The Queen of All That is Ordinary

Trying to Remember

2010-09-01T20:51:00.009-05:00

Today is the first day of September. I knew it somehow in my heart before I knew it in my head this morning, for I found myself humming these lyrics in the shower as I got ready for work:

Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow...

I stopped to wonder why I was humming that song, and of course half-singing the words all out of order. I love the song but it's not in my regular rotation of songs to sing obnoxiously off-key around the house. Then I realized it was indeed September 1.

I love the first of every month. New start. Fresh beginning. Clean slate. Fewer strokes of the pen when writing a check. My goodintentionsometer goes through the roof and everything seems much more possible. September 1 is especially good, though. I know that the equinox isn't for another few weeks and that I can still wear my white cotton pants until Monday without scandalizing most of society, and that our city's schools already started last week, but for me September 1st signals the end of summer and the beginning of my favorite season.

This summer has been a particularly hard one, and I'm not sad to see it go. Work has been inordinately stressful and my core belief in what I do was shaken and challenged in unexpected ways. Money's been tight everywhere I turn, the summer's heat wave seemed to go on forever and every time I turn on the news I feel I recognize my world a little less. I think I'm emerging more or less intact now, and there were many good times had as well, but today I'm not sorry to bid this summer adieu.

I'd made a much-delayed trip to the grocery store last night and so when I got up I also remembered I had a fridge-full of new food. Ten minutes later Ben was thrilled beyond words to discover a lovely pot roast buried under a ton of vegetables in a 6-qt. slow cooker. I wasn't cooking much over the summer so this was terribly exciting.

The day turned out to be good in many different ways. Around lunch it started to rain, cooling the day off and completely matching my mood. Then I found a spare wad of cash sequestered away in a pocket of my purse, so I treated myself to a late lunch by myself downtown. I don't know if I can adequately describe how great it was. I started with an almond steamer (frothy steamed almond-flavored milk, perfectly comforting and wonderful in every way) then had a big bowl of the soup of the day, a rich chicken and potato gnocchi soup. It was just exactly what I needed, and perhaps the most flavorful chicken brothed-based soup I've ever tasted. I couldn't finish it but I enjoyed every bit.

Lovely spot for a quiet late-afternoon sit on a rainy September day.

Really Great Soup. I took a picture.

Work was fun today. I started off this job not knowing the first thing in the world about graphic design, but now that's one of the more satisfying hats I get to wear. I like the combination of creativity and structure, the concreteness of the finished product. It's gratifying to make ads and materials that my colleagues appreciate and that I know are an improvement on what we'd used before.

Then when I got home, the house smelled of my childhood. All those Sunday lunches of pot roast Dad had made for the family Saturday night while we slept, all of those were waiting for me. I gave the dog a longer walk, enjoyed the post-rain September neighborhood, then settled in for pot roast and a quiet evening at home. Now I'm sitting here blogging for the first time in more than 15 months and listening to classical music on NPR and Ben's frittering around the house doing Ben things. It's nice.

Thinking back over my day, I knew it was one I wanted to remember. One where life was slow and oh so mellow. I knew it this morning before I even got started, and I knew once I knew that that it was time for a blog post, for myself if for no one else.

It's the first of the month and I'm full of good intentions, but I really would like to start writing here more often. No promises. But for now it feels good and I want to remember that feeling.

36

2009-06-06T12:53:00.002-05:00

My parents always made a big deal about my birthdays. I think most of the credit for this goes to Mom, but Dad was awfully jolly about my day, too. We'd have a great party and a day full of special Jennifer Things. I grew up thinking they were inherently magical, special days.

I remember when I turned 18 and had just moved out of the house to Little Rock for a couple of weeks before my parents would move down to join us. I was living at my grandparents' for that time. It was in the middle of the week, everyone was busy with their own lives, and I was working at Shoney's all day. Somehow, for the first time ever, I went most of the day without anyone wishing me happy birthday. Eventually, they did, and I think I got some presents trickling in here and there over the next couple of weeks from various people, but it was a real wake-up call to me. My first adult birthday, what I'd thought would be a huge one, just because, and it turned out to be devoid of almost any overt birthdayness. I really was an adult.

It was then that I realized that the magic of birthdays is made up mostly of what people who love you make of them. I knew on that 18th birthday that my family and friends didn't suddenly love me any less, they just hadn't had time or ability to make a fuss about it. I realized I'd been sort of spoiled all those years, and vowed to be grateful for any birthday attentions I got, and to always make a point of remembering and celebrating others' in some way.

Of course I don't. I forget people's all the time, or remember, but don't find time to call or write or send a gift. I wish I were better at that. Maybe someday I will be.

But it's okay, because every day is a good reason to celebrate someone you love, and everyone is human and forgets these things sometimes.

That said.

It's my birthday, and I'm excited. I'm 36. This is an important year for several reasons. Namely, because it's what I long ago decided would be my magic year.

