this with my camera phone because I couldn't bear to not get a shot. I had no idea it would turn out so lovely. I am a pretty crappy photographer, despite my desire to be good at it. I think I'm going to look into a photography class this fall at the local community college.

The big family vacation at the Jersey shore was last week and a pretty good time was had by all.

Gladys Kravitz

2006-08-07T14:25:00.000-05:00

Sparky was the most unintentionally funny man I've ever known. He was also the nosiest. His little trinity house in Northern Liberties was in a gated courtyard. He loved that the gate was noisy so he could spy on all the comings and goings.

One night Sparky was taking out the trash and peeked into the window of our neighbors, Scooter and Mum-Mum. He could tell that someone was expecting company. Sparky came running back into the house all excited that there were candles lit and he heard music and the shades were open but no one was visible on the first floor.

"I need more trash!" he was screaming as he ran through the house looking for something that would give him an acceptable excuse to go out and spy some more. If Mum Mum was expecting a gentleman caller, he wanted to know.

Sparky ran back and forth to the trash cans a few times before Mum Mum thwarted him by closing his blinds. Sparky took this as a personal affront. I had to suffer through the temper tantrum that followed.

That weekend at one of our family dinner's at Scooter's (he's a chef) we were talking about Sparky and how nosy he was. Mum Mum was aware if Peeping Sparky, hence the blinds getting closed. I also let slip that Ihad christened him Gladys Kravitz, and the name stuck.

Luckily, Sparky was a pretty good sport (he's a total narcissist and teasing is attention). Every time he gave us a reason to refer to him as Gladys Kravits, he would squeal, "Oh, Abner, I just saw a horse in the Stevens' living room."

Piksea could be Marianne Dashwood

2006-05-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

One fall C decided that we should spend Thanksgiving weekend skiing in Vermont. We left Wednesday night and drove up to Killington. It was an 9 hour drive or so from central New Jersey on some of the emptiest roads I've ever traveled.

We woke up Thanksgiving morning to a rainy washed out ski resort. A check of the weather showed that it had snowed all night at Jay Peak. So, we packed up, hopped back into his car (the little black duck) and started north for Jay Peak.

We drove through the rain then on to dry, clear roads to snowy roads. Finally, as we headed up the mountain it started to snow and the roads were icy and visibility was dropping. We were hanging on and working our way up the mountain when we blew out a tire and went skidding all over the road. For a while I wasn't sure we were going to stop, and if it weren't for a post on the side of the road, we wouldn't have.

When the car finally stopped, thanks to the little road post, C got out. I was pretty much stunned into immobility. Over the hood of the car all I could see was a whole lot of nothing. There was a completely verticle slope and it dropped down really far. There was a house on the driver's side at the bottom of the slope. C came around to the passenger's side and we looked at each other shocked, through a big spider web with pieces of my hair in it that neither of us had noticed until then. While he was scared by the realization that my head struck the windshield with enough force to smash it, I felt guilty because I broke his windshield... with my head. It took me a little while to comprehend what happened.

C put the donut on and we continued on. We checked into the hotel/inn, whatever it was at Jay Peak. We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner before he spent the night watching over me. By then I had a pretty bad headache and a possible concussion. We always had plenty of those little travel games with us and I'm sure he won quite a few games of Scrabble and Othella a little easier than he would have suspected possible that night, at least. After, he spent most of the night making sure that whatever might happen to concussed people didn't happen to me. He was my very own Colonel Brandon and I didn't even actually have to fall down a hill.

On a more practical note, the skiing was horrible. Just because they get a foot of snow in the mountains you shouldn't necessarily try skiing on them. There's a very good reason for wanting a 60+ inch base. Rock skiing is no fun and not very healthy for your skis.

Couch Potato Chronicles, Vol. 1

2006-05-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

Has anyone seen those VW Jetta commercials with those horrible collisions in them? At first, I would just avert my eyes or leave the room when one of them came on. Last Friday, Mr. Handsome Honey and I went to see Poseidon (Josh Lucas, um, YUM!) and there was a Jetta in front of us. Somehow I now have a revulsion to both the commercials and the car. I'm creeped out just by the sight of those cars on the road.

Speaking of commercials, AOL has those goofy ones out with the regular people in races with athletes. They're pretty stupid, but I can't help but like the one with the bike race. The regular guy in it is just so likable. I love him.

Monday night I watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. If only I had just turned the tv off at 10:30, I would have been fine. After it ended, HH came in the room and saw me all sniffling and just shook his head and said, "You never learn." He was right, I don't ever learn. I usually try to pass the blame off on him, but it never works.

I'm getting burned out again on television. I was pretty much off of tv when I met HH. I mostly used the tv as background noise, since I lived alone and Pickles has never been known for his conversational skills. I think I was down to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel at that point. There was nothing else that I really made an effort to see each week. HH, on the other hand, works in a big office and so, he would watch all the stuff that people talked about. He would watch a show just because it would be number one in the ratings that week. I had never seen an episode of Survivor and that was fine with me.

Alias: I first watched this show on dvd. I borrowed season 1 from the library and I loved it. I liked that Sydney Bristow was sweet and smart and was tortured by juggling her two lives. I didn't realize yet that Jennifer Garner can only act like she likes a boy when she really, really likes him. It was annoying to watch how stilted the romance became between Sydney and Vaughn when Garner hooked up with Ben Affleck. Okay, I get that Jennifer Garner was no longer in love with Michael Vartan (although, I may never understand why), but Sydney and Vaughn were in love. I'm sure she was getting a decent wage for her job as an actress. I don't think it would be too much to ask for her to act like she liked him. I guess none of it matters anymore, because as of next week, this show is history.

Invasion: At first this was just the show that came on after Lost, but the story is intriguing and the characters are the most complex and interesting of any on television. I'm disappointed that last night was the series finale. I found the characters fascinating and the storyline was so well written. I wanted to just follow along and see what it all meant.

Lost: I'm still following along with this show, but I'm feeling a little manipulated. There's all this weird commercial stuff going on, which is sort of funny. On the show, they are on a, supposedly, deserted island, so there's no product placement around. In fact, all the stuff they are finding is branded by the Dharma Initiative, the mysterious group running experiments on the island. There's even a shark swimming around the island with the Dharma logo. Now, they have all websites that tie into the story and they are filled with advertising, Dodge, Sprite, etc. It's pretty lame. I like to have as much information as possible, but this is a tv show and I'd hate to see it ruined by all this extraneous nonsense.

Well, time to get off my ass, and my little soapbox. Until next time.

That Which Doesn't Kill Us...

2006-05-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

That final breakup with C was devastating, especially after all that he had been to me and all that we had been through. I never saw him again. It was another phone break up and there was no exchange of stuff. Whatever he had of mine probably went straight to the trash. Just the idea of having to face him, collect my stuff, say a final goodbye and then have to drive for an hour and a half blinded by tears was beyond horrible. I packed away the cards, letters, pictures, gifts and memorabilia. I couldn't toss 5 years of my life, but I couldn't face it either.

It just took a while to get to the point where I could look back and sigh with romantic nostalgia over all that stuff. I was destroyed by that break up. It was my first real heart break. Just writing that I feel a melodramatic "Woe is me" with the back of my hand up to my forehead, and I smile. Since then I've been on both sides of heartbreak.

I've loved and lost and lived to tell the tale. I don't know if the girl I was would even recognize the woman I became. It strikes me as funny the way people talk about getting through this stuff. I've heard and understand, "The only way out, is through." It's my way. People ask if you are going to be okay, like it's optional. It's not. I can't conceive any other outcome. However, they also say, "That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." In my experience, the time between when it didn't killy you and when you get stronger includes that awful period when your kind of bitter and no fun to be around.

I don't regret the relationship or the heartache. C was responsible for a lot of firsts in my life. I've grown up and lived my own life and for that I am proud and grateful. I'll never know if I missed out on things had I or we gone a different direction and that's okay. I know all that I've had and done and learned have made me who I am today. And, I kind of like her.

Piksea's First Real Proposal

2006-05-10T09:37:00.000-05:00

C and I had been together for a few years and we had some really good times. We'd been through some rough patches, but we both seemed to be in it for the long haul. He was a few years older than I, so there were times we weren't on the same page chronologically. For example, he turned 25 before I turned 21. I was still feeling like such a little kid and he was having a quarter life crisis.

Our warm weather weekends were spent mostly on his boat just enjoying the water and the sun. We made the most of and thoroughly enjoyed our time together, alone. I guess I was about 22 or 23 and happily in love in my first real grown up relationship and left an enjoyable early summer weekend to head home. I didn't realize how strange my life would become.

I called to let him know I made it home okay, since I was driving an ancient Datsun for an hour and a half on mostly back roads between our houses. In this conversation C brought up marriage, and not in a good way. He told me that he didn't want to get married and that was fine with me. I wasn't even thinking about marriage. Then he picked a fight about this total non-issue. He swore that one day I was going to want a commitment and he wasn't going to be able to give it to me. It didn't matter that I couldn't pinpoint a time in the future when this could even be a concern. Somehow, by the time the conversation ended, I was hurt, confused and single. We were both crying (I'd never seen or heard him cry before this). He's telling me how much he loves me, and he's dumping me. It was awful. It made no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, who professes their undying love to someone, crying their eyes out while breaking up with that person over something that might never happen? Even worse, who does this after an idyllic weekend together, and over the frickin' phone, to boot?

The next couple weeks were filled with long tearful phone calls. Then it started to sink in that it was probably better for this to happen now, rather than after squandering all of my youth with someone, discovering that I did want the promise of forever and not getting it. What if marriage became a big deal for me and he really knew that he would never be able to offer me forever? I started to distance myself, for my own protection and in the hopes of healing. I wasn't calling him anymore and I was happy for the 60 + mile buffer between our houses. It was better to not be able to run into him, accidentally, or on purpose.

Just when I was finally getting myself back together and thinking about moving on and taking control of the next part of my life, he called. My family had already left for our shore house for the weekend and I was the only one still home. He wanted to come over and talk. I've nevere been that good with "no," so I agreed.

He showed up at my door a little later and we wound up driving around aimlessly and mostly silently until we ended up at the duck pond in my neighborhood. I wasn't helping matter, I'm sure, since I was on self-preservation auto pilot. I was afraid to be close to him or touch him. I'd spent six weeks hurt and confused by my first big, real, grown up, true love. Ours was so much more and intense than my silly little high school relationships.

If I had let him hold me, or if I looked into his face, I would be in danger of falling apart. I didn't know that I could hurt as much as I had those last few weeks. I was just starting to get myself together, but I knew it was tenuous. I couldn't deal with letting myself get crushed again. I was trying to hard to be invulnerable, but I was really so much the opposite.

At the duck pone he got out of the car and spread a blanket on the grass. I sat, all stiff, on the corner, as far from him as I could be, avoiding eye contact. He started talking and I couldn't really listen because I was still worried he'd say something else horrible. It might not have made any sense that he would drive all the way to my house, just to say that he meant it when we broke up, but none of the rest of it made any sense either. The gist was that he had been thinking about marriage and it scared him. He broke up with me, not because he didn't ever want to get married, but because he had been going to propose and he freaked. Then he told me he loved me and asked me to marry him.

As all the blood drained from my head, I looked directly at him for the first time. I wasn't touched and flattered. I wasn't flooded with warm feelings. I was mad. There he was, just staring at me and telling me how much he loved me and had missed me, but it was just another confusing message. He told me that I could take as long as I wanted to think about it as long as I didn't say no right then and as long as I didn't hit him.

Dazed from a proposal that I hadn't expected, we got back in his car and he drove me home. Then, I made him leave. I'd gone through six weeks of agon and here was just staring at me with the googly eyes, telling me how much he loved me and wanted to spend his life with me. He'd spent the time knowing what was going on in his mind, but I'd been in the dark about it, hurt and cut off from him and alone. I needed time to process and I couldn't think straight with him there. And, quite honestly, all that staring at me was really freaking me out. He left, but he was making his intentions clear. He was back by the next morning.

For the next few months after that we didn't have a conversation that didn't include a constant barrage of "Marry me." Every time he caught my eye, every time we talked, it was there, this question that was as scary and painful as it was exciting and flattering.

Eventually, I said yes. I knew that I wanted to be with him and figured that must be the same thing as wanting to marry him. I remember being so worried about losing my identity. I was right, but totally wrong. I was more in danger of never really having an identity than of losing one.

We never married. By New Year's my ring was ready and we'd told our families. By March, we were over for good and it wasn't pretty.

There may have been a slim chance that I would have made a world class wife, mother and life companion. I'm talking really slim. I was a sheltered, spoiled little girl whose parents still bought her everything (pretty much) and did everything for her. I would have gone from my still very childlike existence to being another responsibility for him. I worked in crisis intervention at a youth shelter. I paid no rent, no car insurance, did nothing around the house. I came and went as I pleased. My money (the little I made ) paid for my fun and gas in my car. I hadn't lived, really. I was worried about losing an identity I hadn't even formed yet. The view is very different of this ordeal from this side of years and life and experiences.

I am Twisted!

2006-05-09T10:02:00.000-05:00

How evil are you?

I could have told you I was twisted. It's probably the best way to describe my brain. I love that the description gives me the option to be as evil as I desire to be. I love choices!

Fond Remembrances

2006-05-08T08:23:00.000-05:00

C was probably no good for me in so many ways, and vice versa, in all fairness. We were both extremely introverted, with small comfort zones. Together, alone we were great, but I was definitely too young to have commited to spending my life with someone who wouldn't pull me out of my shell and out into the world. I needed extroverts to balance out my shy and hermit like tendencies. C was also wonderful in so many way. I will always treasure the many sweet and lovely memories I have of our time together.

He was the guy who had to kiss me at every red light.
Even though he always had cars with bucket seats, I had to promise and remember if he ever bought a truck, I would sit all the ay over on his side, next to him.
He was the one who decided that "There is a light that never goes out" by The Smiths would be our wedding song, even though it was just a silly little fantasy of some distant future at the time.
He drove me to Disney World over the winter holidays, even though he hated crowds and we knew it would be the most crowded time of the year. I had a kidney infection and we had to stop a lot. We also needed to map out all the bathrooms at the parks without lines . We did the drinking tour of Epcot. And, he actually wore the Mickey Mouse ears with his name embroidered on them (even if it was only in our hotel room).
C was the guy who bought a waterbed with no baffles because he knew how much I loved the waves. He would even make it wavy for me. He never complained that I frequently would call out "Ready?" then lift my butt up and crash down on the bed to make as many waves as possible and enjoy the ride.
He's the reason that I am an excellent travel companion and first rate co-pilot.
We went so many places and I had so many exciting experiences and adventures with him.
When I spent my summers, carless in Wildwood, living with my grandparents, he would drive 80 miles down the NJ Parkway to see me, or to pick me up and drive me back up to his house for a day or a weekend. Then, he'd do it all over again to bring me back. All that, just to be with me.

I've been going through all the old boyfriend stuff in my boxes and it's the C memories that really matter to me. I love that I can look back on it all and smile and enjoy all those great memories. How do people hold on to all that negative? You lose so much of the positive that's wrapped up with it and that is so much nicer to think about.

When the Sopranos Hits Too Close to Home

2006-05-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

I've been watching the Sopranos now that it's back for, maybe, it's last season. I find myself torn between just going with the ridiculous flow and being offended by the stereotypes. Mostly, I go with the flow. I mean, what is more ridiculous than thieves and murderers being all upset because of a gay gangster? How many times does someone refer to sin when discussing Vito? Why, because they are all choir boys? So, it's a sin to be gay, but mugging ancient Lauren Bacall for her award show goodie basket is a-okay. Insert glass house/stone throwing cliche here.

One of the episodes from a few weeks ago is still resonating with me. It's the episode where Tony goes to the family reunion in his coma dream. He pulls up to the building and is greeted by his dead cousin, Steve Buscemi telling him that everyone is waiting for him. As he starts walking toward the warmly lit building, he stops and refuses to go in when he hears his daughter yelling to him, "Don't go, Daddy. I love you."

It doesn't help that this episode aired a week before the second anniversary of my father's death. I was there when my dad died, but I didn't scream. I'm pretty quiet and when my father was sick I mostly sat quietly by him. I wanted him to have every chance at getting better. I didn't want to split his focus or his energy. Not to mention that we did not disturb Daddy when he was sleeping.

The absolutely worst job to be given when I was a kid was calling Daddy to dinner. My mom would say, "Go tell your father that dinner is ready." If he was napping, you were screwed. You couldn't yell or make loud sudden noises. You couldn't shake, nudge or touch him. Sure, these things would wake him up, but he'd come up yelling and snarling. Inevitably by the time we both got to the table, he'd be extremely grouchy and I'd be in tears. I'd feel guilty that it was my faulth that everyone had to eat dinner with grouchy Charlie. He'd feel a little bad that he'd upset me, but I'd still get an earful of why I wasn't supposed to startle him awake. If he was easy to wake, it wouldn't be an issue, but you could stand over him for what seemed like forever, sort of whispering to wake him up without it working. These are the lessons that stay learned for a lifetime.

The nurses in the ICU would come in and be chatting away at his unconscious form in his bed. Not us, though. We weren't disturbing him. He was in the exact same spot seven years before, the same bad condition, the same bed, and knocking him out and putting him on the ventilator gave his body enough of a break then that all his energy could go to getting better, and it worked. So, we really believed in it. If there was any chance that he was going to recover we were not going to stand in the way of it.

As I watched Tony Soprano come out of his TV coma after heading toward the light, the old doubts started creeping back in. What if, instead of begging him to not go silently, I had yelled for him not to go out loud? Would it have made a difference? Did he think it didn't matter because I was only screaming in my head? The morning he died, actually, just after he died, we were told that his bloodwork was back and that all of the infection was gone. Maybe he could have made it if we just screamed out loud for him to stay with us. Maybe if he heard us saying how much we loved him, he wouldn't have gone. We certainly weren't quiet because we wanted him to go. We were scared and shocked by all those machines and people filling him with drugs and shocking his heart back to work. We felt abandoned when we discovered that these horrible, drastic measures were only keeping him technically alive for an hour at a time. We tried to stay out of the way so the professionals could do all they could to save him. But, did we miss the biggest part of saving him? Did we not verbalize how much we didn't want him to go, and so he never had a reason to hang on?

I know this is sort of naive. It certainly doesn't take into account how horrible recovery would have been if he had stayed with us that morning. He would have had to survive another surgery to complete amputations he didn't even know he had. He would have had to regain all his strength, survive additional surgery, hope that there was enough tissue left to save his legs just below the knees, heal enough to be fitted for prostheses, learn to walk in them, learn to drive with hand controls in the car, if he could drive again. Just the not being able to drive would be the end of him emotionally. He was car guy. He loved his cars. He shined them until they gleamed. He changed his own oil and did as many repairs as he could on his own.

I just wish I didn't have to lose him. I only have to really think about having him or not. The what might have been if he survived is really moot. I can say that we would have been able to keep his spirits up and help encourage him to fight to be able to deal with the hardships he would have faced, to come back stronger, but the reality of it would have been much bleaker and I know that, but I don't have to consider it because it never happened. I just hope that I didn't fail to do something that could have effected our outcome.

It's the "what if's" that really get to you. I've never been good with unanswered questions, even though I have a habit of asking many unanswerable questions. It's hard to accept the idea that maybe, just maybe, if I had yelled out loud what I was begging for in my mind, he would have known how I felt and fought harder to stay with us.

My Pals Hoops and Stelly

2006-05-03T08:36:00.000-05:00

So, I was driving around with my iPAQ hooked up to my car stereo and set on shuffle, not hearing what I wanted. Then, Kiss off by The Violent Femmes came on. First, I thought of my old pal, Hoops.

(Aside: My girlfriends from college, oh it was Zoid, of course, gave her that nickname because they liked her and wanted to make her feel like she was one of the gang. I don't think anyone has called her that since but, for our purposes, she'll forever be Hoops here.)

Hoops and I shared a great joy in the music of The Cure and The Violent Femmes. Kiss Off was a particular favorite. I can't tell you how many times we wound up screaming out the numbers part of the song:

"I take 1,1,1 'cause you left me
and 2,2,2 for my family,
and 3,3,3 for my heartaches
and 4,4,4 for my headaches
and 5,5,5 for my lonely
and 6,6,6 for my sorrow
and 7,7 n-n-n-n-no tomorrow
and 8, 8 I forget what 8 was for,
but 9,9,9's for my lost God
and 10,10,10, 10 is for everything, everything, everything, everything!...."

The version I was listening to was live. The live version reminded me of the night that I saw the Femmes perform at the Electric Factory. I went with Sparky and our pal Stelly. It was a great show. Of course, by then Gordon Gano had turned into a big fat sloppy old queen. His cute rebel youth was a distant and faded memory.

When I got to work I had discovered an e-mail from Stelly. I wrote him back and told him how I had just been thinking of him while listening to The Femmes on the commute in to work. He, of course, was just listening to their greatest hits cd. This is not surprising. Stelly and I have always had some pretty cool connections. He was Sparky's best friend and they'd been pals from college when we first met.

I met Stelly after Sparky and I had been out a few times. He asked the usual kind of first introduction kind of questions including where I lived. Now, I live in a town near the town I mostly grew up in, but I had moved there as an adult and, although it was (and still is) where I lived, I mostly just slept there. Stelly wanted to know if I knew a particular person who lived in my area. I figured the odds were awfully slim, but asked who he meant. It turned out that the girl he mentioned was one of my closest friends in elementary school. She was a great girl, but with an unfortunate name (her first and last names put together were the same as a cold medication). We only saw each other in passing in high school, but I had many fond memories of slumber parties, recess and a shore vacation where her family stayed in the house that back up to our bungalows. Small world, right? I don't think I've had a connection like this to a non-boyfriend ever.

No Regrets

2006-05-02T09:27:00.000-05:00

It's so funny to be feeling this positive about all of my little bits of nostalgia. I've finally found peace with my past. I'm pretty self-critical and I tend to kick myself around for my mistakes. Many of those mistakes, or at least the most egregious, have been in my love life. My romantic history has been something of a tragicomedy. It seemed awfully tragic when I lived through it, but, thankfully, I see the humor in it now.

My very dear pal Monko never harbored regrets. I was always amazed at how easily she takes everything in stride. She just accepts it all. "It is what it is" is her mantra and she's totally fine with that, whatever it is. I'm always wondering "what if" and how I could have/should have handled things. I realize that it doesn't accomplish anything, it's just frustrating and counter-productive. Eventually, the genius behind Monko's life philosophy started to sink in. Now, I'm learning to accept it all, embrace my past, good, bad and indifferent. It's not like I can undo any of it. I can't take any of it back, so no more kicking myself around. By closing off huge chunks of my past, I miss out on the good as well as the bad and there was plenty of good. There was exciting good and funny good and quite a bit of naughty good, too. Some of my worst decisions led to some of my most interesting memories. To have experienced plenty of heart ache, I had to first experience plenty of love, right?

I'm not sure if I believe in "meant to be" and "not meant to be." Well, I guess it's hard not to believe in the basic, common sense, reality of things that weren't meant to be. I just find it hard to believe in a pre-ordained big picture. Sure, there are plenty of reasons why my marriage to C never was. And, why my marriage to Sparky was finite. But, I doubt very much that it had anything to do with some grand scheme for my life.

I used to wish that I could get an aerial of view of the roadmap of my life so far. Considering that my past is so littered with mistakes, it would be interesting to see where I went wrong and what those choices made impossible. I've come to many a figurative crossroads in my life and at any number of those forks in the road, genius, brainiac that I am, I've chosen my direction poorly. From a purely scientific and intellectual perspective, it would be fascinating to see how I would have done if I'd made better choices.

When I give it thought, I get that many mistakes are kind of self-correcting over time. Or, maybe you can override them. You know how they say everything affects everything else? I'm sure the way that some decisions make some things impossible , those same decisions are the only way other things can be possible. I'm one of those "it depends" people, always considering the contingencies, so this rationale works as a justification for what may be seen as my indecisive nature, I guess. Or, maybe not. Can you believe I haven't decided on that yet?

I haven't thought about my overview theory much since I softened up on myself. I didn't turn out so bad, despite my bad choices. I've had a lot of fun that wouldn't have been possible if not for some of those sketchy decisions. Some of my best adventures stemmed from making questionable choices.

Now, I guess I'm going to have to square my thoughts on karma.

That 70s Show

2006-04-28T11:15:00.000-05:00

I've recently discovered That 70s Show. Yeah, I know, way to be on top of things, Piksea. I think I've seen two episodes of the current season. I've really been watching it in syndication, and loving it. I can't believe I had no interest in this show when it first started. I was such a fool.

Actually, I'm finding myself crushing on the Steven Hyde character. This is a little disturbing on a number of levels, none of which take into consideration that Eric Forman may be the sweetest boy that ever didn't really live. First, Hyde is the paranoid stoner bad boy. Umm, yeah. Been there, done that. I had a boyfriend who kept a milk crate full of cannibus sativo in his bedroom closet. I know. You're thinking I had a boyfriend who was a drug dealer. Wrong! It was all for his personal use. He liked to reach in and grab a big green bud for breakfast. That was his favorite way to start the day. Yick!

Mr. Handsome Honey wouldn't know a bud if he stumbled over one, He is the anti- bad boy. He is good and kind and thoughtful and straight and always has been. Those are just a few of his innumerable wonderful qualities.