I was born on June 6. So, 6/6. Six has thus, always been my favorite number--followed closely by four and nine, though it's harder to explain the why of those. Birthday numbers that contain sixes are automatically good. But 36 is 6 x 6. It's the best possible number, and has the added mathematical beauty of being the mash-up of a 3 and a 6. I don't know how to explain it, but it's lyrical and beautiful in a number sort of way in my head. Also, my other two favorite numbers , four and nine, when multiplied? 36.

It's destiny.

When I started writing this post, another reason occurred to me. That 18th birthday is now officially half a lifetime ago. That was a turning point. This will be another.

Apparently, it already has been, since I'm writing a blog post for the first time in months.

A lot has transpired in the meantime, and I'm sorry not to have written more updates in between.

The best new development is that I have a new job, and I love it. I'll have to write more about it in another post, but it's a great fit for me and my particular skill set at this point in my life. I'm looking forward to see how I grow in my career this coming year, as well as in every other area.

Thanks to everyone for the many, many birthday wishes I've received already, and for the years of love and support and friendship and laughter we've shared.

Happy you-day to you. And ma-ny mooooooooooooore....

Jennifer Joy, She Made a Toy

2009-03-10T22:57:00.011-05:00

I have the best parents in the world. Seriously. They are A-MAZ-ING people, both of them, and they have always put a lot of effort into parenting me and my sister and brother.

Like many kids of the 70s, I had a record of Free to Be You and Me, the children's music and spoken word recording by Marlo Thomas and a passel of other celebrities. I listened to that record I don't know how many thousand times. There were stories, songs, skits, poems performed by voices I would decades later realize were famous. People like Harry Belafonte, Diana Ross, Alan Alda, Mel Brooks and many others. I know in the case of Alan Alda, for instance, I knew him on MASH but always felt like I knew him from somewhere before. I only just figured this out.

Mom (Mommy back then) would hold me or sit by me and listen to the whole thing. She'd take time to explain what different lyrics meant and what the philosophy was behind them, actually talk to me like an equal about it.

One of my favorite lyrics, because it contained my name, was from the Helping song:

"Zachary Zugg took out the rug/
And Jennifer Joy helped shake it/
And Jennifer Joy, she made a toy--/
And Zachary Zugg helped break it!/
And some kinds of help/
Are the kind of help that helpings all about/
And some kinds of help are the kind of help/
We all could do without.

Mom and I always sang the Jennifer Joy line as loudly and happily as we could.

That's the thing about Free to Be You and Me--the songs were pretty great, the writing was funny, but it was really all about the messaging. These were songs, poems and sketches that were written in direct retaliation to the predominant gender biases in society. I learned it was OK for boys to play with dolls, or show their feelings, that women could grow up to be strong and independent and just as fast and smart as boys, that brothers and sisters rule, and that helping was fun and that I could grow up to be a construction worker or a doctor or a policeman or a mom, anything I wanted.

I was free, you see, to be me.

Today, a lot of people would call that cheesy idealism, but I loved it then and I love it now. It shaped my worldview. There's something so pure and joyous about these songs, an innocence beyond irony. As a friend of mine likes to say, I dig it.

I've never forgotten those songs. I've gone for long periods without thinking of them, sure, but they are a part of me now. I happened across the record in my parents' garage last summer. Not the best place for it to spend the past three decades, as it was warped in all kinds of twisty ways. I was a little sad, but it's OK. I've probably gotten warped in a lot of twisty ways since then, too.

Today, I was mentioning that album to a friend and he said I could probably find it all over YouTube. I didn't think about it at the time, but I thought later, why would a record be all over YouTube? So I went to visit. Wow. Turns out, that the 1972 album was made into a 1974 television special with even more celebrities. I had no idea. It was a complete trip seeing how people chose to animate or choreograph all the soundtrack to my childhood. It's so odd that I know these songs so well, yet never saw these 35-year old images until a few hours ago.

Here, are some of the recreations I found from that special. I literally think of the "It's Alright to Cry" song every time I'm fighting off serious tears. I think the fact that it's sung by Rosey Grier, the former NFL player and bodyguard, is fantastic.

Intro--Free to Be You and Me. Notice how they ripped off Mary Poppins, another favorite of mine, at the end.

Helping (by Shel Silverstein)--I like the album version better, but still.

It's Alright to Cry, sung by Rosey Grier

And, because my sister Laura and her husband Kyle are this week both at work for the first time since becoming parents in December, I thought I'd post this one in their honor. Play it for Abby, someday, sis. Even better if you dress up in some of these get-ups. :)

Parents Are People

Don (But Not Forgotten)

2009-03-07T17:08:00.005-06:00

My apologies. I had to put something of a pun in the heading to this post, because Don would have.

Don is my uncle, and he died a year ago today. He was a big part of my life and I have thought of him every day since he died, and a great percentage of my days before that. I miss him very much, but usually it's not exactly sad to miss him. I still feel connected to him, and he still makes me laugh. He is someone that when I think of him, the overriding emotion has always been joy. It's more muted now, but it's still joy that he's my uncle.

Everything that an uncle is supposed to be, he was. Fun-loving. Goofy. Supportive. Wise. Silly. Smart. Animated. Curious. Loving. There.

He played guitar, sang, preached, acted, laughed, had an inordinate fondness for bad jokes and for making his nieces and nephews giggle and squeal with glee. He and the aunt he picked out just for me, Yvonne, usually seemed to be enjoying the heck out of each other's company and grateful for each other, even through the rough times. They were true partners in life and love and in many ways excellent role models for my own marriage. Because they did not have children of their own, they showered us with attention at every opportunity. Don knew how to love a person wholly, and dedicated his life to spreading love, compassion and his faith in God to the world he encountered.

He was a Methodist minister like his two brothers, and now, his sister, and served many small congregations throughout rural Arkansas. As a preacher's kid, I can tell you, that while rewarding in many ways, this is a greatly undervalued and misunderstood career, and too often a thankless one. When Don finally felt the need for a career change, it was not for an easier job, or even a more lucrative job. Instead, after many years in the ministry, he went back and got a Master's in Social Work and became a caseworker and advocate for the indigent mentally ill. It sounds like I'm idealizing him when I say that day after day he worked long hours well above the scope of his job to get his clients, forgotten by society, the care they needed, but I'm really not. He'd take them shopping, drive them to appointments, think of all sorts of creative ways to boost their lives and prospects, or at least their day, by showing them someone cared about them. I lived with him and Y for a few months one year during this time, and witnessed his dedication to these people every day. He did this while still caring for a small, rural congregation part time and while battling the many hardships and complications of his diabetes.

He'd had diabetes from the time he was a kid, six or seven, I think. When I was young, I thought this was so cool (on up there with the fact that he drove a canary yellow Karmann Ghia and carried a chihuahua around in his shirt half the time). As a kid I thought it was neat and exotic that he drank Tab cola (before such a thing as Diet Coke existed), couldn't have sugar and gave himself shots. I can remember bragging about him on the playground to someone:

Other kid: "My uncle let me ride in his firetruck."

Me: "Yeah, well MY uncle is DIABETIC and is so tough he gives himself SHOTS every day!"

Diabetes, though, is an ugly, insidious disease. For all those years I naively thought it was just a thing to manage, it was silently hurting his body, eventually going after system after system. Don's health, never great, began to deteriorate pretty rapidly a few years ago. He got through a kidney transplant and seemed better for a while, but soon began to be in and out of the hospital for this and that procedure, test, fever, complication. Within a short time, we found out the diabetes had compromised his circulatory system and he needed major bypass surgery.

I was, as usual, wrapped up in my own self-absorption around that time, often hearing only after an incident that Don's health had taken a downturn, but on my way to work the morning of his big surgery, I suddenly thought to call him and wish him well. I only spoke to him for a couple of minutes, but I remember he sounded uncharacteristically anxious, and very happy that I had called. He spent much of the short phone call winding me up for his latest bad joke. Since I was driving in traffic (bad habit) I was distracted, and missed some of the narrative. Now, I just remember there was something about a cow and a helicopter in the punchline, I think. I wish I could remember it, but I do remember him laughing at it. I told him I loved him, that all would go swimmingly and I'd see him this evening, then hung up. After work, I would join my family in the waiting room for many hours waiting for word of the surgery, and later, for him to wake up.

He did wake up from the surgery, but everything had changed. I don't know that I ever fully understood it, but the oxygen had left his brain in the aphasia mode for too long and his body was so weak. It was weeks, maybe months, before we could communicate with him with any semblance of normalcy, and then, only touch and go. Complicating everything, the medical center during his recovery had been negligent, resulting in an incident that deprived his brain of oxygen for several minutes and permanently set back his recovery. We all did our best to sit with him or visit, but I think only Yvonne fully understood him and his needs. He was still Don but was trapped in this frail, diminished shell that could barely sit up, walk, or stay free of infection, much less hold sustained, coherent conversations with the rest of us.

The morning I had spoken to him was the last day Don was at home. The next few years were a seemingly endless series of medical emergencies, breakthroughs, setbacks, infections, hospitalizations, rehabilitation plans, legal and billing crises, and transfers between the hospital, the rehab facility, and the long-term care home. Through everything, Yvonne, brokenhearted and ever-hopeful, remained steadfastly by his side, caring for him and fighting with administrators or lax nursing staff on his behalf the way he had once advocated for his clients. Some days were great days, and he seemed so much of himself, able to go out for short trips to join us for a family holiday gathering or just to be with us, out of the clinical healthcare setting for a few joyous hours. Other days were just painful to even think about.

His death was horrible and beautiful at the same time.

It was beautiful because our family, always close, was able to go to his bedside and say our goodbyes the day before. It was horrible because we had to.

It was beautiful because once we all got there, we gathered around his bedside and together sang his favorite hymns and songs, said some prayers, while he looked around at us each in turn. It was horrible because his eyes looked so teary, grateful and bewildered all at once in those moments before they began the sedative, palliative care from which he would not wake.

It was beautiful because Yvonne, my aunt Anne, uncle Robert and I spent that final night in his uncomfortable hospital room with him, mostly silently, so he would not have to die alone, and so Yvonne would not be alone when that happened. It was horrible because his destroyed body writhed and wheezed a wretched death rattle all night and we never knew if each breath would be the last one as his vital signs stubbornly refused to give any ground and we didn't know what to feel.