The second, and I'm growing to believe, far more important problem is Hyde's future. Not his professional or financial prospects, because who thinks about that in a fictional character? Not I. It's the hairline. I've got a sneaking suspicion that when he hits middle age, he's going to look a little like this.

Sometimes I scare myself.

Chance Encounters

2006-04-28T10:07:00.000-05:00

Warning: I think too much. I tell you that now, so maybe it will help as you read through the meanderings of my twisted little mind. I have an unquenchable need to pore over every possibility and come to terms with the truth, or reality, or the reason behind the nonsense that I encounter. That being said, here is a strange anecdote from the recesses of Piksea's brain.

I'm not the kind of person who runs into people they know. That can probably be partially attributed to the fact that I tend to go about in my own little world. For all I know, there could be people all around that I know but that think I'm a total snoot who's ignoring them. But, I doubt it.

There is one person who I've run into a couple of times and it was weird. I'm going to give you way too much background information, but for some reason it feels necessary to me. We met in elementary school. I got switched to a different school when I started 6th grade. It was something about redistributing kids by neighborhood into the schools since our township had just started a puplation and development explosion. It was the first time I walked to school (I only had to cross one street to get there) and I developed a crush on the crossing guard. I'm guessing it was an authority thing, although I haven't had any attraction to power or authority since. I was 10, going on 11, it was really no big deal.

Just after school started my father had to relocate for his job and we were transferred to Minnesota. We moved at the end of February and I don't think any of us really wanted to go. My great grandparents (I still had a few of those), my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, cousins and every friend I ever had lived in Philadelphia or South Jersey. The idea of moving halfway across the country was awful. There's no way a boy could have compared to all that drama in my young life.

Anyway, we moved to Minnesota, but we moved back to the same town just before I started my junior year of high school. I wound up graduating with people I hadn't seen since grade schhol It was sort of weird. Think about how much people change between the ages of 11 and 16. Now imagine what it would be like if you left everyone you knew when you were 11 and then came back at 16. They've all seen each other every day through growth spurts, puberty, developing more mature personalities and interess, or not, as the case may be. When I got back and was re-meeting my old freinds and classmates, it was strange and kind of interesting.

It turned out that the crossing guard guy was coupled up with a girl who was in my girl scout troop. They were a cute couple. I was happy for them. I got a little chuckle out of the memory of my 10 year old self's silly and very short lived crush. My tastes had changed drastically, and so did he, I think. I couldn't imagine what there might have been about him to interest me way back when, because there was nothing appealing to me anymore. I thought the whole thing was beyond history, but I guess some people must assume that those feelings are permanent.

Years after graduation I was out with a friend at a local club and headed for the ladies' room when I spotted a familiar face. Yup, it was crossing guard boy. I stopped, sort of suprised, because I just don't run into people. I said hello and asked how he was and he snapped at me, "I'm seeing somebody!" It was so bizarre, to receive that reaction when acknowledging someone I knew and hadn't seen in years.

The worst part is that , unless you are a total bitch, there's no response to that. I was stunned! I think I just said something like I was happy for him and went to pee and reapply lip balm as was my original plan. This sort of thing really rankles me. I hadn't given this big bloated drunken version of a guy who held no interest for me since I was a little kid any reason to suspect I had any motive in speaking to him. The only reason I gave all the information about the crush 20 years before is because I can think of no other reason he could even begin to believe that I was throwing myself at him.

Of course, he's the only person I've run into multiple times. A couple of years after that I ran into him at a gallery in Old City on a First Friday. I'm not sure how many people I was with that night, but I remember there being a few of us and I was definitely with Sparky. Considering my status as a non-moron, I did not approach him. In fact, one of us just turned around and we found ourselves face to face in some gallery space on 2nd Street before I even noticed him. Once again he reacted to my presence like I was a lovesick stalker. I was miffed the first time, but that's mostly because I've never been the type to approach anyone. I hadn't intentionally approached him that first time, but I guess I was willing to concede that it may have seemed like I had, if you were totally self-absorbed.

The second run in gave me and Sparky and the gang a good laugh. It was beyond ridiculous that this guy should be reacting this way. There certainly was no cause for him to assume I was following him. Two run ins, separated by years, do not a stalker make. I guess it's a good thing that I don't run into people much.

Thursday Thirteen - Beauty Tips Edition

2006-04-27T09:30:00.000-05:00

Thirteen Things about PIKSEA

Non-comedogenic is crap. If it covers your pores, it can clog them.
Add a little sugar to your facial cleanser when you wash your face. It has the same exfoliating and healing properties as salt, but without the sting.
If you use heated appliances on your hair (blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons, etc) you can keep your hair from getting damaged by working a little olive oil through the ends before shampooing.
Hard Candy's Stain and Shine is great. It's the only lip stain I've found that actually stays on, fading gradually through the day. I love it in Piglet.
The magazines all recommend powder blush over powder foundation, but that doesn't really work. If you use powder foundation, try gel or cream blush instead. Tarte's gel cheek stain is my favorite ( I wear the Blushing Bride)
Clinique makes the best eyeshadows. They also make the only eye pencil that I've ever found that really stays on and doesn't melt or run. It's their Almost Black pencil eyeliner
Murad's Pomegranate Energizing Lip Balm is really nice and thick and moisturizing. It tastes pretty good, too.
There is nothing worse than crappy lip gloss. Clinique's Glosswear and their Color Surge glosses have incredible staying power and keep your lips nice and soft and smooth.
If you use a straight iron, definitely look for one that is a combination curling iron/straight iron. Revlon makes one in ceramic.
If you have fragrance allergies (I do. I'm pretty much allergic to everything that touches my body) but get tired of the fragrance free life, check out Donna Karan's fragrance line. I was told that she has fragrance allergies too and designs fragrances that she can use. I wear her Be Delicious without any problems. I even squirt it into my boring fragrance free conditioner.
Cetaphil makes the best lotions, ever, in the world, especially at their price. Their concentrated fancy hand lotion is great on rough dry feet. Their regular lotion keeps me soft and moisturized all day, with no allergic reactions and no greasiness.
If you find something that you love, stock up on it. Manufacturers discontinue stuff with no regard to how much you love it. : (
Aveeno's skin relief body wash and Bigelow's almond soap are awesome for sensitive skin.

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More Music and Memories

2006-04-26T10:55:00.000-05:00

I've got my iPAQ loaded up with 1 give of songs from my cd collection. As I wander about listening to my music, I find that so many songs coincide with my memories of boys from my past. I'm the memory bank for most of the people in my life and I tend to be fairly nostalgic. Now, I find myself wondering if guys are this way. I'm thinking they're not.

I've been remembering C a lot, which I haven't done in ages. Between all those all cards, letters and mementos in my little treasure chest and the music selections in my pocket pc, he keeps popping back into my consciousness. Mostly, it's the music, I guess. For example, Just Like Heaven by The Cure always makes me think of him. The song opens with the lyrics, "Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick. The one that makes me scream, she said. The one that makes me laugh she said..." When the song came out we both had the same frame of reference for it. He used to make that raspberry noise on my stomach, which I could never do. And, just like when you do it to a baby, I would giggle and wriggle and squeal.

I can not imagine that he would hear that song and have his head fill with cute reveries about an old girlfriend. I certainly wouldn't want to find him and ask. Although, there was this really weird thing that I would be curious about.

We started seeing each other at the beginning of November and everything was fine for a while, but toward the end of the school year some of my friends and sorority sisters started to report having seen him with another girl. That's not the weird part. College guys and guys in general are known to have the ability to be dogs/pigs (pick your unfaithful animal reference and insert here). C was spending time with a girl, that by all reports, looked an awful lot like me. Whoever heard of that?

By the time we left school for summer break he had chosen me (version 1.0) and sent the reproduction packing. Or, so I thought. I wound up being wrong about two parts of that statement.

Actually, she contacted him again and he did see her. He probably would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for my freaky psychic connection to him (I won't get into multiple examples, just suffice it to say that it was crazy). I was minding my own business, two hours south of him at the shore, where I spent my summers living with my grandparents and working, hanging out, when I just knew that he was out with someone else. There was nothing to even put this thought in my head, it just popped up there and I was certain it was right. It nagged at me for a while and then I went to a phone, called him and he confirmed it. I was shocked and freaked out and couldn't deal with an explanation. I just needed to end that conversation, so I did.

A couple of hours later he was at my door with flowers and a bottle of wine. He explained to me that she called him and he agreed to meet her. He also told me that he told her how he felt about me and that he wouldn't see her again. He went because she offered it up as strictly a friendly kind of thing and that was where he left off with her before. I don't think he expected to hear from her and he felt like a creep to blow her off, so he went and made it clear what his feelings were.

So, that's the first way that I was wrong above. Some months later we were looking through a photo album and I saw pictures of the girl who broke his heart and left the shell of a man that I first met. She was the reason he took months to get to the point where he kissed me, because he was so afraid of falling for someone and getting hurt again. The pictures were sort of shocking. She looked just like me. I guess since she came first, I looked like her, but it was obvious that I had much more style. It was kind of strange to discover that, although I considered myself on original, there were multiple other girls who bore a striking resemblance.

I wouldn't be at all interested in finding out what became of him. However, if he wound up marrying some woman who looks like me, I'd be interested in knowing that.

Invictus

2006-04-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

I just read somewhere that April 19 was the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombings. This, of course, reminded me of Timothy McVeigh, which wound up reminding me of the poem he had read by the court officer as his last statement on the morning he was executed. I remember going to work that day and people were talking about it. Someone said something to the effect that they were surprised at how eloquent he was. Apparently, there were people who thought that he wrote the poem. He did not. It's called Invictus and was written by William Ernest Henley in 1875. It's one of those poems that you run across periodically, or at least you run across parts of it periodically.

I memorized this poem in high school for English class. I remember that the kids in the movie version of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, based on Maya Angelou's biography of the same name, recited the poem. The last two lines are also available on this compass rose necklace at uncommon goods. So, as I said, this is not a relatively unknown poem. It's also stayed with me all this time. Here it is in its entirety.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me
black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
under the bludgeonings of chance
my head is bloody but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the horror of the shade
and yet the menace of the years
finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how straight the gait
how charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul

April is National Poetry Month

2006-04-20T09:23:00.000-05:00

I've let most of the National Poetry Month get away from me without a single poetry post. I consider myself someone who doesn't like poetry, but I really do, just not all of it. How much of that adolescent angst poured onto a page in rhyming couplets have you been exposed to, or even written yourself? All that emotional turmoil that must be purged from the teenaged soul, all melodrama, all the time. Every crush is true, passionate, overwhelming love. Every breakup is soul crushing, heart breaking, permanent despondency. How did we get anything done as teenagers? Just the hormonal and emotional crap going on had to be exhausting. Everything is so huge and all consuming in those years.

In going through all of my saved away treasures (using that word very very loosely) I've found much horrible teenaged poetry that I wrote. I'm talking, stuff that I cringe just thinking of. But, in my defense, there is actually some stuff that's not so bad, too. I can't imagine a reason why I would force some poor internet surfer who stumbles in here to be subjected to my poetry, so I won't. I will however, leave you with a poem by the incredible Dorothy Parker that I memorized many years ago and still tickles me whenever I think of it.

Resume

razors pain you

rivers are damp

acid stains you

and drugs cause cramp

guns aren't lawful

nooses give

gas smells awful

you might as well live.

I Knew It!

2006-04-19T14:48:00.001-05:00

I keep telling people that I'm a genius and they just don't seem to believe me. So, I took a quiz to see how much of an idiot I am and it came back "You're a friggin' genius!" Huh. Told ya so.

I am 12% Idiot.

I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.

Take the
Idiot Test
@ FualiDotCom

Thursday Thirteen #2

2006-04-13T12:16:00.000-05:00

Thirteen Things about Piksea (Just some odds and ends)

I am 5'2". My 5'3" mother always said that she married my 6' plus father so she wouldn't have short children. Whoops!
I have blue eyes.
I am left handed.
I read over 110 books last year and my "to be read" pile only got bigger.
I still get together semiannually with my roommates from college. (We still laugh at all the old crazy stories and act like kids when we're together. We still only use our college nicknames with each other.)
I have a 7 year old black cocker spaniel "puppy" named Pickles who is a total mama's boy.
I can't imagine ever living too far from the ocean. (I lived in Minnesota for a few years as a kid and no matter how many lakes and rivers you have nearby, they are no replacement for an ocean)
I am a Scorpio and was born in the year of the snake, so I have the worst sounding zodiac signs. I am through and through a Scorpio and have no problem with that.
I was born on a Saturday and it's really true that "Saturday's child has to work for a living."
I have been engaged twice and married once.
I now live with Mr. Handsome Honey (my brother has asked when I'm going to get my third diamond.
I have one sibling, a brother. He is exactly one year and 19 days younger than I am.
I want to learn to speak a lot of languages, but I really only speak English and a teensy weensy bit of Spanish. I don't think I have much aptitude with languages.

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Checking In

2006-04-11T14:35:00.000-05:00

I can not believe how long it has been since I published a new post here. Over at Fausti's Book Quest I make sure that I get at least two books a week posted, sometimes more and sometimes whatever else catches my fancy. Here it's a little trickier. Sure, I relate the books I read to my life because all my personal crap colors what I read. It's just not the same as the personal feel I wanted to go for here. There is rarely a day that goes by that I don't think of something and then wonder if it is appropriate to discuss here.

I have two very large old hat boxes that are filled with memorabilia. When my mother moved into the new house with my brother and sister-in-law I had to empty my old bedroom and that included the hat boxes. Of course, they had to be replaced because for some reason my mother let my niece and nephew use them as a step stool and they were pretty crushed. I bought two really nice red pleather storage boxes to hold all of those "didn't want to part with them" memories.

Going through those hat boxes was pretty bizarre. I found letters from old boyfriends that are signed: Love, me. I don't know which "me" they are from. It seems awfully self-important to me. Or is it just optimistic? I can only think of two men from my past that could have reasonably expected that they would be the only "me", or at least the last "me" in my life. One I was engaged to and the other I was engaged and married to. They were each the only "me" at their time, but neither was the last "me" in my life. On the other hand, Mr. Handsome Honey actually signed a card to me with his name and his last initial. He did write in parentheses next to it that he couldn't believe he had done it. It was sort of a reflex action from doing it at work. I understood that. He's never signed a card "me."

I decided some time ago to stop throwing away all of the memories of old boyfriends. Sure, they are painful at first, but they are part of my life and I didn't want to just trash so much of my life. So, I started to take all those pictures and cards and letters and little mementos and tuck them away, out of sight in the hat boxes. Going through the stuff now is really weird. I'm reading love letters from boys who seemed to be under the impression that we were very much in love with each other, while I don't recall having been that crazy about them. I also have sweet tokens of love and affection that make some old boyfriends seem much better than history would prove them to be. Like my college boyfriend and first fiance, C. (cue dreamy harp music to signal nostalgic memories)

I met C my sophomore year at college. I was living with 7 of my girlfriends in an off-campus house. C lived next door. I was already friends with two of his roommates and met the third through the two I knew. C wasn't around much in the beginning, in fact, I didn't even know there was a fourth roommate at first. After we were introduced he suddenly started spending a lot more time at home. I didn't really think anything of it. I was sort of seeing, or seemed to be on the verge of seeing a number of boys at the time.

It was strange. I was getting kind of friendly with a really sweet guy on the baseball team, another on the football team, and one who was a wrestler, but I had known and kind of liked him since freshman year when we met while we were both pledging. The wrestler and I found that we were great together as friends, but we did not click as any more than that. There was also a guy from high school who would pop up once a year or so and we would go out, but that was never going to amount to anything, although he was a really nice guy, too. There were other guys who were in the periphery, but I knew there was never going to be anything there. Like one of the baseball guy's teammates. He was following me around like a puppydog. For one thing I wouldn't have had anything to do with him because he had been seeing someone I knew and she still had feelings for him. Secondly, I knew that he was just laying the groundwork. This was a guy who would follow me around and if he wore me down and I started reciprocating, he would be nowhere to be found. I sensed that he was the kind to start telling his friends how he just couldn't shake me, to make himself look like a stud. It wasn't going to happen.

Pretty soon, C started to turn up when I least expected him. I would be at a party at his fraternity house and he would suddenly turn up at my side. We spent a lot of time talking and laughing and I guess I should have been aware of where he was headed, but it took a little while to sink in. I can't really explain why, but whenever I thought of a guy as a friend, it never occurred to me that they considered it a stepping stone to something more. If I was out in the yard playing with my pals, or the neighborhood kids even just coming and going, I would often notice that C would just happen to be heading out somewhere and stop to say hi. Who's to say that wouldn't be random or coincidental? It could be and it would be really self-centered to assume that his comings and goings had anything to do with me. In retrospect, some were coincidental, but more often than not, he was intentionally putting himself into my line of vision.

When I'd be hanging out at his apartment with his roommates and he would come in, I didn't really think about why the other guys would make themselves scarce. They had lives and friends and classes and meetings and girlfriends and all kinds of stuff. It was college, people came and went for any number of reasons all the time. Eventually, it got pretty obvious, but it wasn't like he was making a move or anything. I began sharing the information with my roommates, who probably had gotten wind of it from his roommates as they made themselves scarce well before I caught on. Of course, until you reach a critical stage, there's no telling what's going to happen.

In college, there isn't so much traditional dating as there is in the real world. Any time someone is getting away from campus or doing anything that might be remotely interesting, the escape vehicle is like a clown car in the circus. The shocks are put to the ultimate test and people are on laps and laying across the people on the laps. Hopefully, no one is clinging to the roof or trying to catch a ride in the trunk, but I've seen both attempted. There's no dinner and a movie ~ who's got any money? There's no privacy, because there is always someone around.

We were hanging out pretty regularly. It was nice to not have to run from the baseball practice field to the football practice field just to make my appearances, so I was okay with it. I was active in my sorority and my roommates were always up to some fabulous nonsense or other, so I was fairly busy. I think this went on for over a month, though, so it was a little strange. I think it may have been like a lab experiment for everyone who knew me. We all caught on that this guy liked me and was doing everything he could to be around me and to keep me to himself, but so far, it was completely platonic.

He finally made his move in the beginning of November. I don't know if he knew it was my birthday before I got there, we were just hanging out at his place, probably watching tv and talking as usual. At midnight, there was a whole lot of screaming coming from the second floor windows of my house that faced his second/third floor apartment. He looked at me questioningly as I started to giggle and run over to the window. My roommates were making sure they were the first to wish me a happy 19th birthday. After the noise quieted down a little, we wrapped up and I was headed back next door. He walked me to his door to say goodnight and wish me a happy birthday and that was when he kissed me for the first time. You know how some people claim to see fireworks? My first kiss from C was followed by screaming and applause. All the girls were in my bedroom window watching us and cheering!

I promise to be back soon to regale you with more of my thoughts and stories from my crazy box of memorabilia. I know. I know. The suspense is killing you.

Musical Meme

2006-03-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

I got this meme from Adrienne at Bookmark my Heart, who is also my separated by birth (and a few years) twin. Since I have been using my iPAQ as an iPod this week, it seemed like I was destined to find something like this.

Instructions: Go to the music player of your choice and put it on shuffle/random. Say the following questions out loud and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. No Cheating.

How does the world see you? Waiting in Vain (Annie Lennox) ~ I'm not sure what this means, but I don't think I like it.
Will I have a happy life? Have it All (Foo Fighters) ~ This doesn't sound too bad, does it?
What do my friends really think of me? I Will Remember You (Sarah McLachlan) ~ Not bad
What do people secretly think of me? So I need you (3 Doors Down) ~ Huh?
How can I be happy? Hourglass (Squeeze) ~ ditto
What should I do with my life? Black Girls (Violent Femmes) ~ This doesn't really apply, does it?
What is some good advice for me? Let's Go to bed (The Cure) ~ This is the most on target. It's about my bed time as I type this.
How will I be remembered? New Way Home (Foo Fighters) ~ Can't figure this one out, either.
What is my signature dancing song? Photograph (Weezer) ~ Nope, not even close
What do I think my current theme song is? Drive (Incubus) ~ Not currently, but this was my theme song when it was first getting airplay. I was just picking myself up, mid-divorce and I loved this song.
What song will play at my funeral? Sleep to dream (Fiona Apple) ~ the title applies better than the song does for this question
What type of men do I like? Jumping Someone Else's Train (The Cure) ~ Not true!
What is my day going to be like? It's all been done (Barenaked Ladies) ~ That's seems like many of my work days. If only it worked that way on the weekends. I would love to find that the house work had all been done and I could just spend the day out playing.

It's like musical tarot cards, isn't it?

The Story of Adam and Eve

2006-03-28T10:10:00.000-05:00

I was visiting my niece and nephew on Sunday afternoon. I went to bring them presents I bought for them when I played hooky and went to the Adventure Aquarium on Friday. My niece, the natural performer/nut case that she is decided that she was going to have church and that my nephew and I were to be her parishioners.

She set up a tv tray with her supplies and set up her little pulpit as my 6 year old nephew did everything in his power to disrupt the proceedings and Rocco Giuseppe (everyone gets a middle name in my family, pets included), their 2 year old Jack Russell Terrier kept bringing me toys that he wanted me to fight over with him.

Then, she explained that she was going to tell us the story of Adam and Eve. This is how it went:
It all started in Tennessee. God made Adam and then when Adam told God that he was bored and wanted company, God made Eve. Then, God took away their clothes and made them naked. He gave them all kinds of fruits and vegetables and good food to eat and told them that they could have anything they wanted as long as they didn't eat from the tree of knowledge. But, Adam and Eve decided that they could really go for an apple. God got really mad at them and told them they weren't allowed to be naked anymore and they had to find a way to cover themselves up. They used fruit to cover their bodies and they looked just like banana splits.

So, if anyone was curious about the first biblical couple, now you have the story.

Thursday Thirteen #1

2006-03-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

Thirteen Things about PikseaHere are 13 Movies that I love

The Princess Bride
Sense and Sensibility
Beauty and the Beast (it was just so beautiful on the big screen)
E.T.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ( I must watch this whenever I see it on)
Clerks (this should probably be much higher on the list. I own this on vhs and I have the original and the 10th anniversary editions on dvd, as well as the animated series)
Dogma
Bridget Jones' Diary (I *heart* Colin Firth)
Indiana Jones/ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (although I love the "No time for love, Dr. Jones" line from number 2, but mostly because Randall says it in Clerks.
The entire Bill Murray oeuvre (Caddyshack, Stripes, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation, Rushmore, The Aquatic Adventures of Steve Zissou ~ I just love me some Bill Murray)
Animal House
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Clueless

Okay, that's not in any kind of order at all, just some faves off the top of my head.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

There's music in my head!

2006-03-10T09:54:00.000-05:00

For weeks now, every morning I wake up to some strange song in my head. I can't imagine what made the DJ in my subconscious choose them, but there they are. The alarm goes off (not radio, but that horrible 'beep beep beep') and as soon as I hit the button (either snooze or the alarm off) I become aware of today's song. This morning it was "Beth" by KISS. Don't ask. I haven't got a clue where it came from. Sure, when I was a kid, I did like the song in its day, but I can't honestly say that I've given it a thought in an age.

Yesterday, it was really an oldie, "Mr. Sandman." I told Handsome Honey about it and he started doing that little bom bom sound from between the lines. Before we went to bed Wednesday night he managed to put "The Mayor of Simpleton" in my head and I was really hoping I would wake to some XTC in the morning, but no. I even went to sleep singing 'Simpleton' in my head. What do I wake up to? 'Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream...'

I don't have the song in my head all day, by the time I am applying my face it's dissipated. Often, since a lot of songs trigger memories for me, the song morphs into another one. In the last couple of weeks, I've woken up with that dorky song from Dirty Dancing, 'I've had the time of my life...' One morning it was that old Sheena Easton song, "My Baby Takes the Morning Train," but by the time I got into the shower, it had morphed into "You Could have Been with Me."

There are the songs that really triggered memories, too. I woke up to "Walk Like an Egyptian" an it automatically turned into my pal Zoid's version, "Walk Like a Beautician" Where she walked around moving her hands like her fingers were scissors. Enter memory/reverie:

I see Zoid, Freshman year of college, somehow convincing people that she can cut hair. Why? She's Zoid, we learned never to ask questions like that about Zoid. She wound up giving a frightening amount of people the same haircut. They were all happy. In retrospect, it was not flattering on anyone. I have friends who occasionally look back and shake their heads in wonder that they could have let Zoid have scissors near their heads, could have let her actually use them to cut their hair and most of all, that they thought they looked good with those horrible haircuts. Zoid, just sits back with one of those enigmatic Mona Lisa kind of smiles. She's the only one who could ever know her motivation for such things. It's probably better that she doesn't share.

One morning I woke to either "There's a Meeting in the Ladies Room," or "The Men All Pause," I don't remember which, because one quickly morphed into the other. Into my head pops my beautiful friend, Chauncey (the most beautiful woman in the world). I'm remembering/seeing her playing pool in the Stud(ent) Center game room, dancing her best Solid Gold dancers dance and singing into the pool cue. Chauncey had some of the best performances. Mostly they were Pat Benatar songs. I remember her lip synching to Pat into her hairbrush in the dorm room. And, of course, there were the unforgettable chin man performances.

Yesterday, Adrienne from Bookmark my Heart sent me an e-mail that tells you the song that was number one on any given day. The e-mail has you using it to determine the song that was number one on the day you were born. Here's the link. I already knew my song and the songs for the majority of my family members on their birthdates, because Mr. Handsome Honey is a musical genius and he knows every song that was ever a hit, many of them right off the top of his head. I passed the email around to some friends and relatives and Chauncey, who's song was "Help me, Rhonda" was wishing that it was Funkytown. I realized my problem with the system. The song that was number one when I was born I'm more likely to identify with my parents. The better songs to know are the ones that were the hit when the music mattered and big things were happening in our lives. What was the hit song when I lost my virginity? Or when I first started dating some boy or other? When I started high school, or graduated? I want to know what was number one on my 21st birthday, or my 18th, or some other occasion when the music would have been the music I was listening to.

Go check out some of the important dates in your life. I would love to hear what songs the list associates with the big moments in your life.

Another Sparky Tale

2006-03-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

When Sparky and I first settled into our relationship things had a tendency to be very interesting. It was the mid 90s and I was a huge fan of the floral dresses with the keds. I've always had nice legs (short, but then I'm only 5'2", but shapely) and I was young, so I wore them a little short, with the safety shorts underneath usually. One gust of wind and the hem of your dress could be swirling up around your head, so they seemed sort of necessary.

Sparky worked for a bank and they sponsored local events. There were Phillies games and nights at the circus that were sponsored by his employer and we would get tickets and go. He learned quickly that you do not want to invite me to the circus. I am really very anti-circus. They treat the animals horribly and keep them in those little cages as they travel non-stop around the country. They have no respect for women, which is critical. Also, what kind of life is that for children? I went once to placate him, but my attitude was pretty bad and he learned a valuable lesson.

We did go to a couple of Phillies' games. At the first one, it was just show off the new girl night. I had on my 90s girl little floral dress and white sneakers. One of the more colorful banking characters pulled Sparky aside after being introduced to me and told him, "She's just tits in sneakers." Lovely.

There were plenty of Sparky's friends who were very enjoyable company, though. I could always expect lots of fun and laughs when we hung out with Lady Di, her brother "R" and Sparky's bestest female friend from work, "D."

One night we met at Chickie and Pete's in Northeast Philly for an unforgettable evening. There was way too much alcohol consumed, particularly by Sparky and Lady Di. It was a Friday night and the place was packed. At one point, Lady Di is headed down the spiral staircase and yells to us at the bar, "Look, Swan Lake!" and proceeds to practically topple down the staircase.

Sparky and Lady Di continued to pound shots of Goldschlager and beers, growing increasingly more raucous. There is a porthole looking toward the entrance and Sparky decided he had to pee and preferred to do it al fresco. He goes out only to be followed by Lady Di, who doesn't actually know what he's planning, but doesn't want to miss out on any of the action. They come back in laughing and start to dance. We hear Sparky say that he is going to dip her. D and R grab my shoulders and spin me around so that the three of us are facing the bar. Someone says, "you really don't want to see this." Then... we hear the thud. We turn around, half gasping half laughing hysterically as the completely inebriated Sparky is trying to haul up the equally smashed Lady Di up from the floor.

Finally, it's last call and we head for the door. You would think that all of the fun would be over, but for me, it was just beginning. I get him out to the car and stuff him in for the drive back to his place. We drive home with him being a little overly affectionate for a 2:30 am drive. I park on his street and we get out of the car. His house is a little trinity in a courtyard. To get to his front door, you have to get through a locked wrought iron gate. I walk to the gate and wait for him to come with his keys, but he's not coming. I turn to find him peeing all over the street. Finally, he comes with his keys, stabbing pathetically for the lock, which is tricky to work even when you're completely sober. I take his keys and open the gate for us, leaving him to come in and lock the gate behind him. At his front door, I turn and look to see if he's coming and he's put himself in the corner like Dennis the Menace with his head down. I go and lead him to the house.

I'm really hoping that he will go quietly to bed and pass out now, but I've never been that lucky. As we get into the house he starts to take off his denim jacket, and he's got his arms trussed up over his head as he tries to wriggle out of it. Finally, after a great struggle he manages to get himself free of the jacket which is now inside out and strewn across the room. We head up the stairs and get in bed.

He tells me that he loves me. I know that you can't have a discussion with someone this drunk and it's not worth it to share any feelings with him when he's like this, so I just say "mmm hmm". This is not the answer he's looking for.

"I love you so much that I am going to punch holes in all the walls."

"You really don't have to do that for me, but thanks for the sentiment, Spark."

"You don't love me. I will. I will punch holes in all the walls just to show you how much I love you."

"You're trashed. Lay down and go to sleep."

"You don't love me." He storms off to the bathroom and it sounds like he went just in time. I am not going to be the one who has to scrub all the little gold flakes off of the toilet bowl in the morning.

He comes back into the bedroom, pretty much empty and with his teeth brushed. Actually, he crawls back into the room and climbs in bed. He smells like mint and cinnamon and he's just a mess.

"You don't love me. I'm just a drunk."

"Just go to sleep. You can worry about being a drunk in the morning."

"You know the difference between an alcoholic and a drunk? Alcoholics go to meetings. I'm a drunk."

"You must be so proud. Just go to sleep."

"I think I'm dying."

"You're not dying, you're just drunk."

" You should know my doctor's name is De..... De.... De Medici, or De something. He's at Jefferson. I only want to go to Jeff."

"I promise I will only take you to Jeff."

"I'm dying and you don't care." (As I share more with you about Sparky, you'll get to realize that he is a total hypochondriac.)

Then, he grabs the phone and picks up the receiver. I jump across the bed and push my finger down on the plunger so he can't drunk dial. He starts pressing the buttons.

" 9.....1.....1..... Help me! Help me! My call won't go through!"

In the morning, I was exhausted, but Sparky was out of bed before 8:00 and headed off to play tennis with a friend.

(Wondering about the Pop Up Pirate pic? Well, the pirate in that game looks just like the little cartoon character that I drew of Sparky as a pirate. Actually, I even carved my "pirate Sparky" into a pumpkin for him one year)

Perverse

2006-02-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

Where the Handsome Honey and I Have a Serious Dialogue About an Animated Children's Movie

As you must be aware from the millions of dollars the fine people over at Disney have spent to make sure that no matter when you watch television, or what channels you watch, you know that Lady and the Tramp is being re-released on Disney DVD. I have a little sculpture (I'm being very generous with the word sculpture here) of the spaghetti scene, which we all know is a classic. My aunt bought it for me when I was first seeing Sparky because although he was always talking about how much he loved to cook and all the things he could make, he usually fed me spaghetti. (Everyone's realization of this had Sparky get creative in the kitchen for me to prove them all wrong, but that was a disaster. I'll have to make that another post.) I love that little "sculpture."

My mother is incredibly fond of the movie, not only because it's so cute, but because she swears that Tramp looks just like the Miniature Schnauzer we had growing up, Schnapps. Yeah, I can see that. We consider Schnapps to have been the best dog ever, but apparently, no one else remembers him that way. It could have something to do with the fact that he only liked us and small children.

Anyway, the Handsome Honey and I were watching tv the other night when the commercial came on for the rerelease of Lady and the Tramp . I was just thinking to myself how sweet it was and they were showing the spaghetti scene, you know this one when we wound up having a kind of strange exchange. It went sort of like this:

HH: What is that? How can they make a movie with that stuff in it?

Me: It's anthropomorphism.

HH: No, every cartoon with animals is anthropomorphic, this is perverse.

Me: How is it perverse? It's so sweet. They are on their first date and there's the plate of spaghetti that's really just one enormous noodle and then they accidentally kiss. Look, he pushes the last meatball over to her with his nose. That's adorable!

HH: They're making out! Animals don't make out in movies. Animals don't make out at all. Have you ever seen dogs making out?

Me: No, but I think they get married and we know they have a litter of babies that look either just like little Tramps, or just like little Ladies, so this is all part of the courting process. Don't you remember 101 Dalmatians? How do you think they got all those puppies?

HH: But did they show you the dalmatians making out? I don't think they did.

Me: I don't know Honey. I have less of a problem with that sweet accidental kiss than I do with the one noodle concept. Who ever heard of a huge mountain of spaghetti that wound up being just one noodle? How do they get that thing in the pot?

Luckily, the commercial is only 30 seconds long and the moment passed, leaving the conversation to just peter out. We tend to notice and feel the need to converse on the strangest of little things while watching television.

Body Worlds

2006-02-24T15:49:00.000-05:00

As part of a seemingly endless birthday celebration, the Handsome Honey took me to Body Worlds at the Franklin Institute. It was amazing! And, it was sad, too. All those people who lost their lives to make it possible. It was a lot of death to be surrounded by. (Oh, I took this photo of the stairs leading up to the entrance of the Franklin Institute. )

Now, I am officially a biology major, but I think I'm actually pursuing an English Lit degree at this point. There was a whole plan to take a few courses and then transfer into a program at Penn to get a Masters degree in physical therapy. Then, Sparky lost his mind and instead of working part time and going to school full time, I was one person who had a car and house to pay for on her own and no extra money to even go to school part time. Well, not if I didn't want them to turn of the electricity. I was doing okay, but I was cutting it pretty close for a little while there. There was no way I'd be able to afford to do any of the original plan. So, for the seven millionth time (that is only a slight exaggeration), I had to rethink my life plan.

Anyway, I'm really good at the life sciences and I find them fascinating. I'd like to get over to BodyWorlds before it's gone. I think it's only in Philly until April, but there is a Body Worlds 2 that's starting to make the rounds, and I'll definitely want to catch that one.

Although I found it to be an amazing view of the human body and how it works. It's a view which I believe is probably not possible any other way. This Gunther von Hagens is a genius, but he's more than a little creepy too. If he did this as a way to really help people understand the mysteries of the human body, so we can really see it, then that's amazing. But, there's also the possibility that this is just a big circus and he's the guy with the hat in the center ring, raking in the bucks while people ooh and ah at the freaks. That, I have a real problem with.

In my first semester of Anatomy and Physiology, the professor told us that with the rampant overpopulation in India, it was difficult to dispose of the dead. There wasn't much space and people were too poor to afford proper burials. So, what they would do was they would sell the bodies and they would be, oh, I don't really want to think about the process. Let's just say they would wind up skeletons that would be used in schools, hospitals, etc. around the world. Often they would have a sticker or sign indicating that the skeleton had been "Made in India."

At Body Worlds the exhibits were all real people, who through a process called plastination were preserved. The bodies are posed so that you can see the workings of muscle groups or the positioning of body parts. There is a basketball player balanced on the ball of one foot, with the rest of him stretched out, almost in flight. The Handsome Honey was amazed that this exhibit was balanced and not falling over. Looking down at the base, I noticed a tag, like you'd see on the base of a sculpture that this piece was made by Gunther von Hagen. Ewww. That was kind of creepy.

von Hagen adequately showed that the people who were used in the exhibit were fully aware of what they were getting themselves into. There were blown up reproductions of the release forms to be examined. I had the audio tour as well and at a couple of points in the tour the narrator explains how important it was to the Body Worlds people to be respectful of the people and to preserve their dignity. I agree and if that was what they really had in mind, then it was important to make sure everyone understood that. However, if that was just a CYA tactic to mislead people, then it was doubly wrong. See, I'd like to say that I loved this and that it was amazing and fascinating and provided me with information that I can't imagine I'd get anywhere else, but I'm still so unsure of the motive. I don't want to line this man's pockets if he's just making a spectacle of these people.

The absolute saddest part of the whole exhibit is by far the baby room. In the back of the room is woman who died when she was eight months pregnant. She and her baby (still in utero) are preserved . I guess they must have known this one would be controversial, because it is explained in detail. The woman knew she was dying and hoped to live long enough for her child to be born. At eight months, had she died in a hospital, the baby would have been saved, but she apparently didn't die in the hospital and so the baby died with her.

From what I've read in the papers about people's reactions to the exhibit, it looks like it had an impact on many of the people who've gone. A lot of people are signing releases to donate their bodies. There were lots of destroyed livers and blackened lungs in the exhibit and I've read that some people left with an idea to change their ways. Of course, it also sparked religious debates about God and life and evolution and abortion, with people still taking what they saw and adding it to their arsenal of beliefs.

The exhibit is due to leave Philly toward the end of April, then it opens up in Minnesota in the beginning of May. After Body Worlds leaves, then I just have to wait very patiently until King Tut gets here next February.

Home Invasion

2006-02-17T11:31:00.000-05:00

There were these terrible noises in my house. I was living alone and couldn't imagine where they were coming from. I wasn't using that much of my house. The master bedroom is on the first floor and on the second floor I have two bedrooms a full bath and my "study," a loft room with a really pretty window and my books and computer, etc.

One day I walked into the front bedroom and noticed that there was a lot of plastery stuff all over the bed. It looked like something was trying to claw its way into the room. I had no idea what, but it was wrecking my house and it wasn't invited so I called the guy who lives across the street from my brother (he's an exterminator) to come and see what my problem was. I found out that there was a little entrance, of sorts, to my attic from the outside of the house. It's a strange little opening where wood had been pushed aside and squirrels were getting in. Unfortunately there was no way into the attic from inside my house.

According to the exterminator guy and his colleague, they would rid my home of the little pests and they had a variety of ways to go about it. Now, let me preface this part of the tale to say that I was a little uneasy about calling this guy to begin with. I'd never actually seen Exterminator guy sober. I had seen him drunk and with a 12 pack in hand, pounding on my brother's back door and yelling to my then teenaged cousin, who was babysitting my niece and nephew, to let him in before his wife saw him. Now, poor Little Squirt had no idea who this guy was and wasn't really of a mind to throw open the door and let this lunatic in the house and his demeanor wasn't setting her at ease. I saw him with hidden bottles of cheap wine at the community pool, where booze was not allowed, tossing out everything in MY cooler for said booze, at my nephew's 4th birthday party. But, I was told he was good at his job and I thought maybe he'd stop by during a sober hour or two to look into my varmint situation.

Exterminator Guy sent his underling to come by and check out what was going on. Within 15 minutes of him being at my house I knew all about why he had been forced to move back home with his mother. He decided to put traps around my property to catch the squirrels. He told me that he would come and check the traps every couple of days and if he caught any squirrels, they would have to be taken so many miles away and over water, otherwise they would just come back. He planned on taking them out of state to his mother's house to release them. I nodded and smiled, just like they say you should when in the presence of crazy people. I started to imagine the suburban squirrels being released in the city and how they'd have to learn to adapt to the faster urban pace. The traps caught one squirrel and considering all the trees in my yard and neighborhood, he wasn't necessarily a squirrel that was exercising his squatter's rights in my attic.

Exterminator guy and his underling called and/or stopped by my house regularly over the course of the next week. By the end of the week, they were frustrated with their lack of results. They decided to take more drastic action. They come into my house armed with poisonous bait. They tell me that it would be really bad if squirrels were to die in my attic since there was no access to it to clean out their little trespassing corpses, so they were putting in little bags of bait. They cut a hole in the ceiling of the front bedroom and tossed up bags of, I imagined, nutty smelling goodness to attract the little buggers, sealed up the hole with lots of shiny silver duct tape and left. The squirrels were supposed to eat the bait, get really thirsty and run off to find a charming little trickling stream nearby (and I actually have a few of those in the neighborhood, so ... Score!) where they would sate their thirst. Then, the bait would swell up, or something like that and, as I thought it would happen, they would stagger around dramatically with their backs of their little paws slung over their eyes and heads as they coughed, sputtered and died. I wasn't really looking to kill squirrels. I just didn't want them to live in my house. They were not contributing members of the household and I already had Pickles loafing around, like the little doggy deadbeat that he is.

A few days later I came home from work as usual. I pull up in my driveway, let myself in the house and then I let Pickles out with his tennis ball to take care of his business and stretch his legs before I give him his dinner. Or, as I usually refer to it, I empty the dog and then I fill him back up. I made the mistake of shutting the back sliding glass door behind me and forgetting that the lock was broken and locked myself out. While living alone, I got used to locking the door behind me when I came into the house. So, my keys are in the house and I am outside. I have to climb over my fence (no gate) in my work clothes, leaving Pickles to howl at my leaving him and walk over to my parents house, hoping someone would be home to give me my spare key. As I walked around to the front of my house, I looked up and was shocked by the scene. Looking out of my house at me, from the little opening, was a squirrel! Here I was locked out of my house and the squirrel, the squirrel, was inside warm and cozy and he was mocking me. I was incensed. I was a raving lunatic. I certainly hope that no one saw what I did in response to this sight. I was jumping up and down and gesticulating wildly while yelling at this squirrel. "You get out of my house right this minute!" "You get down here right now! I mean it!" He looked down at me, turned and popped back into the hole. I always wanted to be The Road Runner, but instead they were making me the Wile E. Coyote.

Once I got back into my house, I immediately left the most ridiculous message on Exterminator Guy's answering machine. Something to the effect that I would not be mocked by those trespassing little rodents. That they had the nerve to stare right out of my house at me. That they had to go. I was just a smidge beside myself. A little later he called me back and while trying to stifle his laughter from my message, agrees to end the madness.

An hour or so later, there is a knock at my door. I open it and watch as a troop of dirty exterminating personal all troop through my house, up my stairs and into my spare bedroom. They are hauling ladders and boxes and standing on the bed, while they unleash all of their terrible comedic, squirrel killing arsenal. They run back and forth, up and down, in and out of my house. They are tripping over each other and shouting. They make a bigger hole in the ceiling and set off some kind of smoke bomb to drive the squirrels out. Then they seal up the hole with more duct tape, close the bedroom door and all run back outside to count the asphyxiating squirrels. Of course, I am picturing them stumbling out of the hole, coughing pitifully while holding their furry little tales over their mouths and noses. I didn't see what it actually looked like. There was enough confusion with Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum and the Three Stooges doing their silent film Keystone Kop comedy act as they tumbled and tripped over each other in the big squirrel raid of 2001. When they were satisfied that they had rid my house of the squirrel menace, they blocked off the hole with lots of mesh and fresh wood to keep any new intruder-wanna bes out.

I think that exterminator underling guy was kind of sweet on me. He would find reasons to stop by and make sure I wasn't having any squirrel problems. Luckily, Mr. Handsome Honey came into my life and his ever more present presence kind of clued the underling in to the situation.

My house has been squirrel free for a few years now, but I am still pretty sure that they view me with contempt when we see each other in the neighborhood. I see them giving me dirty looks. I'm the one who had their little friends and relatives deported. I'm sure they've got cousins getting warmed by the steam from subway grates, instead of all the heat rising into my attic. I don't mind the squirrels. I think they are cute. They are welcome to all of the 8 gazillion acorns that fall into my yard from my enormous trees every year. They are just not allowed to bury them in my ceilings and I don't want them in the house. I don't think that makes me such a bad person. You just know there is a picture of me hanging up in little squirrel post offices.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2006-02-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is that lovely/depressing holiday once again. Depending upon your romantic state you really dread this date, or it can be so filled with promise and expectation. Or, I guess, any of the myriad of emotions that falls between those two. I haven't had that many V Days without a "somebody" in the picture. The ones where there was no one seemed sort of strange to me.

Last year Mr. Handsome Honey sent me flowers for VDay and had them delivered to the office. It was the first time he sent me flowers and they were lovely.

Yesterday morning I got into the office and saw the florist box on my desk and was surprised again by a dozen lovely red roses. The card read, "Just being with you makes me a better man." Umm, all together now, "Awwwwwwww." How sweet is that? The man is amazing. I can only imagine that I've made him a more patient man, because I can be a real pain in the ass. I'm convinced that, although he is the most even tempered man ever to walk the face of the earth, he must want to wring my neck on occasion. Yet, he stands by what he wrote. I am so keeping him!

Yesterday, I was over at Moo Cow's catching up and read his lovely repeat post of a VDay in the past where he must have made a lonely girl's day (it's just below the Peep Olympics post, which killed me) . From the Norton Anthology the girl was reading he assumed she was a sophomore. This reminded me of my sophomore year Valentine's Day.

It was the first VDay with the man who would one day be my first fiance. (Of course, he was found out to be a total jerk before he would have become my first husband. ) I was sort of surprised as the day went on that I didn't get any kind of acknowledgment of the holiday. The college campus is such a small world and things like Valentine's Day are huge events, along with Greek Week and Spring Break and Homecoming and anything else that can be thought up for the students to fixate upon. He did buy me flowers and they had been delivered to the house, but I didn't see them. Why you may ask? Well, that would be the doing of Zoid.

Zoid was the self-proclaimed president of Eben Street. For whatever reason, Madam Zoid didn't like the roses that had been delivered for me. They reminded her of an old boyfriend and so she removed them from her view. She threw them out the back door of the house. Later she told me what she did and I retreived my couple of crumpled roses. I would have never found them otherwise since, no one went out the back door of the Eben Street house.

This was a rundown college rental. When you stepped into the kitchen the refrigerator door opened. Someone flushed the upstairs toilet, even though we had "out of order" signs (with lots of caps and exclamation points and such) on the bathroom door and a vacuum cleaner on top of the toilet seat to indicate that it should not be used. This caused a waterfall on the first floor. I think it was when I retrieved my flowers that I finally saw what had become of the vacuum cleaner. Whoever flooded the house didn't like our warning devices and had thrown it out the second story bathroom window, which led to the five feet of what was technically the "back yard" before the next door neighbor's fence and driveway.

The gas oven had a pilot that took a while to catch. Not that we cooked much, but we quickly learned to not stand directly in front of the oven door when you first opened it. Often, the gas would escape before the pilot lit, at which point, all the gas would ignite. If you were standing in front of the oven when you first opened the door, you were bound to have your eyebrows and lashes singed as the flame followed the escaped gas across the kitchen. The oven was not generally a problem for Zoid. On any given day you would find her coming in, putting a pot of water to boil on the stovetop and then heading off to drop off her books or do whatever she did until the boiling began. Once when asked what she was making, she replied, "I don't know, but it all starts like this." She was also fond of eating whatever she found in the fridge, but she wasn't alone in this. To this day if we get together at someone's shore house, you will find a container of some snack food (now, usually Chauncey's famous Betty salad) with a fork or forks in it to facilitate ease of eating directly from the fridge. I remember a roast ( someone's leftovers from home) on a plate in the fridge with a fork stuck into it. And bite marks from someone picking it up with the fork and just taking a chomp out of it.

Yikes! My college days are sometimes to silly and/or frightening to recall. I miss my pal Zoid, who may very well be the most complex person I have ever met. I wonder if she would even recognize the girl she was so many years ago. I do not, however, miss that terrible boy who sent me the flowers.

I'll try to post again soon. Maybe it'll be something contemporary, maybe another of my strange brain farts, or one of my "theories." Maybe I'll tell you more about the sad and melodramatic tale of Mr. Sparky.

Mostly Harmless

2006-01-31T10:30:00.000-05:00

I have one of those minds without an off switch. It just goes on and on and on. I think of my subconscious as a room with a locked door in my brain, but in my case, the lock is broken. Periodically stuff that should be safely locked away there just comes shooting right out into the open thought areas. Sometimes they are just a flash, so maybe there is a guard in the locked down subconscious ward, but he nods off now and then and something slips out. Maybe he catches it and drags it back in, but maybe sometimes he's dreaming away and the thoughts slip out and he's never the wiser. You know, at least until shift change when the sneaky little bugger is discovered to be missing, is hunted down and locked up in solitary for it's transgression. See, I told you my mind just keeps going.

Oh, did I have a point? Or was I just feeling the need to convince the blog reading public that I may be completely bonkers. Or, maybe, mad as pants. I love that expression, not really in a way that I would like for it to be applied to me, but I really do like it a lot. Actually, I did have a point. I don't know why things pop into my head, but they do and I have to give them some thought. I was thinking again, I don't know why, about my single days and how I was perceived as such a threat by people. For one thing, I've never wanted someone else's man. I just automatically note that they are off limits and then don't even consider them as a possibility. They are just so and so's boyfriend/husband/date to me. That makes me a little easier with them, which I guess could seem like flirting, although it is absolutely not. It's just me being more comfortable. It's probably very similar to flirting with the exception of the intention. So, for people who don't know me, I'd be able to understand that. They are really the only ones that it would apply to, so it shouldn't be an issue at all, but has been too many times in the past.

See, here's where the mostly harmless comes from, at least partially. I am no threat to anybody's relationship. When I get to feeling that weird vibe from people, or see them yank men out of my vicinity like I'm some kind of home wrecker/maneater, it just strikes me as being so crazy.

That isn't all of it, though. I also had the plotting of Sparky's death popping into my mind. To give you an idea of how harmless I really am, let me explain to you my death fantasies for my ex. I would imagine him walking down the street (in the city, it would have to be in the city) and as he walked along the sidewalk an anvil would drop from the sky, or the top of a very tall building and land right on his head. He would, undoubtedly, be smooshed into an accordion shape. I would then walk past and say, "meep, meep." Yes, this was the way I imagined Sparky meeting his maker. Now note that, although, I did include myself in the fantasy, I had nothing to do with the anvil. I didn't set it up, or make it fall. How dangerous can you be when you are only capable of fantasizing cartoon violence. I assume that an anvil dropped from a very high height would certainly cause death. Sheesh, they say a penny dropped from high enough will kill you, what with all the 9.82 m/s^2 and all. The "meep, meep" implies, I believe, that I am saying this to someone who can actually hear and recognize it. So, he'd be very dusty (or is that only when they fall into those Grand Canyony crevasses and make the poof of dust?) and very flattened (possibly accordioned, possibly with shoes intact and head sort of flattened on top of very condensed torso and appendages), but not dead.