It was beautiful because the nursing staff was so caring and attentive, and understood in the morning, when he needed more meds. It was horrible because he still needed them.

It was beautiful because Yvonne realized that a final bath, that ancient cleansing ritual, might be just what his body and spirit needed to let go. It was beautiful because the nurse gave our family time to gather at the hospital again before that happened.

It was beautiful and horrible because when we finally came back in the room afterwards, his vitals that we had been watching all that awful night finally began to slip and then fall steadily towards death.

It was beautiful that he died finally peaceful after so many years of physical and emotional pain, silently encircled by the people he loved best, and who best loved him, all of us holding onto each other, to Yvonne, to him.

It was horrible because then he was gone and his body was just his body, flesh shaped like Don but not Don.

It was beautiful because as he had died, that Friday at noon on the dot, the cold and bleak rain of the past few days at that moment turned into the most beautiful falling snow that I watched in the window beyond his bed as his vitals silently flatlined.

It was beautiful because we were here all together in this time of profound grief. It was horrible because Don, who was so good at grief counseling, was not.

It was horrible because we loved him so much. It was beautiful for this reason, too.

So now, it's been a year since that day, which seems impossible. It's stayed with me, and probably always will. Luckily, so far, so have my many wonderful memories of my uncle and all he brought into my life. Today I looked out the window and saw a flurry of white again. For a split second I thought it was snow. Then I realized it was blossoms from a pear tree dancing past in a warm Spring breeze. Somehow, that feels appropriate.

Tonight, in his honor, I'll light a candle. And then I'm going to find a knee-slapper of a joke, and some poor victim on which to inflict it.

I love and miss you, Don. Hope you're having a blast on this next journey and keeping some angels in giggles.

Southern Comfort

2009-02-14T18:30:00.006-06:00

Sometimes it still startles me that I live in the South--and by that I mean the true, cliche-heavy South. That's quite silly, of course, since I have lived here my entire life. (Living three and a half years in Kansas City as a tot doesn't exempt me from being a lifelong Southerner, no matter what they tell you.)

I long ago realized that certain aspects of my environment I'd always taken for granted are not universal--for example, the slower pace of life, the simple country fashions, the propensity to deep-fry anything, the potluck culture, the always entertaining array of things on front porches. I could go on and on. Heck, there's probably a whole slew of things I never even think of being different, I'm so used to them.

Sometimes, though, I'm still taken aback.

The other day, driving home in my Scion XB from picking up Marlowe at doggie daycare, a pickup--one of the little ones, old and low to the ground--moseyed along the road in front of the intersection where I was stopped, made a slow right turn, and rolled onto the gravel and weeds that made up the front yard directly in front of me. This gave me plenty of time to silently gape at the traveling cliche I was witnessing.

First, the tiny cab held two skinny passengers--men who looked like they might know their way around a meth lab--and one droopy eared hound dog. This in itself is not unusual, of course. What made me pause was the bed of the truck, which contained not only a crushed velvet, duct-tape-patched gold recliner, but reclining all his mass in said recliner was a huge, tall, heavy man in denim overalls and a flannel shirt, picking at his teeth with a length of straw. Yes, actual straw. He had long, gray scraggly hair, mud on his overalls, and not a care in the world. That man was as content atop his Chevy chariot as any man I have ever seen.

Having reached their destination, he hauled himself out of the recliner, kind of reluctantly, lunged out of the truck over the side with a big humph. I drove--slowly--past and he gave me a kindly nod of his head as he made his way after the other fellas to have a set on the hardscrabble front porch. I didn't dally to see if they pulled out a fiddle and the 'baccy or just started chewing on some corn on the cob and talking about the ol' fishing hole, but they all looked to be in splendid spirits.

It really looked comfortable, and at the speeds they were going, about as safe as a parade float. I gotta say, I was a little envious.

For all the times I gripe about what we don't have here, scenes like that make me appreciate all we do. I have to believe that there is a higher-than-average percentage of our population that is almost completely un-self-conscious. They are who they are, and Jesus loves them for it, so why wouldn't everyone else? I love living somewhere so colorful and rich with its own slow-ripened culture. It challenges me and sustains me in ways I don't often notice. For all its problems, this is a good, beautiful place.

Yep, I'm happily a Southerner, through and through. Even without owning overalls.

MacNest

2009-02-13T15:20:00.004-06:00

I haven't written anything in a bit because I have been a complete and utter slug. Look at the state of my housekeeping the past couple of weeks, and it really doesn't seem that outrageous to think I could be leaving a trail of slime in my wake.

Ben commented the other night that I'm the only person he knows who really does use her laptop on top of her lap most of the time. I disputed this, reminding him of my sister and probably the countless other people we know who use laptops as God intended them, but I didn't miss his larger point. Lately, it's not just that most of the time that I use my laptop it's in my lap, but that I have the laptop in my lap most of the time.

I've developed what is probably a very bad habit. Every day, I build a sort of nest for myself on the couch. In the morning before Ben leaves for work, I scuttle over to the couch and put my feet up under me in some way (I have a very hard time sitting straightforward on a couch, or anywhere). I have my three or four throw pillows that I position around myself in various configurations. Then there are the two comfy afghans I use--part of the time for warmth as I am perpetually cold, and the other part to build up a sort of ledge on which to balance the computer, or my lunch, or my notes I'm transcribing--generally sort of a giant U of afghan curled around me.

Then there's the ever-handy wooden TV tray table that I've pulled up next to the couch. It at the moment has scraps of junk mail and bills to be paid, two half-empty soda cans, three used paper plates with remembrances of lunches past on them, two bowls, a disposable Gladware container with the rinds of two clementines, two spoons, my favorite brush, a bag of cat treats and a box of Kleenex. I make sure in the morning that I have my cell phone and cordless phone and pen and paper within reach, and thus--except to get food or go to the bathroom--I don't really have to get dressed or leave my perch all day.

From here, I can check e-mail, edit photos, make calls, interview physicians, write articles, pay bills, apply for jobs, check in with the blogs I frequent, comment on Facebook, work on my own writing, surf the Web, learn new things, read interesting articles, check the news and analysis sites, pretty much anything a gal could want.

If I want a change of pace, move the afghans and pillows and --voila--there's the other side of the couch! Today, I'm working on the left side; this is new and exciting and adds variety to my day.

Then, around 4 or 5 o'clock, I take the dog for a 20- to 30-minute walk, pick up groceries maybe, and make dinner. Once dinner is done, back to my MacNest I go. Whether I'm reading, watching TV or a movie, or just chatting with Ben, my trusty laptop is almost always less than a laptop away. Again, I am here most of the evening. I think Ben's growing jealous of my time.

What I've not been doing lately is moving much. There's the walk with the dog, but it's not much of a workout. I have become even more of a giant sedentary blob than I thought possible. I remember back when I was taking taekwondo, I would revel at the fact that I had once gone whole days without really moving my body much. Now, I revel that I ever did so many workouts. The taekwondo workouts are gone, and those inert days are back.

The other thing I've not done much of lately is interact with live, breathing, fully flesh-and-blood people sharing the same air as me. I don't feel socially deprived at all because I keep up with so many friends online, but I think I'm probably missing something important.

I'm a little bit crippled because of a chronically sore heel I have to get fixed, but still. I want to find more opportunities to get out of my nest, enjoy the world. Maybe even unplug for a while.

Yet, I just love my computer world so much. Maybe I can take it with me on walks, introduce it to new people?

Somehow, I think I'm going to have to think bigger than that. It's going to take more than the other side of the couch to find that balance.

George, Lost

2009-01-31T22:37:00.001-06:00

I was cooking dinner tonight, humming something or other and stirring the lamb masala, when Ben called me. He had just left to walk the dog a few minutes before, so I was surprised he was calling. He must have forgotten something.

“That was Brian,” he said. I could hear him walking, breathing a little heavier, hear cars driving by. “He called to let us know George died.”

That’s one of those phone calls you never want to get, always want to rewind and take the words away. Whenever I hear someone I know has died, the finality of it is what gets me first. There’s no do over, no more chances to do something better, say something you’d held back. It’s done. Eventually, the grief and missing that person sets in with its own horrors, but the finality of it is what first hits me. Death has come. The world is now forever different. Someone I’ve known, maybe loved, is permanently gone, eternally quiet. It’s hard to wrap my brain around that, that my story continues and theirs does not.

George was Brian’s best friend. Brian has been one of Ben’s best friends for the past 18 years, and now also one of my close friends. Ben had known George all that time, though not nearly as well as Brian. Since George lived in Harrison, several hours away, I had only met George on I think two occasions, but I liked him immediately, and heard reports about him from Brian often.

George was in his early 40s, a tall, heavyset gay man with a giant smile and sad eyes. Everything about him was somehow oversized—he’d startle our border collie Marlowe into fits of barking whenever he’d stand up, we think just because he was suddenly so tall. He bore a strong resemblance to Christopher Hitchens, but inflated.

George’s health was poor—high blood pressure, diabetes, several other things. He often walked with a cane because of a problem with his foot. He lived right by his parents, who very much relied on him. The past year had been rough on George and his family in many ways, including losing his older brother, who also died much too young.

George’s parents came home today and found him dead. We don’t know what killed him. I hope they find out conclusively what happened to their son. This was the youngest of their two children, both now deceased. I can’t imagine.

I feel a deep sadness for George. I met him so late in his story, I at most rate a footnote. But I always sensed his deep capacity for joy, capriciousness, silliness. I know Brian enjoyed his company probably more than anyone else’s he knows.

I could tell George struggled with loneliness and depression. I seem to have radar for such things, and an affinity for the lonely souls and misfits of the world. But I had hope that something would change for George. Maybe he’d move closer to us and we could be closer friends, or maybe he’d meet someone wonderful who appreciated him and would fall head over heels for him, or get back on track with his career. He was so smart and funny, wickedly clever and unremorsefully catty sometimes, and yet also unfailingly polite. He was devoted to Brian, and though they were both largish gay men of the same approximate age, they both insist they were never once attracted to each other; they were from the start just the very best of friends.