Harmless? Certainly, well at least mostly. Crazy? That seems pretty debatable at the moment. Hopefully, Piksea will ponder something far more rational soon!

Grey's Anatomy is Mean

2006-01-30T11:09:00.000-05:00

I really have grown to like this show. In the beginning I just couldn't grasp how it could be that everyone could be so in love with Meredith. She wasn't very nice or that incredibly gorgeous and yet every doctor, intern and patient that came in contact with her was instantly madly in love with her. I just didn't see it. She's become more human and they've toned down the hero worship and adoration of Meredith Grey.

I loved that they were concentrating on the characters, more so than the medicine. I had to give up on ER. Has there ever been a more depressing show on television? Not only does no one leave that emergency room alive (doctors or patients), but the doctors' lives are all total train wrecks. Mostly, I had to give it up because of the machines.

I've diagnosed myself with PTSD. I know this is traditionally thought of as a soldier's problem. But, I think any really traumatic situation can cause it. We see a lot of people who get diagnosed with it when they have car accidents. I just don't like the machines. It's those hospital machines. Every week on ER they show those machines that the patients are attached to and the numbers all go down to zero and the lines stop being wavy and go all straight and that buzzer/ alarm sounds. I hate those machines. Almost two years ago I spent a week staring at those machines, reading my father's blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, trying to find some hopeful sign in the numbers and colors on the screen. I sat terrified, watching all the colors turn red and the numbers all drop down to zero, hearing that alarm watching medical personal fight a losing battle. I just can't watch that happen every week on television. It's too hard to see that.

Last night on Grey's Anatomy they had what most people probably consider to be a very rare problem. Christina and Alex examine a young woman with a rash on her leg. I saw it coming, but didn't want to believe it was possible. When they said the magic words, I lost it. The magic words were necrotizing fasciitis. When I first heard about it, it seemed totally unreal to me. It was the kind of thing you see on the cover of tabloids, not the kind of thing that happens to real people. Then it hit way too close to home. April 6 will be the two year anniversary of my father's death, from necrotizing fasciitis, flesh-eating strep bacteria, that the doctors couldn't be sure how it got into his body, but once it did, it was merciless and efficient, attacking every organ and his legs.

The only positive thing was that the Grey's Anatomy people actually gave a far better prognosis than what I've found to be the norm. The National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation has a place for people to document the stories of their loved ones, in memorials or in survivor's tales. Although the memorials are so terribly sad, it seems that the people who survive are so compromised that they have little quality of life. Sure, my father was a 61 year old diabetic and the girl on the show was a young healthy newlywed, but there are plenty of young healthy people who are cut down by this bacteria. I originally wrote a memorial about my dad and posted it on the NNFF website, but it was written by a shell-shocked daughter who just lost her father to an unbelievable and bizarre infection. I've been promising myself that I will devote the time and attention necessary to tell my father's story in a way that he deserves it to be told, but it's hard to intentionally make yourself relive it all. I'll post the memorial here as well when I get it written.

Piksea's Cute Meet

2006-01-27T15:33:00.000-05:00

Yes, Piksea is no stranger to heartbreak. No, I am not currently broken hearted. Mr. Handsome Honey and I have been together for 4 years and I wouldn't consider trading him for any other man in the world. It's just that I posted yesterday about Pickles and Sparky and the Sparky tale is quite the soap opera melodrama. I thought that maybe I would share it with you. If you are faint of heart, you may want to go instead to my book blog and read my commentary on the new Sue Grafton book, S is for Silence here. Otherwise, carry on.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Piksea and she and her ex-friend, now known as The Psycho Crack Whore (this is an accurate title, really quite literal, I'm not just being mean) decided to camp out for concert tickets. Why? Because Piksea had never done this before. Okay, not a good reason, but hindsight is 20/20. Now when I want to go to a concert, I just log into Ticketmaster.com and in a click or two I've got tix. However, then PCW and I made plans to go straight from work to the arena to get in line for tickets. PCW showed up at my house the morning of the camp out with no chair, no change of clothes, no cooler with drinks or snacks, nothing. I ran around and gathered up some stuff for her, packed my gear into my trunk and we were off. Instead of going directly to get in line, PCW wanted to stop off at a bar, making us hours later than we intended.

We finally make it to our destination and find the parking lot is filling up rapidly. PCW runs ahead to get in the line. I, of course, gather up the gear and follow behind. It takes me a few minutes, but not that long and when I get there, although I can not see the front of the line, the end of the line, or for that matter which direction is which, she seems to be in the middle of the part of the line that I can see. Apparently some guy let her in line. I was a little leery of this, but she wasn't moving and people weren't threatening our lives, so I just plunked down our stuff where she stood. As it turns out, the guy (who later bragged that he had given up beating his wife) let her in line... behind him. You can't do that! That is horrible. At least if you let someone cut in front of you, you are making some kind of sacrifice. To let someone in line behind you is really a crappy thing to do.

Once we get situated in line she starts. She's hungry, she's bored, blah, blah, blah. We knew we were doing this for weeks before we did it. She should have been prepared. But, no. Instead she amuses herself by whining and making me crazy. She wants me to go get her cigarettes, snacks, her jacket, etc. Finally, I turned around to her and said, "PCW, kiss my ass!" Just then, a head pops out of the tent of the people, who, we later discovered, we had cut in front of, saying, "I'd like to see that." Who was this disembodied head? Why, it was my future ex-husband. Yes, this was how we met Sparky. Like my title says, cute meet, right? Was I thinking I'm going to marry this man? No way. PCW, however, saw this little bit of attention and that was enough to get her out of my hair for a little bit. There's a male and he's speaking to us, so I know she will commence throwing herself at him immediately. And she did.

At first I just luxuriate in my tiny moment of peace and quiet. I only have to contribute minimally to the conversation, which is the way I want it and the way PCW wants it. It's a lovely evening, even from the parking lot of a Philadelphia sporting/concert venue. I know that she will be busy flipping her hair and propositioning this guy until he accepts whatever sexual favors she's offering (hopefully not in my car) and/or he blows her off. Soon, she needs someone to go with her to the car so she can change into sneakers and she asks her new potential beau if he will accompany her. I give him my keys, hoping that there will be no exchange of bodily fluids and only the changing of shoes. A couple of minutes later she comes back and does not look pleased. She tells me that when they got to the car, she was making her play and he said, "I really like your friend. Is she seeing anyone?" Yikes. This certainly is not a new situation for us, and it's never good.

We'd been having this problem since college. I made it my life's mission to avoid it. I say as little as possible to whoever she has set her sights on. I make a point of engaging in any meaningful conversation, no witty repartee, no extended eye contact, nothing that can be interpreted on any planet as flirting or an invitation to flirting. Now, it's not that I am this amazingly great beauty. I'm not, but in my defense I can honestly say, no one's ever run screaming, "Holy crap! Run for your lives! It's headed this way!" I'm smart and generally quick witted and actually, not too darn bad. I don't know if I'm defending my looks or trying to let you know that I'm not claiming to be a raving beauty. The whole thing has as much to do with PCW as me. She was always so abrasive and competitive, not just with me (despite my not being interested in competing at all), but with men, too.

Anyway, PCW goes into moping mode and decides to buddy up with guy in line ahead of us, the one who makes a point of letting us know that he doesn't beat his wife anymore and Sparky and I decide to take a walk. We walked around and around the arena, just talking as we passed the many hundreds of people lined up on the sidewalks. He wasn't even there for concert tickets. His friends, who, by now I had discovered we completely cut in front of, were camped out and asked if they could borrow his tent. He went to hang out with them for a while, set up the tent, have a few laughs with his pals. He wasn't staying the night, he wasn't going to the concert. He did, both.

I don't sleep well in strange situations. I don't sleep at all outside and on sidewalks. It takes most of a vacation before I can actually sleep through the night in a hotel bed. I'm not sure what they thought I was on (and I do know there were conversations about this), but considering that I didn't even have any caffeine in my system, I think it was just the newness of my little adventure that kept me awake and alert all night. There were little kids there doing gymnastics on the sidewalk. Sparky and I were talking and he saw me watching the kids and I told him that I did gymnastics for about 12 years. Somehow, I wound up doing a split (a full split, front, not straddle), not warmed up, at about 3 in the morning, on concrete, wearing sneakers. I just stood there and down I went to the ground. He always said that was what made him really fall for me.

By the time the ticket office opened, a huge wind and rainstorm blew through, it was April 15, the dogwoods had all blossomed and the petals were all blown off of the trees, and were stuck to the wet parking lot and sidewalks. Everyone in line was drenched and really tired. We got our tickets and headed back to my car. PCW was actually doing okay, Sparky was there with a couple of male friends so she decided to play "one of the boys" and she was feeling like she belonged. Sparky asked for my number and I gave it to him. We went our separate ways. By the time I sat on the edge of my own bed, I was already falling asleep. The next day Sparky called to ask me out.

Pickles, a love story

2006-01-26T14:33:00.000-05:00

Six years ago in November, the now ex-husband, Sparky came home from an afternoon with friends begging to adopt a dog named Pickles. Pickles was a year and four month old black cocker spaniel (with a white chest and little white goatee - see the My Guys post for a pic) whose owner had just turned him in at the Morris Animal Refuge in Philadelphia. I think the story was that Pickles original owner was mentally ill and was afraid that she wouldn't be able to continue caring for him for long. Sparky really wanted this dog.

We were living in a trinity house in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia at the time. A trinity (or father/son/holy ghost as some people call it) is a three story house, one room to a floor, all connected by a spiral staircase. We had a kitchen and a little utility room on the basement level, a living room on the first floor, a bedroom and full bath on the second floor and a little room (the lounge) with a full bath on the third floor (which was not always a good place to hang out with it's distance from the kitchen). All four floors were connected by an open metal spiral staircase. The cat was a big fan of the staircase because she could lie in wait on a step and then swat at people's heads as they came up the stairs.

So, it was a fine house for a cat, but not really a house for a dog. We had no yard, but a shared concrete courtyard. I went to school four nights a week, straight from work, so I was out of the house Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m, until 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. Doggies should have room to play, they should have a run and play, they should have plenty of living room and kids to play with and people to spend time loving and petting them. We had none of this. I thought it would be better for the dog for someone else to adopt him. Sparky disagreed.

He went every day to play with Pickles. He wanted to come home, whenever he felt like coming home and have a dog that would be so grateful to Sparky for saving his life. He wanted the unconditional love and devotion that you get from a dog. He wanted to tell people how he saved that dog's life. He wasn't thinking at all about the dog. I got the old, "I will take care of him. I will feed him and walk him and keep him clean and healthy. I will do everything." I got flowers with a card signed, "Pickles". I said "No." It just wasn't fair to get a dog strictly to feed into Sparky's narcissism. But, he knew how to get me. The Morris Animal Refuge is not a "no kill" shelter. They had no set schedule, but if the place started to fill up, they started to put the animals down. I could not be responsible for the death of an animal. I gave in and by the next Saturday, Sparky raced to the pound to pick up the dog.

A funny thing happened when Pickles first entered our little house. Although Sparky expected eternal gratitude and devotion for having rescued Pickles from the clutches of the grim reaper, that wasn't what he got. Pickles spotted me, ran for me and has been figuratively and literally (whenever possible) attached to me ever since. He is a total mama's boy.

Luckily we didn't stay in the city long after that because although Pickles loved to climb the stairs, he was afraid to come down them. We would carry him downstairs to the kitchen for dinner and he'd gobble his food and make his way to the third floor, where he would then whine and howl until we went to get him. In the mornings I would get ready for work and Pickles had the routine down. As soon as he saw me put my shoes on, he would jump up on the bed and get ready for me. Then, I would pick him up (like a baby, with his back legs wrapped around my waist and his front paws and head resting on my shoulder) and carry him down to the first floor for his walk before I put him in his crate, with a blankie and a toy, while I went to work.

Next Post: Pickles moves to New Jersey and Piksea and Sparky split up.

Buttons!

2006-01-24T11:16:00.000-05:00

Look at that lovely button. I can't possibly express how grateful I am to Scott over at Casey and Scotty, the webcomic. Isn't it pretty?

If you didn't already know, my main blog is almost exclusively book commentary over at Fausti's Book Quest. I didn't realize that I had developed an absolutely requited respect between my little corner of the blogosphere and Casey and Scott's very sweet, clever, funny and imaginative web comic. Scott was not only nice enough to make me a couple of really nice buttons, which I adore, but he's also thinking of adding a puppy named Pickles for a guest appearance on his strip. It takes so little to make me happy and to amuse me, and this is huge! I'll be grinning over this for days!

Big B-day weekend

2006-01-20T10:29:00.000-05:00

Today is my lovely little niece, Baby Girl's 9th birthday. Of course, I'm convinced that she was born a teenager, so it's hard to calculate her perceived age. Are girls all reincarnated? I'm not sure what I believe in, but it seems to me that my niece has been here before. From when she was a teensy weensy little baby (and she was very) she's seemed to know things that didn't seem possible. She could get a point across and plot and plan, to the point of being a little strange. It wasn't until my nephew was born and was a regular little baby enjoying his first foray here on Earth that we realized that little C-Bear was kind of a freak (strictly in comparison). She was the world's greatest starter baby. By the time she was three you could have dropped her off in the middle of nowhere and she would not only be able to find her way home, but would probably give other people directions while she was at it. We didn't actually test this theory out, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. We could have sent her out to get a job and she'd have been able to support the family.

Tomorrow is my beautiful friend Buzbee's birthday. Buz is one of the fabulous Eben Street Girls, so named for the house we rented together in college. 8 girls, one working bathroom, lots of good times. Buzbee was the last of the original 8 Eben Street girls to get her nickname. Of course, P-Noid didn't join us until Eben Street year, so she actually got her name last. Buzbee had been complaining that she was the only one without a nickname. I'm not really sure how it was that she had yet to fall into hers, as the rest of us did.

Zoid, who became the self-imposed President of Eben Street, was, shall we say, "altered" and watching tv in the girls' dorm with Buz one afternoon. A commercial came on with the a bunch of the old Laugh-In people on it and Zoid started cracking up (laughing that is, we admit to no psychosis). When Buzbee asked what was so funny, Zoid said that she loved Ruth Buzbee and then they both laughed at Zoid's mispronunciation of the name. That was when it happened. Zoid turned around, looked at Buzbee and proclaimed, "Henceforth you shall be called Buzbee!" I know, you're thinking, that could be how she got a nickname, but it couldn't have possibly been such a dramatic naming ceremony, but this was Zoid. So, this was exactly what she said. Buz got her nickname, we got another deranged tale to add to our "house files" and everyone was happy.

Monday will be the Handsome Honey's birthday. There will have to be much celebrating on his behalf! Maybe next post, I'll include a little more about the amazing man that is Mr. HH

This just in

2006-01-18T15:12:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure I've shared my belief that 24 hour news and reality television will bring about the end of civilization. Here's just another nail in the coffin. It's This story at MSNBC about a hamster and a snake who are "best friends." Umm. What? I've never been a big believer in anthropomorphism. I know that my puppy Pickles loves his mommy. He knows when I am sad, or not feeling well and adjusts his behavior accordingly. I am not just attributing human qualities to him. So there!

Point 1: How is this news? It certainly wouldn't have been news other than the local Tokyo newscast on a really slow news day. It would have been the last story to give everyone a chuckle before bedtime. It is not international news and isn't something anyone outside of Japan needs to be aware of. If it weren't for 24 hour news channels, we wouldn't.

Point 2: This is not The Wind in the Willows. This story came from a zoo, where you would imagine the employees were more scientific than to report such things. Whoever named the hamster had a pretty sick sense of humor. They named him "meal," but in Japanese.

If you didn't click through on the link above. The Tokyo zoo has a rat snake that wouldn't eat the frozen mice they were feeding him. So, they got a live hamster, named him ("Meal") and stuck him in the cardboard box they keep the snake in. Then, wonder of wonders, the snake didn't eat the hamster. In fact, they cuddle up together and stuff. So, they must be "best friends." Are they going shoe shopping together? (before you get all crazy, I am aware that without feet snakes have no need for shoes and are far more likely to become shoes than to purchase any). Are they going to the movies or maybe the gym together? Sharing a pint of Ben and Jerry's after a break up?

If, on the other hand, they figure that not eating each other makes them best friends, I can't totally fault them. It's one of those weird logic things. 1. I would never make a meal of my best friend. 2. The snake wouldn't eat the hamster. 3. Therefore the snake and the hamster are best friends. Oh yeah, look at that. It all makes perfect sense now. Stupid MSNBC.

My Guys: They Cheer Me Up When I'm Sad

2006-01-12T10:34:00.000-05:00

I've been grumpy and on the verge of tears for the last couple of days. This isn't like me. Well, I can be Ms. Crabby Pants sometimes, but the ready to cry for no reason thing, is not normal for me. Although, it isn't really for no reason. Today would have been my father's 63rd birthday. I didn't forget this, but hadn't been bursting into tears whenever I thought of it. Here I was discussing something that had nothing to do with my dad and I was fighting back tears, it was so strange. How is it that you can be upset about something even when you aren't actively thinking about it?

Luckily, I have the Handsome Honey and my puppy Pickles to look out for me and cheer me up. This is a picture I took of them last spring on my deck. Since I completely suck with Blogger, I can't post the pictures that HH scanned into our computer for my mother. When she cleaned out my dad's closet before she moved last month, she found an envelope that had two photos with my dad in them. Chubby 1970s Daddy made me giggle.

That's all the depressing news that's fit to print for today. I'll be back soon with, hopefully less mundane tales to tell.

It's DMV day for Piksea

2006-01-10T09:45:00.000-05:00

So, today I have to get a new driver's license. A few weeks ago I got the paperwork from the DMV telling me that my license expires on January 31, but I have to renew it by today, January 10 (don't ask, I can't explain how the State of New Jersey decides things) . I had planned on dieting and getting lots of rest so my face would look young and thin and dewy and fresh, or something like that. I was going to get my hair cut and colored. Of course, I procrastinated as I am known to do.

I've come up with a great idea! (Yeah, it could be great. Don't be getting all judgmental. You hardly know me.) If we had any women in real power in this state, I'm pretty sure I could get this moved up the political ladder. I think that someone should make it law that you should be able to have a new picture license taken on a day when you look really good. I'm talking rosey cheeks and no sinus puffiness around the eyes. On the day when you wear the top that works really well with your complexion. Then it wouldn't matter that the sweater that I wore yesterday would have been perfect to complement my fair skin and bring out my blue eyes.

Think about it. Who wouldn't go for that idea? Well, other than those really sweet, ambitious, cheerful, knowledgeable and attentive people (*dripping with sarcasm*) behind the counter at the DMV. I foresee an all new "I'm just a bill" with a freshly pressed Bill, looking his best, coming down the steps of Capitol Hill and heading off to get a picture on his driver's license, one reflecting the great day he's having, with a sparkle in his eyes and a confident smile.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2006-01-09T14:55:00.000-05:00

The Handsome Honey bought this dvd for me for Christmas. I guess, technically, this qualified as a present from his 4 year old son, Lil' A and my puppy, Pickles. We saw the movie this summer on the big family vacation in Wildwood, New Jersey, on the beach. It was pretty cool, but a little too loud and people should be prepared for there to be heads in their way when some people bring beach blankets and others bring chairs. You don't get stadium seating on the beach. Deal with it.

I finally watched the dvd Saturday night. We had Lil' A for the day and my niece and nephew came over to play with him and we popped in the dvd for the kids. Handsome Honey felt compelled to bring out the candy jar so everyone could get all sugared up. It was a big night for lollipops in our house. Lil' A felt compelled to drag Baby Girl and Little Man to the mirror to check on the colors of their tongues on a fairly regular basis. By the time the movie ended, my mother and sister-in-law had stopped to pick up the niece and nephew and it was just Lil' A and I watching the end of the movie. We even learned the Oompa Loompa dances on the extras. HH loves the Augustus Gloop song and I'm partial to the Violet Beauregard song, so I did both dances with Deep Roy as my guide. I'm incapable of passing up the opportunity to do crazy dances in the privacy of my own home. I don't sing or dance (at least not my own versions of dances and crazy dance routines) in public, even when very tempted to do so.

Of course, it all made me think of the original Willie Wonka . When the movie came out, way back when, my brother and I had the chicken pox and didn't get to see it. Remember the days when there was only one screen at all of the movie theaters and you didn't have much time to get in and see a movie? Instead, to make it up to us, my mother bought us the soundtrack. It had all those beeps and whirrs and assorted noises and voices leading up to the songs and I had them all memorized, despite the fact that I had no idea what corresponded to them visually and in the story. The whole weird song, Gene Wilder sings when they get on that crazy boat "There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going..." Not to mention all of the scene with Charlie and Grandpa Joe getting sucked up the tube and almost into the fan from the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, including all of the burps it required to get them back down to the ground, Yup, they were all there. All on that vinyl LP that we practically wore through on our record player.

I didn't actually see the movie until I was a freshman in college. There I was, the 17 year old freshman, who looked more like she was 12 at a fraternity party. I was in the living part of the Sig Ep house, which was just as disgusting as the party side of the house, but it had carpeting and a tv and the seats weren't currently soaked with cheap beer. I was talking to someone and recognized the sound coming from the tv. It sounded just like that Willie Wonka album I'd had as a kid. I guess at that point the movie had become a non-issue, it was just the soundtrack that still existed. I turned, and sure enough, there it was, Willie Wonka. I sat there transfixed, staring at the tv screen, surrounded by amused fraternity boys who were shocked that I was seeing this movie for the first time. Of course, these were the same boys who decided that I reminded them of a Cabbage Patch Kid. I never saw the resemblance myself, but the name spread across campus in a flash. By the following summer I would have strangers coming up to me at the Jersey shore asking if I was the Cabbage Patch Kid from parties at the Sig Ep, ZBT and TKE houses.

As far as the new version goes, I really like Johnny Depp and the little Peter guy from Finding Neverland who played Charlie Bucket. They are really good together. I liked that everything around Willie Wonka was technicolor, but he was practically black and white. Yeah, he was a little creepy and I certainly didn't have the same warm, tingly feelings as I had for him in most of his other movies. Oh, not in Pirates of the Caribbean, either ~ he was way too unwashed looking. As my nephew, Little Man used to say "I can't yike that."

2005 - a year in Review (Movies)

2006-01-05T13:04:00.000-05:00

I was looking over the list of movies that I saw in 2005. When considering the list of movies that I saw, just in theaters, you can tell Mr. Handsome Honey selects most of the movies that we see in the theater. Here is the list of movies I saw in the theater last year:

The Aviator - I did take veto power when selecting this movie. It was pretty good and definitely a big screen experience kind of movie.
The Ring Two - I can't believe we saw this in the theater. Totally superfluous. The original was interesting, but I was satisfied with the ending. This was just ridiculous.
Sahara - They compared this to Indiana Jones - anyone who thought you could make such a comparison was smokin' crack. Not a bad movie, but certainly not Indy. I can't believe HH wanted to see this in the theater, with no captions. He swears he can not understand a thing that Penelope Cruz says, ever.
I, Robot - No, I've got no excuse.
Elektra - ditto - We hated Daredevil, but I used to love Alias. In the first couple of seasons, Jennifer Garner actually acted and was good, but she's so wooden now and Elektra was so bad.
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith - I've seen them all in the theater. Starting with the original, which I saw at a drive-in theater in Minnesota. I went in my jammies, making it easier for my parents to put me to bed after I fell asleep in the car. (My mom still refers to him as "Dark Invader" and she called the whole father/son thing from the beginning). I gotta say, I'm glad this series is over. The backstory couldn't compare to episodes IV and V
War of the Worlds - Once again Tom Cruise plays that one guy that he always plays, you know, the jerk who redeems himself in the end - *yawn*. This was good up until the end, but the ending was so lame. It built up to a crescendo and then, "alrighty, it's over, everything worked out just fine, take our word for it. See, look there they are now, safe and sound. Go on home."
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - I saw this on the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey this summer. I enjoyed it. Yes, admittedly, Johnny Depp was creepy and I certainly didn't get any of the usual lustful feelings for him in this role. If you've read the books, then you know that Tim Burton was faithful to the text. The movie we all know and love was a departure from the Roald Dahl classics.
Must Love Dogs - Saw this with the women in my family. We did a girls' night at the movies as part of the neverending birthday celebration I wound up throwing for my mom. I do love me some John Cusack. It was okay, not great. It was not a bad way to spend an evening.
Batman Begins - I handled this a little better than many of its contemporaries. I'm not a fan of the comic book movie, mostly because directors think it's art if they make it just like the comic book. When you expand into a movie, you aren't confined to lame one-liners and two dimensional characters. Look at what Sam Raimi did with the Spiderman movies. Peter Parker comes off complex and sweet and tortured and lovable, that's how it should be done.
Fantastic Four - Here we go again. It was alright. Since my last theater movie before this one was Batman, I guess I didn't have much in the way of expectations, so I got to just sit back and go with the flow.
Serenity - I actually was the one who requested to see this one. I also wanted to see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the theater, but that didn't happen. I'm a huge Buffy and Angel fan and I watched all of the Firefly series on dvd. HH even bought Serenity for me for Christmas. I'll watch it, but I might have to turn it off before the end. I'm still a little mad at Joss Whedon for some of his victims.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I read all the books and I've seen all the movies. HH doesn't even complain that he has to take me to see these. In fact, he's taken me to all but the first one (I saw that one a couple of months before we met).
King Kong - Definitely a big screen movie. I felt really bad for poor Kong. I think someone owed him an apology. I get that no one spoke to him. If you are thinking that Naomi Watts talked to him, she really didn't. She told him "no" when he was treating her like a rag doll and she'd had enough, but she never talked to him. I know that he wouldn't understand if they did speak to him, but someone, in fact, quite a few someones needed to say they were sorry to him. I would understand it and they would know they were doing it. The ape deserved an apology.
Pride and Prejudice - Oh, HH didn't even go with me to see this one. Occasionally, I can suggest that maybe something might blow up in a movie, but he would've never believed me if I tried it with this one. Actually, he never believes me when I try that anyway, but I don't know what else will draw him to the theater. He likes those explosions and stuff that you see in action movies on the big screen. The only good thing about him spending the week after Christmas in Minnesota with his family, is that my mom and I go and see something he would never agree to see in the theater.