I am sad for George, that he will never get to turn that next corner in his life, never find joy on earth amongst his friends again. And I absolutely ache for Brian, who just lost his best friend of close to 20 years and is reeling from the shock.

There will be no funeral, but maybe we can find someway to send his spirit off as friends. I’d like to do that for Brian.

Rest in peace, George. You made a difference here, and are missed. I wish I’d known you better.

Thoughts on WALL-E

2009-01-21T11:25:00.008-06:00

This isn't a film blog, but I frequent quite a few every day. My favorite is Living in Cinema, where the posts are always smart and funny and insightful, and the highly lively comments section has discussions among the two-dozen or so regulars that will go on for days or weeks, spinning wildly off topic at times. They are for the most part, way more informed about films than I am, but all are welcomed to discuss. If any of you are movie buffs, check it out.

Yesterday, a very nice and intelligent feller from New Zealand on there politely asked what he was not "getting" about WALL-E, 2008's animated movie from Pixar Studios. It's won a bunch of critics' awards, even some Best Picture prizes from various esteemed critical groups, and he had just watched it, and couldn't quite see why it was so acclaimed. Movie watching is subjective, of course, but I thought I'd respond with what I thought were the film's strengths.

I liked the film the first time I saw it, then watched the DVD with my family again over the holidays and fell head over heels for the little robot story. Here's what I wrote over in the comments section at LiC. It's a rather long comment, but a nice size for a blog posting, so I figured I'd double dip and use it over here, too. It's not a formal review, and not as polished as it would be if it were, but I thought my rather forgiving parents, et al, might enjoy reading it.

If you haven't seen WALL-E, try to find a copy soon. I don't own it yet, but I will.

Here's what I think the critics are seeing, that for whatever perfectly valid reason, you are not.

WALL-E is at its heart a celebration of humanity's ingenuity, creativity, and capacity to overcome even our worst selfish, slothful impulses and grow into something better, for the sake of something bigger than our own bloated selves. It's about the power of one, the power of two, the power of many. WALL-E himself is as much a human invention as the mess he was created to clean up; his character traits (resourcefulness, curiosity, loneliness, dilligence, loyalty, friendship, love, rashness, courage, the ability to learn) are a direct reflection of our own. Eve, too, is a product of us, directly or indirectly. It's a story, not new, but told in new ways, that reminds us through hyperbole and metaphor of how much we, today, now, need to remember to cherish life in all its forms and have the courage to trust and reclaim our own creative spirit.

WALL-E tells this story in a dazzlingly beautiful technical feat of animation that on a somewhat meta level itself makes the same thematic case: Look what beauty we can create, how warm and imaginative this technology can be, bringing us closer together and to our best selves. We mortals cannot be underestimated, and neither can the possibilities of animation. The art direction, animated cinematography, editing, sound, all the technicals are top shelf.

And as a bonus for film critics, WALL-E simultaneously draws from eight decades of cinematic history–most notably, from the dawn of cinema–to quietly honor film's most powerful and poignant role in our lives, that of sustaining us in the dark times and reminding us, through whatever improbable means (Hello, Dolly, of all films, is the one highlighted), of what's really important. It's a film rich in symbolism and layers of meaning that is steeped in film history and makes a strong argument for film's future.

The screenplay gives equal weight to humanity's dual talents for destruction and construction, using the current gathering environmental crisis as a trope that grounds the otherwise sci-fi fantasy in relevance to our immediate future. The real villains in the picture aren't mutinous AI, but the demons within ourselves that compel us to consume more and more and faster and easier and forget what it is that makes us human, that creative spark and need to forge a path ever forward.

Meanwhile, it has a timeless love story between a bumbling but charming and well-intentioned Chaplin-esque male and a fierce and feminist female who connects to her softer core self, each of whom changes and grows better for knowing the other during the course of the film. That's what real romance does, makes us better people individually and as a couple for discovering that soul-sustaining partnership. It is a love that was never programmed to be, and yet, must be.

It's a film that like the best of sci-fi asks, "What if?" and then takes us on a bleak path that does not have to be. It's a film that channels the deep undercurrent of hope, even amidst the darkest of crises–the death of our planet and the devolution of our species–and has a resounding echo of the rallying cry of 2008: "Yes we can!"

To top it off, and almost as asides to its other many treasures, WALL-E also contains significant amounts of humor that don't rely on fart jokes and pop culture allusions, a misshapen band of merry Island-of-Lost-Toys-esque robots who discover they still have value, a prolonged and joyfully magical cinematic sequence of robots in love spiraling through space, and an endearing cockroach who just won't die.

It's one heck of a great film, in my opinion.

Four Sentences

2009-01-20T10:07:00.004-06:00

1. It's Inauguration Day.

2. Barrack Obama is about to become the 44th President of the United States of America.

3. In a few hours, George Bush will be leaving the White House in a helicopter.

4. I could not be happier.

One of My Favorite Things About the End of the Year

2008-12-20T08:29:00.029-06:00

Presidential candidate Barrack Obama at a rally, in the rain.