So, those are the flicks I saw in the theater in 2005. I am going to have to show HH this list. I am way behind in getting to pick what we see.

Happy New Year?

2005-12-29T12:11:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else ever dread the new year? I look forward to it from afar, but find it daunting when it actually approaches. Not so much now, but a few years ago, it was pretty bad.

The year 2000 was a bittersweet one for me, with emphasis on the bitter. My family sold our shore house in Wildwood, New Jersey which we'd had for close to 100 years. I loved that place. No matter how many times we moved, and we moved a lot, that was the one constant in my life. When my great grandfather was alive the house was always filled with relatives and friends. My grandmother was one of five and they divided up the summers in the house. Dewey, or Grandpop Angel as we called him, stayed April through October and someone was always there to keep him company and feed him. I remember my brother and I being put to bed when we were little and the two of us listening to aunts, uncles and cousins telling stories and laughing on the wrap around front porch. We'd wake up in the morning to find which cousin had been relegated to share our beds with us. I still think of us like a litter of puppies when we go on our extended family vacations. Single people and children were swapped in and out of beds to make the most logical sleeping arrangements for the evening.

In retrospect, losing that house really was the worst of it. To this day, I can't drive past the old house and I'm sure the neighbors who are left curse us everyday for the vile trash my mother sold the house to. But, the loss of the house wasn't the only blow that year.

In June we bought a house and moved in, but the husband flaked and we separated in September. It was a huge blow for me and I was reeling. The life I thought I was going to lead no longer existed. My plans and hopes and dreams of the future were dashed. There went another long stretch of prime childbearing years completely wasted. In September of 2000 the new year seemed like something to yearn for - new year, new me, new dreams, new life - everything could be different- things couldn't possibly get worse, right?

As the new year approached I started to dread it. All that pressure on the new year to be better and to make a difference was starting to show. What if things didn't get better? They can always get worse. I didn't want to celebrate, I just wanted to put on my jammies and snuggle up with my constant companion, my puppy Pickles. I wasn't ready for a new year and I wasn't ready for all of those expectations to be either realized, or to find that 2001 would just be more of the same.

I went (more like dragged) to a New Year's eve party at friends of my brother and sister-in-law's. I was the only single woman there and the evening got weird fast. Somehow, I was a huge threat to every marriage represented in the building. The weirdest thing about it is that I was sooo pathetic. I had been burned really bad and could not even imagine dealing with men and romance again. Every time a man talked to me, they were quickly dragged off, and in a couple of instances dragged out of the party completely. It was so strange. It got to be a big joke with my sister-in-law as she watched events unfolding around us. Now, I'm just your basic, average girl, I'm not claiming supermodel status or any such nonsense, but somehow for a while there, I was every married woman's greatest threat. Not just at that party, but at quite a few social gatherings that I went to in those days.

2001 had its ups and downs. I won a cruise from Macy's. I filed for divorce. I started dating again. I was convinced that I was dead inside, but that could have had as much to do with my dates as with me. My divorce became final. I dated, a lot. I mean, really, a lot. I had a date every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night and usually one or two on the weeknights. You know how they say you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince? Most of these guys were way too froggy to even kiss. I would date a lot for a few weeks, then get so bummed by how little fun I was having that I would take a week off. My first date sweater (a pale rosey pink cashmere and silk beaded cardigan - it looks really nice with my fair skin and blue eyes) was practically threadbare, but I didn't need to come up with a second date outfit. I couldn't come up with a guy I'd want a second date with. The weird thing was that almost every single one of them asked for another date. I would come home and think to myself, "Wow! That sucked." I'd figure that I wouldn't hear from that guy again, but they'd always call. Weren't they on the same date as I was?

Dating was pretty rote. I met a lot of men online and screened them pretty carefully. I did messages through whatever place we found one another until I felt comfortable enough to give e-mail and IM information, always on the lookout for that moment when they gave me some clue as to whether or not they were psychotic. My freak radar was set to ultrasensitive and I would cut them off immediately if they started to weird me out. If that went well, then they would get my phone number and I'd talk on the phone with them until I could decide if I wanted to meet them in a very public place.

At the very end of 2001, I met a man through American Singles (which I have to say is where the best of the men I met came from) and we sent a few e-mails, then he went to Minnesota for the holidays and was going to call me and we would get together when he came back. We went out that first Saturday of 2002. I had a nice time, nice enough to consider a second date. The second date was all it took for me to decide that I didn't want to see anyone else. I wanted to see if anything would come of this relationship. Well, on Thursday, it will be the 4th anniversary of that first date. The "everything happens for a reason" people are convinced that I had to go through all the crap I did and all the lousy relationships I had, to get here. I think that sucks, especially if it's true. I don't know if I'd say it was all worth it, but only because of all the time it took to get here, and all the things I missed out on.

The Handsome Honey is totally worth it. I only wish we found each other sooner. We've both got fairly tragic romantic histories and it would have been nice if we'd had each other and avoided a lot of what we've been through. For every little thing that he does that makes me crazy, I can think of at least 2 things that more than make up for it. He is kind and thoughtful and funny and smart. Since we've been together, the new year has held promise of more good things, more love, more fun, more time together. I don't dread them, I look forward to them and to what may come next for us.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

2005-12-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

I've seen quite a few conflicting thoughts on this book, but I really enjoyed it. I guess this would be considered a Dystopian novel. I know that I would like living in this alternate reality. I can't imagine a world where literature was so important, but I'm really glad that Mr. Fforde did. In Fforde's England there are so many people who change their name to John Milton that they have to start numbering them. There is a whole huge debate about who wrote Shakespeare's works. There are whole societies devoted to the possible opposing views.

Thursday Next is a detective who works in a special ops unit devoted to literature. Things are very different in Thursday's world. Acheron Hades, a man of great and unusual powers, is believed to have stolen an original manuscript of a Charles Dickens book. Although the concern is that Hades will destroy a priceless work of art, what happens is much worse. Hades finds a way to change the book and remove a character.

In Thursday's world people are up in arms over the unfulfilling ending of Jane Eyre. Apparently, the book ends with Jane going to India with her cousin, St. John Rivers and the two of them working side-by-side. I'd be pretty angry about that too. Jane Eyre means a lot to Thursday. As a child she went to the Bronte house and looked at the handwritten original. While she was there, another tourist placed her hand on Thursday's shoulder and she wound up transported into the page displayed, and there she met Edward Rochester.

While trying to take down Acheron Hades and his brother, Styx, there is a shootout leaving everyone dead, and Thursday seriously injured. She was saved by a man who left his handkerchief with her. His monogrammed handkerchief, with his initials E.R. embroidered on it.
The Eyre Affair was the fourth, and final book in my "all things Jane Eyre" phase and it was a great ending. Jasper Fforde captured the Rochester I loved from the original. He was smart and good, with humor and a great sense of responsibility. I'm not sure Jenna Starborn did such a great job with him, but Everett Ravenwood was more likable than the unnamed Rochester character in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Thursday has this great relationship with Rochester, that makes me smile just thinking about it. Fforde even gave Thursday's life parallels to Bronte's story, sometimes even using Bronte's characters in Fforde's alternate 1985 England.

I also enjoyed Fforde's word play. I would not recommend this book on audio, if it is, in fact available. There is a website here that clears up some confusion, helps American readers understand some British jokes and points out key jokes and facts in Fforde's dystopian England. Character names that are word jokes and the thought processes behind them. The bookworms and the inventions of Thursday's uncle are good for a few giggles. I also found Thursday's father, the time traveler with no grasp of history to be fitting with the government in charge.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I can't wait to pick up the next book in the series, Lost in a Good Book. So far there are four Thursday Next books and one, the newest, nursery rhyme mystery. I guess I'll read that one along with Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, since they appear to parallel one another.

I'm probably going to be a little incommunicado for the next week. Between two households of my family moving, finals, the holidays, a seriously overdue term paper and a major mental block, I must get my act together. I hope to be posting regularly again soon and including my 2005 reading list with links to my commentary, my favorites of the year (since that seems to be the trend) and Adrienne's very overdue meme.

Memo to myself: New year's resolution: Get my act together!!!! Uggh.

The Merchant of Venice

2005-12-07T09:46:00.000-05:00

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

I know I said I wasn't going to do this, I mean write about everything I read for my two lit classes this semester. Admittedly, this is not exactly a special circumstance, but I feel the need to comment on it. My Shakespeare professor has discussed that Shakespeare's works can easily be "queered up." He also frequently brings up the concept of platonic love and that Shakespeare's characters don't act the way more modern audiences can relate to in platonic relationships. I am also considering that some of the male relationships have a whole "who's in on the joke" thing going on, considering that when they were written and first produced all of the parts were played by men.

Why, you may ask, am I going on about this? Because there is no getting around the fact that the character of Antonio in The Merchant of Venice is gay. I am taking into consideration all the signs of our different times and our reactions to plays written 400 years ago. Here's the thing, it just doesn't matter. Antonio is gay. This is not some homophobic rant, I swear. I'm not making any judgment about homosexuality. Love is love. When one person falls in love with another person, it's a beautiful thing. The outside of the person is immaterial, well I guess maybe only to the person in love, often the outside matters greatly to others.

Enough general background on my thoughts on all things gay, this is about Antonio. Antonio, who may or may not be the titular character in the play. According to the professor, Antonio is the Merchant of Venice, despite the fact that Shylock is the more memorable character. According to Sparknotes 101 (don't take that attitude with me. I believe in using every tool to get as much understanding of the material as possible) the full title of the play is The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice. I infer that this is yet another way of demoting Antonio to lovesick loser. Now, I will outline how Antonio's homosexuality relegates him to lovesick loser. If you are thinking this is anti-gay, I must assert that even if my point wasn't that Antonio is gay, he would still be a lovesick loser.

Act I, Scene I: Antonio's friends see him on the street and stop to chat. Basically the exchange is something to the effect of, "Why so glum, chum?" The only reasons for him to look so down are A) that he's in love, which he denies; or B) that he's all worried because his financial future depends upon what happens to a boat he has at sea. Antonio is very convincing when he explains that he is not worried about his finances, because his stuff is spread out in a few ships. Gratiano reiterates that it must be love.

The next thing that happens is Bassanio's entrance, like an answer to Gratiano's statement. Now, Shakespeare is not remotely subtle, ever. I definitely find implied meaning here.
Bassanio is a playa. I think he knows the score with Antonio and takes advantage of the situation, whenever possible. Bassanio, although in debt to everyone, including Antonio, has a get rich scheme to get himself a girl and a fortune. Antonio can't deny Bassanio anything. Even though all of his money is tied up in ships that aren't due in for a couple of months, Antonio is still willing to do whatever he can for Bassanio. He agrees to let Bassanio go shop out his good name to get the cash he wants.

Bassanio didn't have to go to Shylock, Antonio's enemy, but he does. Antonio despises Shylock and his business practices and pretty much everything about him. Granted, there is a whole storyline about the Shylock/Antonio feud, so Bassanio did have to go to Shylock for his 3,000 ducats. When I was younger and would question why someone said or did something in a movie, my mother would always answer that it was because it was how it was written. Sure, people could not make the mistakes that they make in a story, but then it would be a much shorter story.

So,Shylock agrees to the loan and if it's not paid back, instead of interest he wants a pound of Antonio's flesh and Shylock gets to pick where he wants it to come from. Even if it's a sure thing, why would anyone agree to this? You'd have to really love someone to make yourself indebted to your greatest enemy with the penalty for default being sacrifice of your life. These are not things you do for someone you have platonic love feelings for. This is a grand romantic gesture.
But, you may say, Antonio is indebting himself to Shylock so Bassanio can win over the fair Portia. True, but Antonio would know that Bassanio is not going to switch teams for him. Antonio would also know that in Elizabethan England (despite where and when the plays are set it's really all about Elizabethan England, or to appeal to and be understood by his audience in, yup, Elizabethan England) he couldn't exactly run off and live happily ever after with Bassanio. Okay, so Antonio is lovesick and he'll do anything for his boy. No hope of wedding bells and babies, he's all hopeless and dejected.

Later in the play, when Antonio defaults on the loan and Shylock takes him to court to get his contract enforced, Antonio doesn't even put up a fight. He's supposed to be everybody in town's favorite guy and yet he doesn't seek help or mount a defense. Why? Because Bassanio took a wife, that's why. Any little fantasies he was harboring have been dashed. This might be the way you would go pre-Prozac, pre-Queer Eye. Antonio is the little sad egg guy on the antidepressant commercials.

I think Portia knew the deal, too. She and her maid/friend, whoever she was, do their little drag show in court. She, obviously, is a smart woman, especially if you consider that she is the only one who knows/understands anything about the law in the courtroom scene. So, I think it's safe to say that Shakespeare wanted us to know that Portia was no fool. I think Portia could tell how Antonio felt about her man, and she showed him who was boss. She could have, at anytime, let Antonio off the hook, but nooo, she didn't. She waited until just before Shylock's knife went into Antonio's chest before she stopped him. Then she destroyed them both. She took pity on Antonio, which was easy to do when she knew she had what she wanted. Then, using her superior knowledge of Venetian law, she threw the book at Shylock.

Back home in Belmont, Portia lets Antonio know how she saved the day, bested everyone and left the two of them indebted to her. I guess that's really another argument, the supreme power held by Portia in this play. Let's just say for the sake of keeping to my original point, for a change, that Portia let Antonio know she was boss and that Bassanio was her man.

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

2005-12-02T15:52:00.000-05:00

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

This was assigned reading for my American Lit Class. I can't imagine that I'll be posting much from my classes but I had a strange reaction to this story. My brain took the story and paralleled Rip Van Winkle with my father. It's crazy, I know, but my brain works in its own way. Can a mind have a mind of its own? Probably not, but who really knows what we do with that 90% that we don't use.

From the beginning of the story, Rip Van Winkle is very popular with everyone in town but Mrs. Van Winkle. He's always got a story to tell and he's very helpful to others. Somehow, he just doesn't have much ambition and he resents that he feels tethered by responsibility. In the story Dame Van Winkle is portrayed as the unsympathetic one. Most of my classmates had no feeling one way or the other about Dame Van Winkle, but weren't so crazy about Rip either. I, on the other hand, was sympathetic to both of them.

My father was a really good guy. He wasn't a total slacker who couldn't/didn't provide for his family. I had a great childhood. My Daddy was handsome, he was tall with blond curly hair and blue eyes that got all sparkly when he was happy. He always looked perfect. His shoes were always shined and even his sweats had creases you could cut yourself on. The man had style. He had personality. He always had a tale to tell. He didn't have a lot of patience, but he made things exciting.

My dad was never a very ambitious man. He did pretty well for quite a while. I never wanted for anything. My parents gave my brother and I everything we ever asked for. We went places. We saw and did things. We skied, we had a boat we took out on the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. But Daddy took some pretty bad career hits and was totally thrown off his game. His heart wasn't in it anymore and he slowly stopped trying. The responsibilities of work and the chance for disappointment outweighed any risk taking excitement.

My mom didn't work until after my brother and I were in high school. I wouldn't necessarily refer to my mother as ambitious, but only because, I think that term when applied to my mom would be almost offensive. She's type A, very smart, a really hard worker, a perfectionist. She never tried to take over the world, but she has always been very capable and honest and lovely. My father's personality and hers combined ran the gamut from polar opposites to perfectly compatible.

In our subject story, Rip Van Winkle goes off one day for a walk with his dog, Wolf. As he wanders about he sees some strangely dressed men bowling and drinking. Rip winds up spending his day playing bartender for the men and helping himself to drinks. The next thing Rip knows, the morning sun is shining on him. What he doesn't realize is that he'd been passed out for 20 years. He returns to find a very different world, but it is the embodiment of a dream for Rip. He's now at an age where he would not be expected to work. His adult daughter, her husband and their young son, Rip, take him in. Rip, Sr. spends his days doing just what he wanted to do. He becomes something of a local legend, entertaining the villagers with his stories. Dame Van Winkle is gone, and he is glad, since she apparently embodied the chains of responsibility. He can now feel free to be the guy he wants to be and not be subjected to guilt for his failings as perceived by his wife.

My dad got really sick in 1997. He was diabetic and although he produced some insulin his pancreas didn't produce the enzymes that metabolize food. He wasn't taking care of himself and he got a stomach virus, which threw his electrolytes and everything else out of whack. A combination of pneumonia, and his body's inability to store any nutrients and an allergy to penicillin (apparently, the best antibiotic to treat pneumonia) it was only a strong heart and kidneys that were keeping him alive. He didn't seem that sick at first. He got a stomach virus and you know how you kind of shy away from food when it just keeps coming back up? Well, that's what he did. My whole family got the same nasty bug, followed by an upper respiratory infection. In Daddy's case it became pneumonia, which turned into a blood infection and he had no saved nutrients in his body. He went to bed weak and through the course of the night he got more and more disoriented. I convinced my mother to call 911 in the morning. By morning he was constantly babbling nonsense. If you asked him a direct question, he answered it, but you had to really listen, because the answer was part of the constant chatter. He was laying in bed and plucking at nothing. He was picking up imaginary bits of something that he was afraid that a dog that wasn't there would get. I kept taking handfuls of nothing from him to throw away. He plucked and talked for probably 36 hours, before it was just his lips and hands constantly moving and no sound coming out. The doctors said that he couldn't stop, but I never understood why that would be so.

Over the next few days he got progressively worse. They gave him blood, because his was so depleted. All those fresh platelets went right to work, formed a clot and my dad had a small stroke. They put him on a ventilator, because they thought if he didn't have to work to breathe, his body could use all of its energy in the healing process. the ventilator required a sedative, which made him sleep for days, as we sat by his bed and watched a machine do his breathing for him. After 26 days in intensive care and a couple of weeks in a rehab facility, he was home. According to the doctors and nurses, he was like a medical miracle. None of them expected him to survive.

With the full agreement of all doctors and the Social Security Administration my father was deemed not fit for work. All this validation and the weight of responsibility lifted from his shoulders, my father was free to be the man he wanted to be. He developed an amazing relationship with my niece, who was born a couple of weeks before he got sick, and with my nephew when he was born a couple of years later. My niece called him Pop and that's who he was, we all referred to him that way, and it was his best role in life.

My dad found the perfect position for himself, he was the greeter at our community pool. He was a man who loved to be near water and in the sunshine, surrounded by his adoring public. The ladies shared all the neighborhood gossip with him. The little kids got his attention for all their new tricks and he shared his snacks and microwave popcorn with them. The teenagers talked cars with him, and shared crazy stories. After pool hours, he would sometimes stay a little late and let them jump into the pool with bikes and skateboards. Or, he'd let them have a supervised pool party with pizza and soda delivery and music. Together with the teens and older kids in the development, he came up with a haunted house and Halloween party that was popular for the first time ever.

In Irving's tale there was a lot of symbolism. Rip went down for the count when the colonies were still ruled by England. He was looking to get out from under the oppression of responsibility. He wanted freedom. He woke 20 years later to find the colonies had won the Revolutionary War to become the United States. Although times were more complex than when he went to sleep, he was free to start his new life. The fledgling US had a lot of work ahead of them but they were free to form the new country.

I just saw my father while reading this story. I couldn't see Rip as a shiftless idle man and Dame Van Winkle as a mean old shrew, because I understood that she wanted her husband to do right by their family and I know that button pushing that goes on in relationships. I got these characters in a different way than most people probably do, and I found myself liking them more than other people who read the story. I'm not sure how much time Rip Van Winkle had left after he awoke (and coincidentally, that was the first question my mother asked when I told her my thoughts on this), but we got seven really wonderful years with my dad that we probably didn't have coming to us. You can call me greedy, but I wanted more.

Lifeguard by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

2005-11-30T09:49:00.000-05:00

Lifeguard by James Patterson and Andrew Gross, on 7cds, performed by Billy Campbell

I've never done a Patterson on cd, and I only did it this time, because I refuse to read another of his books. Well, I'm never going to listen to his stuff on cd either. I read something about him not that long ago, although, I can't, for the life of me, remember where or how long ago, that he loves coming up with story ideas, but doesn't like the writing that much. I don't know if he realizes how much that shows in his work or not, but he must, right? I thought that statement confirmed all of my criticism about his books. He writes a good outline for a story, he just doesn't seem to bother putting in any of the actual story. Yet, they continue to publish his works and charge real, complete book prices for them.

I always make fun of him for his impossibly short chapters, often just one or a couple of short paragraphs. I couldn't help but time them on the clock in the car as I listened to this audio book. There were chapters that took less than a minute for the performer to read. I can't imagine how you think you can write a real book and the chapters are only a couple of sentences long. Not only are the chapters unnaturally short, but one conversation, taking place in one scene, and not a long one, can take three chapters. Really odd. Someone asks a question, end of chapter. I figure it takes restraint to finish a sentence before starting the next chapter. I'm all for keeping the length of chapters down. When I read in bed, I often look to see how long the next chapter is before determining if I can continue. I don't like to stop in the middle of things. Patterson's chapter structure doesn't help. I can stop at the end of a chapter, but be in the middle of a scene. The book I'm listening to on cd right now (Prep) has really long chapters. I'm on disc 12 or 13 and on Chapter 7. The Patterson book is 7cds and well over 100 chapters.

Oh, you were expecting commentary on the plot? Okay, well, our protagonist is Ned Kelly, like the outlaw. Yeah, that's a big ongoing line in the book. He's the son of a small time hood from the Boston area, living over the garage of a rich guy, working as, you got it, a lifeguard in Florida. One day Ned Kelly is standing on the beach alone and notices a woman, who is also standing on the beach alone. Of course, there's only one reason anyone would do this, and that's because any woman standing alone on a beach must be a total drama queen who is going to drown herself in the sea. He races off to "save" her (from nothing) he decides that she is the woman of his dreams. He starts to plan a life with her and decides that after he gets rich from a big art heist, they can run away together and live happily ever after.

Things go awry as things are wont to do. While Ned is sitting off false alarms all over town, his friends, and partners in the crime, are discovering that they've been set up. None of the paintings they've been hired to steal are in the house. Ned goes to meet up with his lifelong friends to find out what went wrong, only to find that they've all been gunned down. Not knowing where else to turn, Ned goes to see Tess, his new rich girlfriend. When he pulls up in front of the hotel there is a lot of police activity, and Ned discovers that (Dun Dun Dun) Tess has been murdered.

Doesn't look to good for Ned, does it? Three crimes and he's involved with all of them. So, of course, he bolts. He goes straight back to his mother's house, where no one would ever think to look for him (he's not really a rocket scientist), kidnaps a teeny tiny little art historian/FBI agent and tries to prove himself innocent. Because, as everyone knows, running away and kidnapping federal agents really helps to prove that you had nothing to do with the murders of pretty much everyone you've ever known.

I guess I should give the few positives that I have about this book. James Patterson doesn't have any Mary Sues in his books. This is definitely something I can usually appreciate. I can read a book and enjoy it, then discover that the author Mary Sued all over the place and then just feel cheated and that the whole experience has been tainted. Not everyone who writes what they know, or even, writes about characters with backgrounds similar to themselves, can be considered guilty of Mary Suage. Stephen King has a lot of authors who live in Maine in his books, but I don't know if I'd qualify them as Mary Sues. Patricia Cornwell, on the other hand, writes the Kay Scarpetta books, and Kay Scarpetta is the queen of the Mary Sues, and that is not a compliment. Ooh, and I can't forget, Jonathan Kellerman's series of books featuring the king of the Mary Sues, Alex Delaware. But, as usual, I digress.

Secondly, I did like the art mystery back story. It's purely fiction and Patterson doesn't play like it's anything other than that. I find a lot of bogus intrigue to be really annoying. It makes it so I can't enjoy a story because I'm always on edge that they are gonna pull that "this is all real"crap, like you know who. Here, Patterson did some research and made up a decent back story that sounded plausible, but wasn't intended to spark a lot of intrigue and debate about a work of fiction. It was well thought out enough to make it an interesting detail in the story, as it should be.

That's all I've got. I don't think I'm willing to devote any more of my time to Patterson's work. He could probably write some good stuff if he'd just take his time and fully flesh out his stories and get a little more contemporary. I'm not interested in taking time to read dated skeletons of books.

The Closers by Michael Connelly

2005-11-22T15:27:00.000-05:00

The Closers by Michael Connelly, on 10 cds, performed by Len Cariou

This was my first Harry Bosch book and I like him. In this book, Bosch has been retired from the police force for three years and his old partner, Kiz Rider has gotten the two of them a job working cold cases. They've just gotten information that could help them solve the murder of a 16 year old girl that happened at least that many years ago.

Bosch is an interesting character. He's a good man. He's not a power play cop guy. He's not cynical or bigoted. Connelly avoids the sterotypes and generalizations and gives us a well rounded, interesting and likable character. Harry Bosch takes his job seriously. He treats the people he meets with respect and takes responsibility for his actions. I have no idea how many books are in this series That's one of the problems with audiobooks. You can't decide you like a book, want to read the rest of the series and peek at the front of the book to see all the other titles. And, there's a good chance I spell most people's names wrong since I'm working them out phonetically. There are just as many cons as there are pros to the whole audiobook argument.

In The Closers there are a number of ways the murder investigation can go. There is a race issue and a group of white supremacists who were doing some pretty rotten things at the time of the murder, and a cover up due to the identity of one of the nasty little thugs. There are bad cops and some interdepartmental animosity. There is a mysterious lover and an ex-boyfriend who moved to Hawaii. Combine all those variables with the time since the crime was committed and you've got a mystery that it will take a real pro to solve. Harry Bosch is just such a pro.
I'm not sure how I've managed to miss these books, but I'll definitely be looking into the other books. They deserve a little more of my attention. It's nice to find an author whose work I am interested in really looking into. I've found that my reaction to authors is much like that of real relationships in my life. I find that like with anyone else, I can outgrow, or grow apart from an author. I've put so many of them in my past, it's almost sad. When you've read dozens of books by an author and decide that there just isn't anything left to keep you coming back for more, it's almost a little sad. It makes me a little nostalgic for the real people in my life who I drifted away from and wonder what they are up to. I can always find old authors on the shelves at the library or the bookstore, the real people just get lost in the fog of the past.
The karma train was pretty much on track with this book. Bad guys were revealed and the falsely accused were exonerated. The only people in the book who had better things coming to them, but didn't realize them were the girls parents, who were damaged beyond repair. This, sadly, may have been the most realistic part of this book. I can't imagine what it is like to have someone you care about murdered. I wonder if they keep hoping that the next step in the process of solving the crime and bringing the killer to justice will be the one to make them feel better. Only to find that their loved one is still gone, is not coming back and nothing fills that hole in their hearts and lives.

The closest I've come to a situation like this was what I always referred to as "the worst day of my life." Thinking back, it really was the worst day of my life until I lost my dad a year and a half ago. That certainly takes over the top spot. I was, I think, 9 years old and my brother and I came home from school and found the house locked and empty. We never had keys because my mother was always home before we were. We sat on the front porch and waited for someone to come home and let us in. My Uncle Petey came out of the next door neighbors house, which was very strange and came over to us. He was looking for my mom, who pulled up a little while later, wearing a neck collar.

Mommy and Uncle Petey went inside and Chip and I sat quietly in the living room (which was very formal and filled with my grandmother's fussy things - ornate furniture, marble topped tables,a plaster bust (that I later broke doing gymnastics) on a pedestal, oil imitations of the Gainesborough paintings (Boy Blue and the pink girl), you get the idea) while they talked. I remember sitting there, scared because my mother was obviously hurt and no one was telling us what was going on. We were literally and symbolically in the dark. We just sat there with night overtaking the room and the sound of whispered voices coming from the kitchen. Eventually, we found out that my mother had been in a car accident and got a nasty case of whiplash, but that wasn't the worst of it. My grandmother, who worked in South Philly at the Pantry Pride supermarket at 26th and Snyder had been shot.

Marie, my grandmother, was a tough lady. She worked in the customer service booth at the supermarket. I remember being little and going to see her. It was completely walled in, the door was flush with the wall and really tall and smooth. There was no handle on the outside, just a deadbolt lock, so you couldn't grab onto anything and scale the wall. While my mother was talking to my grandmother being her safe cocoon, we would be jumping up and sliding down the wall (we were 5 and 6 when we moved out of the city). She was working in her booth and a young man, about 19, scaled the wall and pulled a gun out, pointing it at Marie and demanding money. She hit the silent alarm, made an announcement over the loudspeaker that the store was being robbed, then she told the kid, who she called by name, since his mother had been shopping in the store all of his life, that he didn't want to do this and to leave now before he got himself in trouble. He refused. She continued to hit the alarm, call for security over the loudspeaker, and try to convince him not to make this mistake. She refused to open the safe and he shot her. In that small space and that split second, somehow she was hit in the back, with the bullet coming out her chest, after it hit the safe, ricocheted off and she must have moved into its path.

The doctors couldn't count in millimeters how close the bullet came to her heart, but it somehow missed and other than a bullet hole completely through her body and the emotional scars it took her years to heal from, she was really lucky. He wasn't. The police came and riddled him with bullets. I think they shot him something like 7 times and he still didn't fall. I don't know if it was drugs or adrenaline that kept him up. He was in a wheelchair at the beginning of the legal/court process, but I think he died before it was all over. I have this vague memory of hearing he committed suicide, but I don't know if it can be trusted.

She came home from the hospital a couple of days later and my mom had to clean and redress the wound, at least in the back, until it healed. She spent some time being fearful and dealing with what happened to her physically and emotionally. I remember her sitting and twisting napkins and tissues in her hands until they fell apart, but she never crumbled. There were all those doctors and the criminal and workers' compensation hearings (my grandmother, the career gal, never worked after that). I think that she did better when she stopped seeing some of the doctors. It felt like she couldn't move forward until she put them behind her too. I always remember, though, how incredibly angry she was because the article in The Philadelphia Bulletin said that she was two years older than she was. I told you Marie was a tough cookie.

Jenna Starborn

2005-11-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn

Or, all things Jane Eyre book number 3.

Jenna Starborn is a science fiction retelling of Jane Eyre. In our story, the titular heroine is a created human (does that just sound weird to me, or does no one get that? I'm not sure how else to put it). Sophia Rentley, like many women of her time period, had fertility issues (possibly an homage to The Handmaid's Tale?)so, she ordered one. She went to visit her developing child regularly in it's big glass incubating bottle, but also wound up conceiving her own child around this time. This made Jenna, her purchased property who she was responsible for, but, because Mrs. Rentley did not officially adopt her, she was not considered her child. Jerrett, Sophia's son was her favorite and she doted on him. When Jenna almost dies as a result of the neglect of her kind of, sort of, not really, but still mother, social services removes her from the home and sends Jenna off to a technical school on another planet.

Jenna gets a good education and learns a trade that will keep her in demand for her skills. Just like Jane Eyre, she stays after graduation and teaches for a little while. Then, with nothing left to keep her at the school she seeks to make her way in the world. Jenna gets a job in charge of the power generator for a large estate, Thorastone Park on a distant planet.

At Thorastone she finds characters similarly named and positioned as in Jane Eyre. The most notable differences are the ward, Ameletta (ugh, sounds too much like omelet) and her tutor, Janet Ayerson, who replaces the nurse Sophie and gives us, strangely, two Jane Eyre characters. Janet Ayerson runs off to be ruined by a rich associate of Everett Ravenback, the owner of the estate. Everyone has, if nothing else, the same initials as their Jane Eyre counterparts.

Considering that, in my commentary on the original, I stated that I thought Jane Eyre only worked in its own time period I found this to be an interesting undertaking. I stand by my contention that the original really was constricted to its time. The futuristic Jane Eyre didn't really work for me. Not that Ms. Shinn didn't cover all the bases, she certainly took great pains to do so and succeeded in making a situation for every instance in the original. I just didn't get how with all the progress the human race has made (I swear I am not being facetious), how we could wind up like that. Of course, I can only use my American girl perspective.

I'm sure this isn't that much of a stretch in plenty of places on the globe, but here it's sort of far fetched. Sure, we've got that scary, practically a caste society thing happening. There's the crippling of the middle class, the way the difference between the impoverished and the wealthy continues to grow. I'm not really making my case here, am I? It's the citizen/half citizen classification that just doesn't work for me. I guess I'm just not willing to consider it. I get that way sometimes, I choose not to believe that we could go backward in that respect in the future. Therefore, it cannot be, just 'cause I say so, or think that's how it should be, or some other completely non-realistic and non-logical reason.

Maybe I'm just a Jane Eyre purist. I love that book and I had trouble with anyone messing with it. This was an interesting concept and if it wasn't a retelling of a classic, pretty much a flat out sci-fi copy of it, I might have enjoyed it more. I was really glad that she didn't tart it up, though. I think the chaste love between Rochester and Jane Eyre, accompanied by the sexual tension that can be palpably felt between the characters from the century between its original readers and the contemporary ones is perfect.

I recently watched the BBC Jane Eyre mini- series which was pretty much faithful to the book and just lovely. At first I wasn't sure that I could accept Timothy Dalton as Rochester. Way too pretty, right? Rochester is dark and brooding and Timothy Dalton, not so much, but I was wrong. He was really good. I think if they had the girl who played Jane Eyre in the version with William Hurt, it would have been perfect. She made such a good Jane Eyre.

Last weekend I watched a version with Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds and I didn't like that one at all. It wasn't true enough to the original and I didn't like their Rochester at all. I never got how Jane could have fallen for him. If it weren't for her voice-overing how much she loved him, I would've thought they completely changed the story.

I also wound up with an old old old version with Orson Welles as Rochester. I've discovered that Orson Welles movies put me to sleep so I didn't bother watching it. Citizen Kane? Best movie ever? Maybe, but I'll never know. It starts and within minutes I'm out cold on the sofa. Orson Welles as Macbeth - same story - pop it into the old VCR and even if I was brimming with energy, I'm out before old Duncan gets axed. I may have to keep that in mind for my next bout of insomnia.

Oops, sorry about the digression. I'll get back to the topic at hand. Am I being over protective of a dear old literary friend? or am I just a fuss budget who is resistant to change? Honestly, either one or a combination could be possible. I know there is always an ongoing argument about books and movies and which are better, or whether you should read first, view later or vice versa. How many times is a reproduction of a story whether in a different time period or from the viewpoint of different characters a good idea? In terms of movies, I definitely preferred Clueless to Emma. As far as Pride and Prejudice goes, I loved the book, the BBC miniseries (Colin Firth *sigh*), I was also a fan of Bridget Jones' Diary, the book and the movie (alright, the movie, mostly just because of Colin Firth *sighs again* and Hugh Grant was great as the lechy, womanizing boss). These weren't faithful reproductions, just the basic story line without the need for such close comparison to the source material. Anybody else want to weigh in on these dire, pressing issues?
On a totally unrelated note:

- I'd like to say Happy Anniversary to my brother and sister-in-law. Thanks for sticking with the grouch for these last 11 years!

- Happy Birthday Lil' A Man! The handsome honey's son is 4

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2005-11-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

I've found myself avoiding some information on this book. I kept forcing back the urge to peek in on the "Rita Skeeter All Purpose Spoiler" thread at Chicklit. Generally, I want all the information I can get my hands on, about, well, everything. I wasn't really worried about stuff being given away, (e.g. deaths, twists, romances) but I do prefer to make up my own mind about what I read. I wanted to avoid having my thoughts on the book colored before I even got to form them. I think what I really mean is that if people are gushing about it and I read it all hyped up for the greatest experience ever, I am bound to be disappointed.

I finally got around to reading a couple of the non library books on my To Be Read pile and, hooray, this was one of them. After reading it, I think I will still request the audio from the library, just because I would really like to hear Jim Dale perform it for me. I was prepared for another death and I went in with an idea of who I thought it would be. I didn't use the storyline or the big picture, but thought real life might have influenced Rowling. I was right, but probably not for the right reasons.

Things have been getting bad for witches, wizards and muggles alike. Cornelius Fudge is out and there is a new Minister of Magic. The death eaters have been causing a great deal of trouble in England. In muggle England, the prime minister is being blamed for tragedies occurring on his watch, but is informed of the very real threat posed by Lord Voldemort and his followers.

Harry is still having trouble dealing with the loss of his godfather, Sirius Black and all that he learned about the dark side and the fallibility of the Ministry of Magic. He's back on Privet Drive with the Dursleys, just as agreed/promised to Dumbledore. Harry gets an owl from the headmaster informing him that he will be coming to get Harry and would be taking him to the Burrow to spend his summer vacation with the Weasleys. When Dumbledore arrives to escort Harry to the Burrow, Harry finds that one of Dumbledore's hands is blackened and dead. The headmaster tells Harry that he needs his help and that he will fill him in on all that has happened.

Their first stop is at the home of Horace Slughorn. He's a full of himself ex-Hogwart's professor and, once again there is an open position at the school. Professor/Headmaster Dumbledore knew just what it would take to get Slughorn to accept a position, and that was the famous Harry Potter. Apparently, Slughorn's great gift is his ability to align himself with people destined for fame, power, respect and then make the most of his connections. Using Harry as bait made Slughorn a certainty for the position of Potions Master.

After that stop, they are bound for the Burrow. Mr. Weasely has been promoted and with his new job duties, the new minister of magic and the scary stuff going on with the reborn Voldemort and his Death Eaters, he's not around much. That doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of excitement at the Weasely household. Hermione is also there for the summer, Tonks is visiting when Harry arrives and Bill is home with his fiancée, Fleur Delacouer. Fleur is a big hit with Ron and Bill, but the women don't really care for her and Harry can take her or leave her.
The kids are waiting for their OWL scores/results and discussing the coming year. This will be the first time that they select their courses and they do so with thoughts of their future careers. Ginny is a year behind the trio, so she's got her OWL year coming up. She also appears to be quite competent in every respect and probably the most popular girl at Hogwarts.

This year Harry, with his new status, from his battle the spring before, with Voldemort, his name cleared with the general public and his position as Quidditch team captain, he's going to have a lot to deal with as far as unwanted attention goes. He has fawning girls, Professor Slughorn and a variety of people who just want to get close to their famous peer. Then you've got all the people who begrudge Harry his abilities and think he's seeking fame, like Malfoy and Professor Snape.

Harry has to put together a new Quidditch team. Between the students who graduated and losing the Weasely twins after they left school, the team has been gutted. There are crowds of people at the try outs. Many from other houses and most as spectators. Harry puts together his team and ruffles some feathers in the process.

Professor Slughorn is another problem altogether. He makes a point of collecting favorite students. He judges based on fame, connections and students with great potential to become famous or good connections that will benefit him in the future. He plays favorites but he's no comparison to Severus Snape and his campaign of shame and degradation. Harry has a used potions text that is filled with tips to help him outshine the rest of the class. In fact, the book, previously owned by the self proclaimed half-blood prince is filled with all kinds of interesting and often malicious information. Despite the warnings of his friends, he continues to take advice from the prince.

As predicted from the previous books, the proper romances are started. I was pleased with the way they worked, until that crap Spiderman ending. Do you remember the first Spiderman movie? At the end, when Peter Parker finally wins the love of the girl of his dreams, he goes all, "with great power comes great responsibility" and dumps her. I hated it then and it ticked me off here too. I know. I know. They are both purely works of fiction, but it's no fair to get me all involved in the story and then mess stuff up. That's all I'm saying.
Since the whole series works on twists and surprises, I'll avoid going into any more detail on the book. The Handsome Honey must have trained me well. Knowing what happens doesn't ruin a story for me, but then, I'm a hard person to surprise with a twist. I generally see them coming from a mile away. So, it doesn't matter that much to me if I know the secrets going in or I figure them out myself shortly after starting. My peeve is when the coming attractions make it look like a totally different story than it is, but I guess that's really besides the point here.
I'm one of those people who just think too much. Sometimes it works for me, sometimes against. I'll figure everything out and then second guess myself. I'll think "I must just be guessing and if I know what it all means already, then I must be wrong, because I'm supposed to be surprised by a twist later on." So, I'll reconfigure what I know or I'll follow the author/director, only to find that I had it figured out from the beginning. If it weren't for the fact that no one believes me until the big reveal, I would ruin movies for a lot of people.
It's been my contention for quite some time that Rowling knew from the beginning what she was doing to have built so well upon things. I often wish I could have an audience with a couple of good authors. I'd like to find out who plots it all out in advance and who lets the story just take its course. I would imagine that there are plenty who do it either way to good or ill effect. A talented writer makes it all work, but how many times do you read a book that's been thrown together, or at least reads like it has? I want to know what makes writers tick.
It's a little sad that there's only one book left in this series. I keep promising myself that I will just go with the flow. I will not try to out-think or over-think the story. This will be my last chance to just enjoy the author's vision for these characters as it unfolds. I will savor it.
I might have to make that my mantra and override my brain's natural inclinations. I think it's a Faust thing. How appropriate that my last name is that of a man who sold his soul to the devil for knowledge. Not the whole selling the soul to the devil part, because that's just weird, but the eternal quest for knowledge, I am all about that. Strangely, it is not a quality that I share with any of the Fausts. Although, I have all kinds of interesting bits of knowledge from my dad, but he wasn't a reader, or someone you would think of as being scholarly. Instead he collected interesting bits of knowledge that he ran across and was good at whipping them out at the appropriate times. It's funny how often I think of things that my father taught me, all things considered, but I learned a lot from him. He had his own kind of smarts.

On a totally different topic, the brainy and beautiful Little Squirt is 20 years old today. Happy Birthday!!!!! I love you, Little Squirt!

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

2005-11-16T10:50:00.000-05:00

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Wide Sargasso Sea is the second book in my "all things Jane Eyre" phase. This is Bertha Rochester's story and Rochester's, and told from the perspective of Bertha, the crazy wife from the attic at Thornfield Park. In fact, Jane does not appear in this book at all. Rhys does take quite a bit of liberty, combining major historical moments in the islands with her story. She includes as part of the story line, the racial tension in the islands and the unrest after the end of slavery.

Apparently, Rhys grew up in the islands and moved her story to Dominca and gave Bertha the name Antoinette Cosway . The Masons are her stepfather and stepbrother. Antoinette Cosway is a white Creole, hated by whites and blacks alike. Former slaves are resentful and have no problem taking it out on the family. She has an unbalanced mother, a seriously ill brother. I'm not sure if he's physically ill, mentally ill or developmentally delayed, or exactly how he is afflicted. He just seems to be someone not meant to be long in the world, and isn't.
Antoinette's mother marries Mr. Mason, and the family hopes desperately that he will relocate them, but that is not his intention. Then, someone burns down the house. The brother who can not save himself, perishes in the fire. The mother, already on the brink of madness, slips cleanly over the line and is institutionalized. Young Antoinette is sent to live with an aunt and sent by her stepfather to private Catholic school.

Antoinette lives a solitary life with minimal contact from any relations. After she finishes school, her stepfather sets her up with a man portrayed, at least partially,a s a gold digger, but who has some standing in England. This is the Rochester character from Jane Eyre, but he is never named. It is known that his father does not wish to separate/divide his estate and so is leaving it all to his eldest son. The younger son is given the hand of a wealthy business associate's daughter and the money and property that she comes with.

I, with my modern girl mentality, have difficulty with this bizarre inheritance structure. Not to mention some experience with the raiding of large estates, to the detriment of real and valid heirs, but that's a story that's still too painful and frustrating to tell. I've read all the Jane Austen books. I remember how the Dashwood girls and their mother were practically destitute when the father died in Sense and Sensibility. On a totally unrelated note, has anyone seen the Amex commercial with Kate Winslet outlining her film career? I love that ad. I think most companies should be forbidden from advertising because they are just polluting the airwaves with the lamest crap ever, but that commercial is great. Oh, sorry about that. Now, back to our regularly scheduled book commentary. Rochester's father just couldn't be bothered with dividing up his holdings? So Rochester took on daughter status, sort of, didn't he? Hmmmm. They even set him up in the "money marriage." Just how much did the senior Rochesters know about Bertha "mad as pants" Mason? They found the Mason's who have a history of major mental illness (at least according to Bronte's book) and they railroad Eddie to the altar. He spends no time with her alone. They whisk her out at balls where she smiles and twirls and then they take her away. Rochester explains that she was a beautiful stranger on their wedding day. Once they were alone he began to see just how crazy she was, or saw her begin to quickly unravel when she was separated from the comfort of all that she knew.

Here, Rochester is partially portrayed as a gold digger and a little as a naive love sick boy. He traveled to a strange land, got really sick and then, while recover, and still in a weakened state he marries this beautiful intriguing woman. She takes him back to the place where she is most comfortable, and where she is surrounded by people who know how to care for her. Not that they like her, because these are hostile and unwelcoming folks. The servants care for Antoinette but most are very resentful and they treat Rochester with contempt. It is an odd household. The servants take care of Bertha/Antoinette, but none of them like her, in fact, they seem to despise her. Only Christophine cares for her truly. She's taken a motherly responsibility for her. She's also been, I guess it would be considered, "medicating" her to keep the symptoms of her mental illness at bay.

Rochester is definitely portrayed as a cad. I really really (I get paid by the work. Okay, I get paid by the superlative. No, I don't get paid at all) like Bronte's Rochester. He's smart, he's kinda funny. To look at him (as described by his creator, of course) he seems dark and dour. He's not physically attractive, but he's got character and personality and intelligence. He and Jane are ideally suited. A mushy man would make her uncomfortable with her psycho-social history. (Yeah, I put in a few years in human services.)

Rochester isn't cold. The people around him get him. They see that, where it counts, he is a pretty good guy. I'm glad he got found out and, Bronte did hit him with the Karma train. He didn't marry Jane and let her be part of a sham marriage. He lost her as a consequence for his subterfuge. Then he risked everything trying to save Bertha, the woman he saw as personification of his foolishness. The woman, who, even before Jane, wa a symbol and a constant reminder of how he sold his chance for happiness and love/ You've gotta love that. All of that in this chaste and virtuous tale.

I was prejudiced against Bertha by my adoration of Jane. I didn't want to like her and I didn't like my Mr. Rochester getting messed with, but I did feel a little bad for the crappy life Rhys gave Bertha. I'm still not sure what her real intention was. Her Bertha can't be the one that Charlotte Bronte intended. Rhys' Antoinette/ Bertha suffered greatly. It was a hard and frightening road to the top of that burning building.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

2005-11-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I started an "all things Jane Eyre" reading jag, beginning with the original. What a wonderful book. I love Jane Eyre!!! Jane is small and dark and smart and sadly, unloved and unwanted. She was taken in by her uncle and aunt after the death of her parents. The uncle wanted to raise Jane as one of his own children, so of course, he bit the dust pretty soon after taking Jane in. His death request to his wife was that he wanted Jane to be raised and loved as if she were one of their other children. Yeah, that didn't happen. Poor little Jane Eyre, treated like crap, all strikes against her, you can't help but really feel for this sweet, smart bullied little girl.

Rotten aunt ships Jane off to a charity boarding school where Jane at least gets to start off with a clean slate and prove herself. Well, sort of ~ the creepy headmaster has promised to make everyone aware of how awful she is, but by the time he actually gets around to it, she's already getting on pretty well. It's really not that nice of a place. Jane is used to being exposed to the finer things, although she was not included in them and now she's shipped off to this school where there's not enough food, not enough heat. When the cold and damp get to the girls, disease spreads taking a good portion of the student body. Of course, all those poor dead girls bring attention to the deplorable conditions at the school. Conditions improved greatly after people were made aware of the plight of the surviving students. Jane got her education and even affection. After graduation Jane stayed on as a teacher, until her mentor at the school married and left.

Jane finds a position as a tutor to one girl at Thornfield, working for Edward Rochester. The student in question was his ward, Adele. Mr. Rochester owns a number of properties and spends very little time at Thornfield. The limited servants live a pleasant enough life in the quiet household. Jane has the company of Adele, her nurse and the caretaker who runs the house.

Jane and Rochester meet and everything changes for both of them. I love these chaste old-fashioned romances. I love that little tiny Jane and big gruff Rochester have that "transcends all" kind of love. It's a meeting of the minds thing. They have complementary personalities, and stimulate each other's brains. As a thinking girl, this idea appeals to me, a lot, especially since I've never been one to suffer fools gladly. A pretty face and muscles just aren't enough for me. I need brains and personality and character and humor. Imagine my shock when I fell for the Handsome Honey. When he showed up at my door the first time I knew he was beautiful on the outside and I usually don't go for conventionally handsome men. They sometimes make me a little uncomfortable, but not HH, he is totally unaware of just how attractive he is. This is not me being biased either. However this stuff can be measured, my HH is gorgeous. You should see the reaction he gets from my extended family. I usually feel like I should explain to them that his inner beauty far exceeds his good looks, but they're not looking at his inner beauty and at the moment they are enjoying the view and could care less. When he's not standing in front of them they get to concentrate on how much they like him for me and then the fact that he is such a great guy matters more.

Okay, enough of that. Back to our story. Rochester gives Jane an occupation, a home where she finally feels like she belongs, but he also gives her his respect and becomes a good foil for her. This is a story that I can't imagine being moved out of its time. It's got its little space in the continuum (there is such a thing, isn't there?). You can't make a modern version of Jane Eyre. It just couldn't work, could it. What makes this story extraordinary is Jane and her situation. She's nobody, at least that's the way she's always been treated but she has self respect and brains and she's not afraid. She found her place in the world, she made tough decisions and had the strength to stick to them. Being a good person was her mission and she never strayed from her path. She wasn't all goody two shoes either, but such a good and warm little person. I just adore Jane Eyre, I can't help myself.