I don't know about you, but I get into all the end-of-the-year countdowns, 10 Best lists, retrospectives and the many different ways we find to look back over the past 12 months, this year we just lived. Some of them are of course unnecessary--I don't need to watch a countdown of 40 Unforgettable Moments from Season 10 of The Bachelorette, for example--but there's a lot of quality stuff out there, too.

Probably my favorites each year are the photo collections. So many of the lists that come out, like book and film lists are so subjective and exclusionary, but Best Photo collections, the Year in Pictures, are hard to argue with, and are something that can be immediately appreciated.

I always forget to anticipate them until they are released, but the best photography of the year often affects me on several levels. First, of course, the aesthetic. Photography is one of my favorite art forms, perhaps because I have some inkling of how hard it is to get a really wonderful picture--at least, if your subject matter is something other than small children, puppies or kittens. A professional news photographer may take 800 shots and find three or four that are worth publishing, if that many.

Another thing I love about these collections is the time capsule aspect--the visual record, beautifully told, of who we were at this moment in time. Seeing some of the highlights of the major news stories, in pictures, helps me reflect on how the world changed this year, or didn't, and what that might mean for the future.

Finally, because of the inclusive, international nature of these news photography collections, I am always astounded by how much I don't know about the past year and the world around us. Reading the photo captions, I learn about conflicts, spectacles, disasters, sports, natural wonders, and even whole cultures I did not know existed. It drives home the idea that my little life, sitting in my Arkansas home, typing on my laptop, following the Oscar season, cooking dinner, while it is 99 percent of what I experience, is only the tiniest fragment of life on this great, beautiful, painful and wondrously diverse planet. It's awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

Someday, I hope to be able to travel the world. It's one of my great hopes. Until then, I'm content to let brave and talented photographers show me what's out there.

Here is a link to a collection I found last night of 120 of the year's best photographs, separated into three parts. It takes a while to get through them and read the captions, but they are worth it. The editors acknowledge that these pictures are not necessarily THE definitive best, and that there are countless more that tell other also-worthy stories. I think they did a fine job. I know some of you won't be able to load so many photos on your computers, so I will post a few here, as well.

Full captions and dozens more great photographs are on the original site. Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Good stuff.

This volcano erupted in Chile for the first time in thousands of years, attracting an electrical storm as it erupted, which apparently is a common phonomenon:

Students at a Chinese martial arts school:

A giant mechanical spider at a cultural festival in Liverpool, England. Freaky:

Diving Asian fella:
Massai warriors going into battle against warring tribes with bows and arrows. I thought at first they were hunting antelope, then realized they were hunting people:

This is an Important Physics Thing that may solve many mysteries of particle physics when it gets activated next year. I think it looks like a lion or sun emblem, something that would look pretty on my wall:

A mother learns her child was killed in a conflict between Georgia and Russia. Her husband tries to comfort her:

A real live Viking festival. I bet there is grog.

Children of a fallen police officer who died while investigating a bank robbery comfort each other at a funeral in I believe Pennsylvania.

Drummers at the Opening Ceremonies at the Summer Olympics in Beijing:

A view from the base camp on Mount Everest at night:

Rescuers try to save a donkey buried in rubble after an earthquake:

An indigenous Amazonian mother tries to keep police from forcing her family off their ancestral home. She did not succeed:

A whole lot of people going to a ski festival or competition:

Red balloons on the beach in Rio di Janeiro to bring attention to the thousands of poor who will be murdered there in the coming month.

A swimmer, suspended in time:

I think this looks like a classic movie set, something very melodramatic, but it's actually a burned trailer park in California:

A child being lowered into a sapphire mine in Madagascar:

A U.S. Marine, dwarfed by the majesty of ancient ruins in Iraq:

Ta-Da!

2008-12-19T18:47:00.002-06:00

Yup, I did it. I finished. How? Because I rock. That's how. : )

I still have to take some pictures of girl scouts in the morning, and I still have some Medical News articles to finish before the New Year, but my slew of pre-Christmas deadlines are now history.

I'll be working Monday and Tuesday on more articles in the hopes of knocking some out before the holiday. My new niece will be here in the state (I believe she's also bringing her parents, Laura and Kyle) and I'm hoping to get some auntie bonding time in sometime during that week between Christmas and New Year's, so I want to have as little work hanging over me as possible.

Although I am now done, the Chez Boulden weekend celebration is not yet getting underway. Ben is having a similarly intense workload this week, and just when he thought he was about out from under it, more breaking news happened. He is staying at work late tonight, possibly as late as he's had to stay since I've known him, likely five or six hours after he normally comes home. Plus, he has to go back and work at least one day this weekend. Poor guy.

I'm about to go take him some dinner and then come home and straighten up so it's a more pleasant place to come home to when he finally gets off work. He is taking off a whole week and then some after Christmas. I'm hoping he can rest and recover, rejuvenate then, cause he's getting more rundown right now than I like to see.