I've read some criticism recently about this and Wuthering Heights as great love stories. The last time I read Wuthering Heights I was not remotely loving it. I thought Heathcliff and Catherine were horrible. I wasn't rooting for them, I was repulsed by them. I just couldn't get into the story and put it back down a quarter of the way into it. I've read recently that Rochester is not a very nice guy. True, he wooed sweet little Jane, but had a wife chained up in the attic. I get that this would not be considered the definition of a nice guy. If he really was going to do this right, he could have divorced Bertha and put her in an institution, rather than lying and trying to involve Jane in a sham marriage.

Despite all of that, Rochester's story worked for me. Bertha was his punishment for being a greedy fool. His anger at himself and everyone else, along with his shame and pride created a perfect mix for him to corner himself. His shame and embarrassment make him keep Bertha a secret. His pride and sense of responsibility make him care for her. Bronte made a point of always portraying Bertha as violent and feral. She hasn't any humanity left. It's all been consumed by her madness. This certainly makes Rochester pitiable.

I like that Jane becomes her own woman, shares her inherited wealth with her newfound family and keeps on making the good, smart moral choices, even when they are really hard and painful. I really like that she gets rewarded for her goodness. Although, karmically she deserved an unmarried boyfriend who comes out of the fray with his vision and both of his hands. I guess for Jane and her simple needs, winding up with Rochester, despite his physical condition and the horrors of the journey toward that end, is hitting the jackpot.

Vanishing Acts

2005-10-28T09:09:00.000-05:00

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Piccoult, on 10 cds read by various performers

Cordelia Hopkins works with her bloodhound Greta in search and rescue. She has a daughter, Sophie, with her fiancé Eric and lives, along with Sophie, with her father Andrew, who runs a senior center in New Hampshire. Delia, Eric and their friend Fitz have been inseparable since she and her father moved to New England after Delia's mother died. Although, Delia has always felt the loss of her mother acutely and imagined what she would be like and how she would help her through life, she had a great relationship with her dad. She thought she knew all there was to know about her life, but she was wrong.

Delia begins to have strange dreams which seem more like memories, but that don't make much sense to her. She explains them to Fitz, and being a reporter, he does some digging which leads to the arrest of Andrew Hopkins for kidnapping Delia when she was four years old. Delia asks Eric, who is a lawyer and a recovering alcoholic to defend her father. Andrew is extradited to Arizona for the trial. Eric follows to get legal credentials and sponsor (legal) there and Delia and Sophie follow when Eric finds them a place to stay. Fitz goes to cover the story for the paper.

There are way too many story lines here. You have a lifelong love triangle between Delia, Eric and Fitz. You have Eric's crappy childhood because of his alcoholic mother and then his subsequent alcoholism. This gets played against Delia's mother, Elise, and her struggles with alcoholism and Delia's engagement to alcoholic Eric and Eric's difficulties staying sober with the stress of representing his fiancé's father, for kidnapping her. Whoa! I just read that over and, well, yeah, that's a lot of stuff going on. But, wait, that's not all. You also have Fitz feeling responsible for getting Andrew arrested and being assigned and expected to write a story about Delia's painful situation, all while being in love with her since childhood. Then there is a whole Indian (Native American Indian) storyline, that is totally superfluous. Not that it wasn't a good story, because it was. It's just that it deserved its own book and didn't belong in this one.

There's also a Mexican storyline, as Elise is Mexican and a whole cultural thing, which I wasn't sure why it was put in. This was just a hint of something that felt like maybe it should have gone somewhere, but didn't. Considering that Elise's story is important, I would have thought that there would be more than a few Spanish words and a witchy, psychic kind of thing that is considered, by turns, shameful and a gift that runs in Elise's family. We also have a sexual abuse red herring and a whole huge weird prison thing, including bad rap lyrics and prison shower hi jinx. I've got to tell you there is just way too much going on here.

I think, due to the sheer volume of reading I've been doing, I've grown a lot more critical. I don't think it would be fair to call me a snob, because there are plenty of books that I love that have little or no literary value at all. I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved a book that will never stand the test of time. I own all of the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich. I love them. I reread them and listen to them on audio over and over.

I'm having a problem with authors seem to feel the need to over describe everything, and poorly at that. I recently saw one of those things that goes through everyone's e-mail inboxes. It was a list of descriptive sentences from the writings of college students and they were hysterical. I get the impression that somehow these people were paid to continue writing. Piccoult is definitely guilty of the over description thing. Eyes are the blue of fevered glaciers... umm, huh?

This book was written from each of the main characters' points of view. Like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but not done nearly as well, this tells overlapping stories from all pertinent character's view points. On the audio, there are five different narrators. The Delia narrator had a really grating voice and I wasn't crazy about Fitz's voice either. The Eric and Andrew voices were okay, though.... Except there are fake rap lyrics that the Andrew voice recites that are really bizarre.

Piccoult has another blockbuster (are popular books blockbusters?) out , My Sister's Keeper. I've seen/heard good and bad things about it. I'll probably get around to reading something else of hers, to give her a real chance. This could have been a couple of good books, but the book it wound up being had too many disjointed stories, not particularly well told. The mystical story lines, the Mexican bruja (ooh, I hope that's the witch word and not something naughty. My Spanish is very rusty!) and the American Indian myths, practices and beliefs could have made fascinating reading and I would have enjoyed the stories if they had gone anywhere, but they wound up going nowhere and just clogging up an already crowded book with so much more ephemera.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

2005-10-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Santiago is a shepherd, who apparently has a great destiny, and when you have a destiny, the world bends over backwards until you realize it. Is this anyone else's experience? Because, pretty much, I was left feeling like that little tidbit was just a load of crap. I guess this is a dream big kind of message book. I just can't buy into this. Okay, I admit to sounding very pessimistic here, but I don't find that the universe is bent upon making my dreams come true. I've got quite a backlog of unrealized dreams and I have yet to see the brass ring just bobbing there in front of me.

I remember The Celestine Prophecy. As a fantasy it seemed sort of sweet and even interesting. The idea that we're capable of being and doing so much more than we currently are. That if you are just open to it, there are these wonderful things in store for you. Then it took a leap that I couldn't follow. I went blindly along and I tried to go with the flow of the narrative. All coincidences are signs and have meaning? Okay, if you say so. You can continue to grow and evolve as long as you stay on the path? Sounds good. That would be nice. Then there was some kind of vibratey invisibility thing going on. That was it for me, I was done.

The book was supposed to be inspirational and I guess, a fable of sorts, but was intended to be read like nonfiction. We were all supposed to soak up all the new age spirituality and be the best we can be. Then they went off the deep end, taking a lot of followers with, they wrote a follow up, or two. I drew the line at the workbook. What was that about? It should have come with the fresh Nikes, the black hooded robe and the poisoned Kool Aid.

In The Alchemist, Santiago has a dream and speaks to a gypsy about it. She tells him he is destined to find a treasure near the great pyramids. He also meets a king who encourages him to follow his destiny. So he sells his sheep and sails off to Africa. With every step he takes and each time he pauses or second guesses himself, we are reminded that when you really want something all the forces in the world work together to make it happen. If you want it, then the whole world is on your side, doing whatever it takes to make sure you get it. I know I'm getting cynical, but this isn't inspirational, its pathetic.

Santiago's travels, although fraught with peril, were fascinating. He saw so much more of the world than if he hadn't given up his flock. He learned languages and experienced many different cultures. That part of the tale was lovely. I think if what Santiago realized was that the treasure he sought had more to do with all that he sauw and learned and experienced as well as the love he found, I would have loved this book. I just think the underlying message here was so hokey and phony. Why do authors or book publishers feel the need to force feed us this nonsense? There has to be a way to inspire us without treating us like suckers. How many of us really have a "destiny?" Does anyone?

So, now I'm wondering, does everything happen for a reason? Does nothing happen for a reason? Is it possible that some things happen for a reason? Does this work with, or contradict, free will? I wasn't inspired by this tale. I felt ripped off by a corny sentiment that never felt real enough to want to buy into, even for the sake of YA fiction. I came away with too many questions that can not be answered and that really really bugs me.

The Witches by Roald Dahl

2005-10-25T11:47:00.000-05:00

The Witches by Roald Dahl

Mr. Dahl is tough on parents. I guess this puts him in league with the folks at Disney. The Disney people - really not Mommy friendly. Give it some thought... Bambi, Cinderella, Snow White, Belle (of Beauty & the Beast), Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Pinocchio, Jasmine... either no mothers or dead mothers. Dahl has Sophie, the orphan in the BFG, James and the Giant Peach has James' parents eaten by a rhinoceros, and here, we have our anonymous narrator whose parents die in a car crash, leaving our protagonist without a scratch, or a family.

Our young hero is left with his grandmother who teaches him about the witches. She makes her point by giving him details about the disappearance of children at the hands of witches. Then he learns how to recognize a witch and that's important because disappearing children is mission one, top priority for a witch. In fact, their motto holds that if they don't rid the world of at least one child a week, they get pretty cranky. I may have been paraphrasing a little there, but you get the idea.

Narrator boy and Granny go to live in England as per instructions in the parents' Will. He's very careful to try spotting witches and keep out of their clutches and he even has a narrow miss one day while outside playing. Not long after the grandmother falls seriously ill. She recovers, but the doctor doesn't think it's a good idea for the pair to return to Norway for the summer holiday, instead they go to an English resort.

Our narrator, the grandmother and the boy's two pet white mice settle in at the hotel for their holiday by the sea. While looking for a hidden place to train his mice and avoid detection of the hotel staff, he winds up hiding in a ballroom reserved for a conference for a group dedicated to preventing cruelty to children. The women pour into the room, trapping the boy in his hiding place. When the women begin their discussions, locked into their ballroom, they let down their hair, so to speak. Actually they remove their hair, because all witches are really bald. They remove their disguises, revealing themselves to be the hairless, toeless, witches of England, and the worldwide chief witch.

The chief witch, as it turns out, is not happy with how slow going the "child a week" plan is working. She has come up with a way to get rid of every child in England. Our little hero overhears the plan, just before he is discovered. The witches use their potion on him and turn him into a mouse. He must then convince his grandmother of what happened and come up with a plan to destroy the witches and save the children of England.

The Witches is much darker than any of the other Dahl books I've read. This is on the ALA list, but I don't think it's any worse than a lot of the children's fiction out there. The happy ending here is not that terribly happy. Not to mention that Dahl, obviously winking as he does so, makes a case for avoiding hygiene. Witches recognize the smell of children, but the dirtier they get, the more that smell is covered and the less likely that a witch will smell them. The man knows his audience.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2005-10-17T15:03:00.000-05:00

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer on 10 cds, performed by various readers/actors

Oskar Schell is a 9 year old boy living in Manhattan. He's highly intelligent and very neurotic and he has an interesting effect on the people he meets. This is Oskar's story, but it's not just his story, it's also his grandparents' story.

Oskar and his father, Thomas are very close. Thomas has made a point of challenging his son's mind with puzzles, riddles and scavenger hunts. They share a love of math and science and logic and they spend time solving puzzles and finding and correcting mistakes in the New York Times. That is, they did, until September 11, 2001 when Thomas had a breakfast meeting at Windows on the World Restaurant in the World Trade Center.

That day, Oskar was sent home from school early as were most New York students, and had no reason to suspect that his father was anywhere near ground zero. He walked home from school certain that no one he knew would be in harm's way. Oskar goes home to find that his father left five messages on the answering machine. For reasons that even he doesn't fully understand, Oskar goes out, buys an identical answering machine and replaces it, putting the one with his father's message in the bottom of his closet. He never tells his mother about the messages, but periodically digging out the machine and listening to his father's voice.

While Oskar is forced to deal with the loss of his father, he stumbles across a key in an envelope with the word/name Black written on it. While looking at his father's things in his closet, he knocks over a vase and finds the envelope and key inside. Before his father's death, Oskar had been involved in a scavenger hunt for his dad and had yet to understand what it was that he was looking for. Oskar decides that the envelope must be a part of the hunt and that Thomas left it there for him to find. In an attempt to stay close to his father, he tries to solve the mystery of the key.

The beauty of this book is the adventure. I guess it's one of those "it's not the destination, it's the journey" kind of stories. Oskar doesn't know what it is that he's looking for and he finds a lot in his search. Oskar learns a lot about himself and the people in his world. He has a voyage of self-discovery and realizes just what the people he loves really mean to him.
The story is told first person from the viewpoints of Oskar and each of his paternal grandparents. The grandparents each tell their stories from their youth in Dresden until the present. The present portions of the stories overlap, so you get a sense of multiple viewpoints of the same incidents.

I really enjoyed this book, I even enjoyed the performance. I usually choose an audiobook that I don't think I'll get around to reading. I pick audiobooks from that second tier, books that people are talking about today and you may have missed or forgotten about or lost track of in a year or two. I flip through the pages of notebooks with lists of books that peaked my interest over the last few years, but that I never got around to reading. I'm not sure if this is a book that should have been read, but, at the same time, I would've missed out on this performance and I'm glad that I didn't.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was a complex and well written book. It's sort of sad that I have no problem commenting on books that I hated, but for this book I can't find the right words. Oskar is such a great character. I loved his interactions with people. Most of what I loved about this book had to do with how beautifully emotions were expressed. The characters were an odd assortment of people, but very believable. They drew you in and made you feel for them and that's not easy to do.

Personally, this book affected me on a couple of levels. First, I was a kid who read books about mystery and adventure. I spent summer vacations hoping to stumble upon clues and unearth treasure or solve a mystery, or get to the bottom of a ghost story, or catch a bad guy singlehandedly. Despite my search, I never stumbled across a mystery that I could solve. Oskar went on a treasure hunt of sorts and he gives thought to the clues and sets up a plan of action to follow. What he gives and gets and learns and experiences are all so compelling and heartwarming. The mystery he cracks is not the one he sets out to solve, but is Oskar and what he learns about himself is worth the search. I loved that he is all the goofiness that is a 9 year old boy.

Second, I'm not good with the dead father stuff in movies, books and television, so the premise was hard for me. Oskar's father was young and healthy and taken so suddenly with no time for the boy to come to terms with it. His mother had a funeral where she buried an empty coffin, so Oskar never had a real sense of saying goodbye. I lost my father about a year and a half ago and I can't begin to imagine how much more horrible that would have been at 9. I know that it doesn't matter how much time you have to come to terms with death, whether it is long and expected or sudden. It is equally horrible in every permutation.

There is a lot more to this intricately layered story than I've even touched upon here. I recommend this book to anyone. I think it's worth the time in book form and I loved it on audio.

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

2005-10-13T10:07:00.000-05:00

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Not surprisingly, this book is on a lot of best books lists, including the Harvard Bookstore Top 100. I don't know how anyone could not love this book. I've heard that there is a live action Charlotte's Web, starring the ubiquitous Dakota Fanning, but I'm not sure I can see her as Fern Arable. It could have to do with the fact that the cartoon version is a classic and I'm not sure how well the live action version can possibly compare. I hear those voices in my head when I read the book. Paul Lynde will always be the voice of Templeton the rat, Debbie Reynolds is Charlotte and Fern is that girl from the Curiosity Shop and Felix Unger's daughter from The Odd Couple.

Anyway, one day on the Arable Farm, the spring pigs are born. Mr. Arable is ready to put down the runt when he is stopped by his daughter, Fern. He agrees to give his daughter responsibility for the tiny piglet. She names him Wilbur and feeds him from a bottle and, basically treats him as something somewhere between a doll and a puppy. Fern grows to love her sweet little pet and cares for him so well, that pretty soon he can no longer be thought of as a runt. Once Wilbur gets too big he needs a new home. Fern's aunt and uncle, the Zuckermans, take Wilbur in, and Fern goes to spend her spare time visiting Wilbur and his new friends at the farm, once he gets settled in, which takes him a little time. Of all the friends Wilbur makes, Charlotte is his first, and the best.

I think I like best that this book doesn't shy away from the realities of life on a farm, but overcomes them The people are good and kind and understanding. Fern understands what the animals are saying and if what she says, when describing it all to her family, makes sense, no one is very concerned. They don't assume she's crazy. They recognize common sense, and they accept it, even when it comes from a very uncommon source.

As a pig, Wilbur's destiny, after surviving runthood, was to become ham, bacon and pork chops. As you can guess, Wilbur is less than nonplussed when he understands that his survival this far is no guarantee, but just bought him a little time before he becomes the main course. Luckily, Wilbur's first and best friend, Charlotte was more than just clever and talented, and in order to save Wilbur from a normal, average pig's fate, she takes action.

The idea of friendship and how important it is, is conveyed beautifully in this book. Even the rat with his "looking out for Number one" attitude shows some friendship and loyalty, when it comes right down to it. All of the barnyard animals coexist peacefully and enjoy each other's company. They provide moral support for one another. They celebrate all their happy moments and grieve together when things go wrong. These are some of the most healthy relationships ever written.

Since everyone knows the story of Charlotte's Web, it would be silly for me to outline it here. There is a lot to be considered, like the range of emotions and the goodness of the characters, as well as the whole coming of age and life cycle plot line. Birth and death and all points in between are covered. Wilbur is born and overcomes the odds and survives. Fern goes from the little girl who raises Wilbur like a baby to the one who races off to ride the ferris wheel, holding hands with Henry.

Wilbur is still young and alone when he is comforted by Charlotte's voice and her promise to be his friend. Charlotte keeps Wilbur company, helping him to get used to his new surroundings. Later, her creativity and ingenuity secure his future. Charlotte's friendship means so much to Wilbur that he returns the favor for generations. I don't think it gets much sweeter than that.

The Historian

2005-10-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

The Historian by Elisabeth Kostovo

I was a little concerned that this was going to be like most of its ilk. But, this was just different enough to make it stand out from the pack. There seems to be an odd trend in literature these days. Somehow, making ancient history dangerous in the present is considered an appealing enough concept that it makes books fly off the shelves into briefcases, beach bags and onto nightstands. I can't wrap my mind around the ridiculousness of the concept. I enjoy historical fiction. I like a well written story of any kind. I've got no problem suspending belief and enjoying the ride. Give me a reason and I'm in, but how do you expect me to believe that a crime or mystery of hundreds of years ago is hazardous to modern people. I think it's safe to assume that all of the key players are long since dead. The Historian sidesteps that by combining history, mystery and the undead. She's made it so the danger is ever present and the interested parties are still out there. In this situation, despite the age of the mystery, the players are still viable.

The Historian as a travelogue is great. So much information about places I'll probably never see. The detail and descriptions were fascinating. I like the melding of history and cultures and fiction all wrapped up in a world tour. The homework to get the information right (not that I'd be able to prove that it is) must have taken quite a bit of serious research.

However, I'm really not sure how I felt about the story. I don't get the rationale behind the anonymous daughter. If she is somehow the last in Dracula's line, maybe she could have had a name and been more than a little more of a storyline, than a little groping with a college boy and running around in the shadows picking up mystery leftovers from the clues her father found. I do think the Dracula needs historians is a strange concept, although I did get the biggest kick out of all the references to the "evil librarian." Ms. Kostovo could have done without all the silly secret societies lurking in the shadows and working at cross purposes. They didn't add to the story, they just muddied the waters. Historians, librarians, book dealers and anthropologists were more than enough to run around like Scooby and Shaggy hunting for the answers to the mystery behind their ghoul.

Not a perfect book, but, really, how many can claim that title? Plenty of writers who are getting published today without merit, as far as I'm concerned, could learn a thing or two from Ms. Kostovo. Not that they should all write vampire books, since that market is pretty glutted already. Granted, the vampire legend has been around from medieval times to its current spot in the pop culture consciousness. Books, movies, television comedies, dramas, soap operas and cartoons. In this case, Ms. Kostovo replaced the sexual subtext of the vampire story. A bite was violent and purposeful, but not sexual. Instead of Dracula making himself a harem of vampire brides, he was creating an undead think tank. Wait. Let me give this some thought. I've been looking for a way to improve my chances of reading all the books on my every growing to be read lists. This could work.

Cat's Eye

2005-10-04T12:23:00.000-05:00

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

Cat's Eye is the story of painter Elaine Risley told chronologically from two points in time. Elaine has returned to Toronto for a retrospective of her work.

As a small child, Elaine and her brother traveled nonstop with their parents. Mr. Risley was a biologist and lived, with his family, constantly on the move, studying insect life. Elaine had no concept of how girls behave together or what it's like to be and have a girl friend. She's known only an older brother for a playmate and has never had a need for dresses or other girly accoutrement.

When the family settles down in a real home of their own, Elaine learns all the good and the bad of being a girl. Making friends proves fairly easy, surviving the evils of girlfriends is much harder. The damage done by these girls matches up with a lot of the mean girl stuff we've been hearing so much about. Girls are pros at psychological warfare and these girls are no exception.

First Elaine was friends with Carol and things were just fine. She found what it was like to have a girlfriend and the experience was positive. Then they added Grace to the equation and the dynamic changed. Now the two girls were competing for Grace's attention but, it was still friendly. They tried to win favor, but there were no attacks, nothing mean spirited. Enter Cordelia, youngest of 3 girls, rich in comparison to the others and a new and fresh face in the neighborhood. Cordelia worked things a little differently than the girls were used to. She establishes herself as the queen bee with a campaign of pressure and humiliation. Elaine's unfamiliarity with the intricacies of being a female adolescent makes her the easiest target. At the height of Cordelia's reign she goes too far. This is a turning point for Elaine. She turns her back, rises above it all and moves on, seemingly like nothing happened. But, she is greatly changed by her experience.

Despite their history, Elaine always keeps an eye out for Cordelia. A couple of times Cordelia seeks out Elaine, forcing her to come face to face with the direction Cordelia's life takes. Cordelia still has some kind of hold over Elaine, but it's nothing like the power she had before. In fact, Cordelia is the loser in the situation, as Elaine takes control of her own life and moves forward.

Elaine Risley is a complex and well written character. She is smart and talented and flawed. The wounds to her psyche and the way she deals with victimization give a clear picture of the turns her life will take and how it affects her art and her life.

I find it so hard to believe that until relatively recently I hadn't read any of Ms. Atwood's works. I'm sure I'm not finished with her yet.

Citizen Girl

2005-09-29T09:13:00.000-05:00

Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Krauss

If you are at all familiar with The Nanny Diaries or Lauren Weisburger's The Devil Wears Prada, you are aware of the bitching, whining doormats that are the protagonists in these books. In one of the discussion threads over at chicklit.com someone commented that the heroine really needed "to grow a pair." I love this sentiment. It really does feel apt. I can't imagine how people can get themselves into these situations and I find myself so frustrated reading this stuff.

I can never imagine what makes these books appealing to people. I don't mind reading about people overcoming obstacles and hardships. I don't need fairy tale fiction, but why would I want the mundane, everyday atrocities hurled at me? Who enjoys this? Yet, I know the answer to this question, because I know people who read and loved these books. I think it could be that people don't like to feel like it's just them. If things are crappy in your life and you are trapped in a bad situation and feeling like you have no options, you probably would feel better knowing there's someone else in the same boat. Or, maybe that you relate and so it feels comfortable reading these books. Or, it could be that readers like it when they read about someone having it worse than they do. They do nothing for me.

The authors of this book also wrote The Nanny Diaries, which didn't do much for me. I guess their trademark device is the anonymous naming. The protagonist is just called Girl, her boss is Guy, her love interest is Buster and her employer is My Company. I find it pretty lame. Do they not have enough imagination to come up with actual names for characters and businesses. Actually women and tertiary characters get names, most odd or overly simple

I didn't like Girl and I did feel a little bad about that. She should have felt like a kindred spirit. But I couldn't understand how she could be so clueless. She starts out working at a private non-profit organization for women. At first you believe that her boss is a psycho babble spewing bitch (if you've ever worked in human services, you know what I'm talking about) because I've seen the type and it seemed so strange to me that she could be efficient and organized and be accused of just the opposite. But then you notice that she can't get along with anyone. It's hard to believe that it's everyone else. There is only one common denominator in all of your problems. If you keep having the same problem over and over, you might want to evaluate your own role in it.

I know, if you've read the book, this seems kind of harsh. But, Girl and I got off on the wrong foot. She had all these expectations and a sense of entitlement that I had trouble looking past. Everyone was expected to give to her and do for her and cater to her. She went to job interviews and just because someone agreed to meet with her, she assumed that she was going to do what she wanted, more nonprofit, human services work. She didn't bother to look into the company before the interview. She was a disruption everywhere she went. it just seemed ridiculous to me. Who did she think she was?
On the Yay Girl? hand, she was gracious. She was grateful for kindnesses shown to her. Her ideas about how things should be were nice, although they didn't synch with the world she lived in.

When she loses her job and moans to her mother, Grace, who runs a writer's retreat, which sounds nothing like the one in Haunted, suggests that she reread The Grapes of Wrath to put her situation in perspective. At this point in the story, I saw parallels. Well, mostly it was the job fair that seemed like a modern Grapes of Wrath. The economy is bad and there are all these people looking for work and employers who tease large groups of unemployed peoples with the promise of jobs that may not really exist. The desperation among people fighting over jobs at mass interview where they weed out the candidates and the familiar faces in the job hunt and the unemployment line.

There were some good descriptive passages. My favorite was about a supply closet described as King Tut's afterlife is planned by Staples. Girl came from the world of private non-profit where there is no such thing as an overflowing supply closet, unless there is money left over at the end of the fiscal year and then all the scrimping all year pays off in some much needed supplies.
I'm glad that I didn't read this book, but I was not really crazy about the performance either.

All of the male voices sounded like surfer/skater boys (Duuuude). I was completely annoyed by the precious and pretentious pronunciations. For some reason the reader insisted on mispronouncing words or trying to make them sound French, or I guess high brow. It failed. It grated. An audio book sometimes bears the double burden of not only quality of the printed material, but the aesthetics of the performance. I find that both of these things can really color the way I react to a book. A book in hand, read in your own inner voice, as such, requires only your skill of comprehension and the material provided to you by the author. An audiobook, which can improve comprehension of some books, can also detract from the enjoyment of the experience with a narrator that just doesn't do it for you. There are some narrators that can read me anything and I can enjoy it and some that I can't listen to at all.

If you are a fan of the chicklit books and liked The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, you'll probably like this too. Otherwise, I'd stay away from this one.

Banned Books Week

2005-09-27T10:37:00.000-05:00

It's Banned Book week!! Get out there and read something considered really subversive and dangerous!!

Here is the ALA website with information on banned book week (September 24, 2005 to October 1, 2005. Here is the list of the 100 most frequently banned and challenged books in the last decade of the 20th century.

I started all of this (the mighty Colossus that is Fausti's Book Quest) based upon my realization of how many books appeared on the best ever book lists and the banned and challenged list. I'm not alone in my interest in this. Today, Iliana over at Book-Girl's Nightstand is recommending that everyone go out and read a banned book. There are plenty of really good books on that list. Over at Bookshelves of Doom there is always a ton of great information on the book challenges. Stop over to both sites and see for yourself.

My 2004 reading list has links to my posts to see what I had to say about some of these books. We're talking books that won prizes, and classics and authors who've won major awards. Maya Angelo, Toni Morrison, Mark Twain, Madeleine L'Engle, Roald Dahl, John Steinbeck, Margaret Atwood, Harper Lee, the list goes on and on. Some of the books on the list that I've read, well, they were crap, but that is a matter of taste. I didn't enjoy them. I have yet to read a book that I find dangerous.

I love it when people have never read the book, but have heard that someone at some point found it objectionable and all of a sudden they are filing law suits and petitioning school districts and making a great big fuss over what they refer to as pornography. Let's get this straight. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not racist. The language used in the book was the languaged used when the author wrote it. In fact, the book is not racist at all. Huck runs away from home and goes along with a runaway slave named Jim. Anyone who has actually read the book will know that Jim is the heart and the brains of the story.

Did any of these people read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings? Yes, terrible things happen in it. It's an autobiography. Maya Angelou, an amazing woman and gifted writer had a really hard life. Incomprehensibly so, for me. She had the courage to write about her experiences and how she managed to keep going and become the woman she is today, despite all of the obstacles she had to overcome. This book was sad and frustrating and, ultimately it was empowering. I wanted to protect that poor little girl and then I was in awe of her strength and goodness and resolve and intelligence.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is on this list. Holden Caufield embodied the voice of all the disaffected youth of his time. The tale, although dated, still holds much to offer today's adolescents. Nobody is saying that your children should go out and imitate the book, just read it, see if it interests you, see if it gives you insight into yourself or others.

Go Ask Alice is a total After School Special kind of a book. Anybody remember those? ABC had them on to teach us the dangers of sex, drugs, violence, et al. They showed them, you guessed it, after school, just at that time when kids across the country were popping on the tv. Parents loved these things. Yes, there is drug usage in this book. It's about the dangers of drug usage. It's an anonymous diary about the actual decline of a perfectly nice, intelligent, middle class teenage girl, ending in her death by overdose. It's not a directory of the crack houses in your area, or the drug dealer yellow pages.

Do any of these people know that Toni Morrison won the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature? Yes, she did. She doesn't write pornography. She is a professor of literature at an Ivy League School. She's not writing titillating, naughty books. She's an artist, a genius, a woman with an amazing grasp of thoughts, ideas and words.

You are in no position to judge a book until you've read what's between the covers. If, after you've actually read the book yourself, you do not care for it, or do not feel comfortable having your children read it, then by all means, don't go out and buy it for your kids. But, you don't get to make those decisions for other people and their children. If you are ruled by your ignorance, maybe you might want to pipe down and keep your thoughts to yourself. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "It's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." As Phil Donahue said last week (when he verbally spanked Bill O'Reilly), "Loud doesn't mean right."

I was lucky enough to have a mother who let me decide for myself what I wanted to read. She chose books for me, and a number of the books she bought me as a child are still on the banned and challenged list, (go, subversive Mommy, go)and let me choose my own reading material. When I was unsure of what to read, she pointed me in directions that might be of interest to me, but she never told me that I couldn't read something. Because of that, I've read all kinds of books and decided for myself what I like and what I don't.

This week I will be making a point of reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (#4 on the list) and Heather Has Two Mommies (#11). If you have been reading this post and saying to yourself, "Fausti, you're preaching to the choir," then go out and read a book from the banned and challenged list. Pick up Are You There God, It's Me Margaret or maybe To Kill A Mockingbird. Enjoy!

2005-09-27T10:33:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (on 23 cds, performed by Jim Dale)

We're up to book 5 in the series and it's looking like the gloves are off and we're working toward the finish line. Harry is a 15 year old wizard and stuck with his only family, the Dursleys for yet another summer. The Dursleys are his mother's sister, Aunt Petunia, her husband, Uncle Vernon, and their son, Dudley. They are not wizarding people and have a dim view, to put it mildly, of Harry's kind.

This summer Harry is looking for news that Lord Voldemort has returned. He searches headlines of the wizard newspaper, The Daily Prophet, and surreptitiously listens to the muggle news to hear about Voldemort's comings and goings, or really, I guess, killings and maimings and general destruction. He figures that Voldemort's return should be big news and he's certainly dangerous enough that everyone should be aware that he's out there. The Dursley's are not pleased with Harry's interest in the news and see it as more evidence of his weirdness. Since their darling Dudley has no interest, then it must be completely abnormal. However, there are no headlines and no muggle news stories that fit what he's looking for. Harry's also been trying to get information from his friends, but he only gets terse replies, so he once again feels totally left out of the loop.

One day while walking through the neighborhood, two dementors come after Harry and Dudley. Harry drives them off with his patronus and gets Dudley home, only to find that he is in big trouble for performing magic as an underage wizard. When things go from bad to worse, a group of wizards comes to see Harry safely to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, which also happens to be Sirius Black's family home.

Once situated at Order headquarters and back amongst family and friends, Harry gets some of the information he's been looking for. However, he is not pleased with the answers. While Harry was scanning headlines for stories that didn't appear, the Daily Prophet and the Ministry of Magic were taking digs at Harry and Albus Dumbledore on a regular basis. Rumors are circulating that Dumbledore is no longer capable of running Hogwarts. As far as Harry's concerned, the stories make him out to be an unbalanced attention seeker. All of his stories and adventures and utterances are now considered suspect. Harry finds that the Ministry of Magic refuses to consider or admit that Lord Volemort is back. They'd rather see Harry and Dumbledore discredited.

I love that Sirius and Molly Weasely have a heated argument that amount to a fight over who loves Harry more. Here is this kid who spent his life convinced that no one cared at all about him and suddenly he has all these surrogate parents and they are quarreling about what's best for him and who loves him more. This was such a sweet touch. With all that is dark and evil in this book, things are the warmest for Harry. He is surrounded by people who genuinely care about and for him.

I did have a little trouble with the Mad Eye Moody storyline. it stems from the Goblet of Fire. In the last book Harry developed a great relationship with Moody and learned a lot from him as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. I always thought it was pretty lame to pull the "he was an impostor" thing. It felt like Rowling needed an answer to some questions and so she dusted off the polyjuice potion plot device and stuffed the real Mad Eye Moody into a trunk. This time out you have to mix some familiarity with the idea that we've never met this guy.

Jim Dale, was, as usual, pretty amazing. I especially loved his Dolores Umbridge voice. I could feel what a miserable simpering witch (no pun intended) she was. It was really creepy. I believe that Jim Dale's voice will be in my head as I read the rest of this series. I understand his fame for his voice, because I'm pretty sure that I would have to hold myself back from charging him like a 10-year if I was standing within earshot.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is really dark, so much more so than any of the others. Life in the wizarding world is portrayed as so much more dark and scary than any of the previous books. Everyone is in danger. Between the propaganda and the misinformation, there is a real sense of fear of the unknown and each other. The absence of Dumbledore in Harry's life throughout this book adds to that. I don't understand how it can be that Cornelius Fudge is so junior high school in this book. He is jealous and threatened by Albus Dumbledore who has given him no reason for this. Actually, I guess this is common, albeit, childish behavior. You can just take a look at modern American politics. I'm pretty sure that your most aggressive smear campaigns come down to this very sad behavior.

I have a few unanswered questions which I hope will be cleared up in book 6.

1. Rowling pulled a Mad Eye Moody ending again. Dolores Umbridge is a patsy to Fudge, who although sneaky and untrustworthy, has never seemed violent. Yet, she admits to having sicced the dementors on Harry. Why? She was a secretary to Fudge and would have been party to discrediting Harry, but that was happening all along without anyone needing to take any action. So, really, why?

2. Fudge, what's up with his cowardice and paranoia?

3. Who was in charge of the whole Death Eater trial business and how was it decided who could go free and who should be sent to Azkaban?

Actually, I have many more questions, but I am drawing a complete blank. Maybe I'll be able to get some answers for myself, or Rowling will supply them as this series draws to a close.

Alice's Adventure's Through the Looking Glass

2005-09-21T14:53:00.000-05:00

Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Alice is just sitting home, watching her cat, Dinah, care for her kittens. While she is spending time in the drawing room, she notices that she can't tell if the fire in the room in the mirror is lit. She goes closer and closer until she winds up in the room in the mirror, to find that the parts that she could see from the other room are the same, but the rest of the house is completely different.

She rights figures on a chess board who are alive, but can not seem to see her and then Alice goes exploring in the new room and beyond. After making her way through the garden, she gets instuctions on how to become a queen. In an orderly and chesslike fashion, she follows the stops laid out by the White Queen and in doing so meets an assortment of interesting characters.

Everyone is familiar with Tweedledee and Tweedledum and their duel over a rattle. This is just more of the well known story.

Once again, Alice wakes to find it was all a dream.

Little Children

2005-09-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

Little Children by Tom Perrotta, on 10 cds, performed by George Wilson

I really didn't love this book, or George Wilson. He's dry and all the narration is bland and unemotional. It's more like he's ticking items off a list than performing a novel for a reader/listener's pleasure. And, even worse, some of his women's voices sound more like the the voice from the old Smucker's commercials. I may have enjoyed this book, just in my own voice in my own head, but I guess I'm not going to be finding that out now.

Little Children was very timely. I've read a few books like this now. The author incorporates big news stories going on, or in recent memory, into the story. There was much discussion of things that happened around the time this book was written. Specifically, Perrotta brings up the Chandra Levy/Gary Conditt situation. I remember that story well. I distinctly remember hoping that Conditt was guilty. I know that sounds awful, but this guy was vilified. True, he was no angel. He was a philanderer, which if he hadn't been a congressman, would have been a private family matter. It should not have been national news. Unless, that truly is the way we're headed, in which case all cheaters should be showcased on the news and in print. The newspaper would be like the phone book in large cities, if that were to happen. Did that sound like I mean that poor girl's fate shouldn't have been national news? In that case, it should never have happened at all. She was a girl out for a run and she became a murder victim, and most likely a rape statistic, considering that was the m.o. of the guy responsible. Conditt's life was destroyed. His career and family were compromised. He will spend the rest of his days with the taint of murder suspect and he had nothing to do with it. If he was guilty of murdering Chandra Levy, then his life was going to be over anyway, but that's not the case and other than jail time, the result was the same.

Little Children revolves around a variety of people in a small community. There is Todd, a stay at home dad to three year-old Aaron and husband to Kathy, a documentary filmmakker for PBS. Todd is studying for his third try at the bar exam. His relationships to his wife and son can be a bit strained and he's feeling sort of trapped in his life. He's a man in a woman's world, the world of play dates and community parks. Being the only man in most of these situations, he's often fodder for the imaginations of the local moms. In fact, at one park, although he is never addressed directly, he is referred to as the prom king and supposition about his runs rampant.

Sarah was working as a Starbucks barista when she agreed to go out with middle aged, divorced Richard. They have now have a three year-old daughter, Lucy. Sarah is having difficulty fitting in with the playground moms. She was a free spirit before Richard with a sad romantic history. There is a pecking order and a judgmental quality to life with the playground moms and Sarah is not interested in playing their games. Her home life is no less complicated and frustrating. Recently, Richard has developed an appreciation of internet porn. His new friend, Slutty Kay has even sold him a pair of her panties along with some Polaroids of her wearing them and a detailed account of what she did while wearing them. (One word, ewww)

Todd meets Larry, who recruits him for a no pad/helmet tackle football league for a team made up of cops, called The Enforcers. Todd played football in high school and college and the team needs a new quarterback, after they pretty much maimed the last one. Larry was a cop, but left the force after he shot and killed a 13 year-old boy at the mall. In his defense, he was called to the scene because of reports of this young man in the mall with a gun. Larry seems a bit high strung. The story ended with a dead 13 year old boy with a toy gun. Now, Larry spends his time making life miserable for the "pervert" who moved into the community.

Ronald McGorvey, the pervert aforesaid, is an ex-convict. He's moved in with his mother after being released from prison. McGorvey was convicted of exposing himself to a Girl Scout who came to his door selling cookies. (This is probably why they set up tables in shopping centers in my area.) Considering that a lot of the action takes place on the playground, you can imagine how McGorvey goes over with the other characters.

I found most of the characters so unlikable that I almost sympathized with the pedophile. I thought the people were so horrible that it was going to wind up that he made a mistake and maybe wasn't such an awful guy. Now, if you recall my commentary on Lolita, you know how creeped out I was/am by the subject matter. I kept wanting to defend this guy and his mother. Soon, it was obvious that McGorvey was a total creep too, so I was left feeling just for Mrs. McGorvey.

Larry spends the majority of his free time harassing Mrs. McGorvey. I'm sure that Ronald was the intended victim, but it was Mrs. McGorvey's house that he was vandalizing and she was the one who had a screaming madman at her door at all hours of the night.

I guess, all in all, I was not too impressed with this book. I wasn't crazy about the characters. I didn't feel like the story went anywhere either. It was whine, bitch, whine, bitch, faux climax, the end.

Fire Sale

2005-09-15T10:05:00.000-05:00

Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky

VI Warshawski gets a call from her high school basketball coach asking her to take over for her. It's a volunteer position with no support from the school. It is one small way to keep the girls off the streets, giving them a sense of belonging and accomplishment and give some a chance to go to college that they might not otherwise have. However, without any support from the school, any funding for supplies or uniforms, V.I. will have to beg for on her own. Vic's childhood neighborhood,South Chicago has seen better days. It's gone from a working town to a neighborhood that is plagued by unemployment and poverty.
V.I. is still with her lover, Morrell. He's currently recuperating from injuries he sustained as a reporter in the Middle East. His long time friend and fellow journalist, Marcena Love, is staying with him and that causes much tension for everyone. Marcena and V.I. butt heads, a lot due to their being two sides of the same coin, as they say. Morrell seems to be a man of few words. I don't think he has 10 lines in the whole book. V.I.'s boyfriends are really just on the fringe of her life. Basically, I think they are mostly just around to drive her home from the hospital when she gets all banged up.

One of V.I.'s girl ballers asks her to go and speak to her mother about problems at her job. V.I. winds up involved with a troubled local business, the local pastor and the Bysen family of a major discount department store chain, Buy Smart. There are many trials, tribulations, crimes and criminals. V.I. takes more shots than a professional boxer. She winds up in the emergency room a lot. No one has any problem letting her have it. Everybody wants a piece of her. People shoot her, hit her, run her down, blow her up, or say pretty vile things. She is always banged and bruised to the point that you wonder just how much more one person can possibly take. I don't think I've ever read a series with a female protagonist like V.I. Warshawski.

I was really struck by all of the open hostility displayed throughout the text. Everybody is hostile, the girls on the basketball team, V.I. and her high school rivals. Some girl from her high school who has a daughter on the basketball team has never gotten over some prank or slight from high school and she does nothing but name call and make judgments about who VI is. Honestly, how long do you hang on to that crap? Sheesh, get over yourself already. Do actual, rational adults still hold on to childhood and adolescent slights? V.I. and her ex, the police officer, Conrad, also keep the hostility going. I told you there was a lot of it here. V.I. is hostile to anyone who monopolizes Morrell. Every group has a problem with every other group and their is even intragroup hostility running rampant. I'm thinking Paretsky needs to seriously medicate her characters.

My other problem with this book, is really petty, I guess. It's the "word" blunk. There is no blunk. It is not a word, and yet Sara Paretsky uses it three times. It's used to describe eyes rolling back in a head (I told you these people are violent and hostile enough that she feels she can safely invent words for concussion and loss of consciousness symptoms). It was really annoying. Unless, maybe Paretsky wanted the book to be a truly interactive experience and she could engender hostility in her readers as well.

I think that a little warmth and maybe even just a smidge of humor to bring some humanity to these books is in order. I don't need V.I. to take up needlepoint and stitch samplers with life lessons on them. I'd just like to see her as an appealing character. The people in these books are all so bleak and cold and humorless. The sun never shines in Paretsky's Chicago. After a while, even a reader can start to feel worn out, beat up and tired of the bleak, gray landscape.

Devil's Corner

2005-09-15T10:03:00.000-05:00

Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline

Victoria Allegretti is a rookie Assistant US Attorney. Her partner is an FTA agent called Morty. Vicki and Morty go to meet with an informant on a gun case that looks like it's going nowhere. Everything goes wrong from the moment they get to the interview and Vicki winds up the only survivor. Morty dies in her arms, killed by two thugs who left with drugs after shooting him and the informant, along with her unborn child. Vicki goes to meet with Raheema, the defendant in the gun case and instead of having her released since there is no more case, she kind of loses her mind and attacks the defendant, right in front of the defense attorney. Vicki gets suspended, but, does this deter her? No. Instead she decides to investigate the murder of her informant and her partner on her own while lusting after her married friend and mentor.

Devil's corner refers to a neighborhood in Philadelphia. Lisa Scottoline sets her works in Philly and she does a really good job with it. You get a true sense of the city, warts and all in her books. Not every author does a good job with the locales in their books. I think John Sandford is great with the way he writes locational information in his books, which are primarily set in Minnesota. Jennifer Weiner really gets Philly down pretty well in her books, too. Sarah Dunn wrote a chick lit book set in Philly that I didn't think did justice to the city at all. I love when an author gives a feel for the setting of the book. It's important that the reader gets a sense of where the action is taking place.

This was not one of the Bennie Rosato books, but a stand alone with completely new characters. I really like the Benie Rosato books. The characters are appealing and the books are well written. As far as this book goes, I like Vicki. I like the buddy action with Raheema and I think if it could be remotely plausible (but I don't see how it could), I wouldn't mid reading about them again. However, button down, private school, Harvard educated Vicki always seems, not just out of her element, but not consistent with her character.

There was a lot of good in this book, but I can't say that I was totally won over. I'll be waiting to see what happens when Scottoline's next series book hits the shelves.

4th of July

2005-09-15T09:58:00.000-05:00

4th of July by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

This is, obviously, the fourth book in the ladies' murder club series. Lindsay Boxer is a lieutenant in homicide in the San Francisco Police Department. She gets handed a horrible case, reminiscent of her first unsolved murder case. Lots of seriously lame red herrings and plot twists later, Lindsay wraps up all the cases. Yup, that's it. That's the book. Cookie cutter mystery, with the usual twists and a big mess that the protagonist must clean up.
For the record, Patterson is just as bad at writing adult women as he is at writing adolescent girls. He even has a female co writer on this one and still no realism in this female protagonist. I'm a woman. I talk to other women. I know how we talk and Patterson's conversations between women do not feel real to me. They are stilted and phony feeling. It certainly came across as more of a man's idea of how women speak to and behave around each other than what it's really like. Maybe it stems from men's idea that we are such unknowable creatures. Although there are plenty of male authors who write women beautifully, with all the nuances of female behavior seeming more organic. Yikes! Am I getting all new agey here? That is really not me. I am a modern girl, a term which I get to define for myself. I don't like the impression that my identity as a woman is or can be dictated by anyone else.

I'm really having a problem with the concept that there are set labels for women and a hierarchy of their value. What, you may ask, does this have to do with anything? Maybe nothing, but to be honest, I've been getting really worked up by the whole "Feminist Movement" thing. Between the gender confusion that it has heaped upon women and the scary anti-traditional woman attitude, I'm getting really freaked out.
In the past few weeks, thanks to good old Blog Explosion, I've encountered a number of "mommy blogs" that have received comments implying that the bloggers were unimportant and wasting precious web space. The rationale given for this viewpoint was that the commenter considered herself a feminist and therefore wanted a career and thought the Mommy track beneath her and the Mommy's themselves, I guess, are traitors to the cause. I can understand if some blogs don't appeal to or interest some people. Everyone is different and that's usually a good thing. We all like different things. That doesn't mean that a stay at home mom is worthless because her priorities are different.

My mother was a stay at home mom. She didn't work full time until after I started high school. She is also a great model as a feminist. She embraces all the strengths a woman has and makes a point of avoiding the traps that we can fall into. She proved herself as an excellent leader in the workforce. As a supervisor she was conscientious and caring. Her employees adored her and took pride in doing a good job for her. She's generally adored everywhere she goes.
There are plenty of women who feel the need to assert themselves by attacking other women, or by acting like men. A lot of women in power fall into this trap. It doesn't have to be this way. A woman doesn't have to be a bitch, or made of stone to get ahead. She doesn't need to sleep her way to the top and/or bitch slap everyone around her down.

A true feminist is a woman who embraces who she is. She can be whatever she wants. That's what feminism really is. She knows a man isn't always the best person for the job. Managing a household is not necessarily easier than managing an office, a major corporation, or a government. We're free to choose our own paths. Our choices made for ourselves and our control in our own destinies, that's what it's all about.

Okay, stepping off my little soapbox now. James Patterson tries on the voices of a disparate group of protagonists in his various series and I've never felt like he could make me believe they could be real. None give that sense that he is "writing what he knows." Although, on the other hand, he certainly can not be accused of being a Mary Sue. Maybe he would be more believable if he was.

I cannot believe that he has yet another book on the best seller list this summer. The man is a bad book factory. He's churning out more crap than can be swallowed by the book reading public. I think we're looking at about a half dozen books by Patterson this year. He's off my reading list, maybe, just maybe, if his stuff is all over the best seller list (why, people, why?) I will do the audio, but that's where I draw the line.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-09-06T08:57:00.000-05:00

My commentary on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling, on cd, performed by Jim Dale can be found here.

I Love Michael Moore

2005-09-02T11:48:00.000-05:00

This is a cross post. Over at my real website, Fausti's Book Quest, I posted the following. Stop by and see what I've been reading. There are two new book posts this week.

I can't help myself. I just love him. I think the man is a genius. Honestly, I didn't expect to even like him. I avoided watching his first documentary, Roger and Me because the idea of him stalking some automotive executive just rubbed me the wrong way. I knew that he had a very good reason for what he was doing. But, if he was going to be obnoxious and push people around and scream and yell and carry on, causing a disruption everywhere he went, he was just going to be a menace and not get his point across. I've seen it happen many times.Then I watched it. He wasn't annoying. He didn't force his way anywhere. He was respectful to everyone he met. He waited his turn and left when asked. He was perfect.
I own his dvds and his books. I'm also on his mailing list. This morning I had this in my inbox. I read it twice, forwarded to people I knew would appreciate it and wanted to do more. So, here it is:
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael MooreMMFlint@aol.com www.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

What's New at Fausti's Book Quest?

2005-08-26T13:50:00.000-05:00

Hi, and thanks for surfing through. Here's a list of what's new at Fausti's Book Quest.

Commentary on The Agony of Alice - the first book in the series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor can be found here. This series is high on the list of banned and challenged books.

I read and was not impressed by James Patterson's Maximum Ride.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov just gave me more proof as to his genius.

I found a link on Patricia Cornwell and her claim to have figured out the identity of Jack the Ripper. I discuss my thoughts on Cornwell and her claims here.

New Post

2005-08-16T08:36:00.000-05:00

New Post up at Fausti's Book Quest. To read my commentary on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban click here.

New Post at Fausti's Book Quest

2005-08-12T13:59:00.000-05:00

My commentary on Alexander McCall Smith's The Full Cupboard of Life can be seen here.

Haunted

2005-08-10T09:25:00.000-05:00

Fresh post on Haunted by Chuck Palhaniuk. You can read my commentary here.

Last 5 Books discussed at Fausti's Book Quest

2005-08-08T09:11:00.000-05:00

Hi! Here is a list of the last five books discussed at Fausti's Book Quest:

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (3rd book in the series) by Eoin Colfer
All the Flowers Are Dying (A Matthew Scudder book) by Lawrence Block
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book one in the series) by J.K. Rowling on 7 audio cds, performed by Jim Dale
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Four to Score by Janet Evanovich on cd, performed by C.J. Critt

You can stop by here to check it out.

Fausti's Book Quest

Sorry for the confusion

2005-07-12T10:46:00.000-05:00

Hi. Sorry for any confusion, but you can find my blog by following this link:

Fausti's Book Quest.

I don't know how I wound up with this blank blog page, but I hope to see you at my other site.