Ben's a wonderhusband in every way, every single day, and I love him dearly. He's really an amazing guy and even loves me back. I am so lucky to have found him. Must go take care of him now and give him a hug.

One to go...

2008-12-19T16:18:00.002-06:00

Of the 16 articles I've been writing lately, I have just one to go, due in a couple of hours.

My typin' fingers are stubby little nubs now, but the light at the end of the tunnel is shining on my face...

Now back at it for another bit, and then, perhaps just perhaps, a weekend!

Ah, there's my motivation. Catch ya later. I gots writings to write.

Overwhelmed with Work? Time to Blog.

2008-12-17T16:33:00.008-06:00

I've done it again, gone and gotten myself overbooked with work assignments, none of which pay much, but all of which help keep the heat on. I do that, always have, maybe always will. So far, it's worked out okay. I think the stress gets to a certain point and then it just gets kind of numb and I go into Turbo Jen mode for a few hours that somehow are about 800 percent more productive than any in the preceding three months. And then I collapse and start to feel the stress again, but all washing away instead of building up.

No time to blog, but I'm at a point where I'm waiting on callbacks, out of energy to make more calls. So blogging, even if I don't have the mental energy to say anything much interesting.

With the glorious exception of becoming an aunt to the world's cutest baby, it's been kind of a rough week here at Casa Boulden. Ben and I have both been stretched thin (unfortunately, only figuratively) with work, made more difficult by sharing the car. Money's tight as usual, but tighter. We're a long way yet from going hungry or anything, but for the first time in our marriage a trip to the grocery store really does need to last until the next paycheck, so there is markedly more room in my pantry than I'm used to having. I've had to get creative with the budget cooking even when nothing I can find in the kitchen remotely inspires me. We decided to discontinue our cable TV, going down to the most bare bones level. We took the digital box back and the guy came out today and disconnected the vestigal channels. No more cable news, movies, or the cable shows we watch. That's ok, though; we actually feel good about making that sacrifice for the sake of the household budget and we own more books and DVDs than we ever find time to get to, so we aren't hurting for entertainment options. It'll be kind of fun, I think, disconnecting from the "talking picture box." Since I work from home and depend on the Internet to do my job, we haven't disconnected it.

Anyway, just when we're being bombarded with advertisements and incentives to purchase all the shiny, best things for the people we love lest these stores go out of business and everyone in America loses their jobs. There are some great deals out there, but they all require money I don't seem to have. It's frustrating. Even when I was making plenty of money, there was never *really* enough to get my family and friends everything I'd like. I'm trying to be creative, thrifty and a bargain shopper, make some of the gifts. There's a challenge in that I like, and they are fun to do, but it's also a lot more work and I'm already up to my elbows in projects. Me and my ideas. We'll see how many manage to come to fruition.

Today, Ben got a small "bridge loan" from one of his brothers to tide us over through this particularly low fundage week until my next check arrives. I hate to have to do that--we've had to before and always try to repay it pretty quickly--but he was very gracious about it to us, no questions or recriminations. No strings.

It's nice to have help, and nice to know that much as they may need things themselves, my family understands tough times and doesn't have unrealistic expectations of mountains of lavish presents, the kind I'd like to give. It's good to come from a family that knows that's not what Christmas is really about.

I'd been feeling kind of humbuggy, but I mustered up enough optimism and energy over the weekend (actually, I think I was still high on having a niece) to get the Christmas decorations down and put up the tree. No one is coming over likely this season considering our schedule and Ben and I are not exchanging gifts or stockings--but it is nice to have the tree with all the ornaments we've already collected in the three years we've been married. It's lovely, festive, quiet and undemanding, and didn't cost a thing.

Here are a few pictures. I haven't yet discovered the trick to taking good pictures of Christmas trees, mine never do them justice. Still pretty, though:

It's a Brand-New, Beautiful Day. Meet Abigail.

2008-12-12T16:23:00.007-06:00

My first niece was born today, right about sunrise. Her name is Abigail Katherine Shachmut, and she is beautiful, perfect, amazing. I'm already ridiculously proud of her and of my sister and brother-in-law for making her and bringing her into this world. I'm joyful for my parents, who became grandparents today, for my grandmother, who has her first great-grandchild, for my brother who is going around feeling impossibly "uncley" and giddy with glee.

We hope to meet her over Christmas, if everything goes according to plan and the new family can safely make the trip from Boston. I want to hold her and kiss her on the nose, tell her how wonderful life is, how much richness she has in store for her. I want to tell her that she has parents who are amazing, remarkable people in their own right and tons of family and friends who will love her each day of their lives. I want to watch her grown into her own little person, hear her laugh, soothe her tears. I want her to come to me for advice someday, or call me to tell me about how funny something this totally gorgeous boy in her class did was, or just stop over, banging the screen door behind her to cop a few fresh-baked cookies from the counter and plop on my couch. I want to watch her do her first Tiny Tiger taekwondo moves, and I want to watch her graduate from high school. I want to be her aunt and her friend, as mine have been for me. I want to be in her life, always, for good.

Here are some pictures, sure to cuten anyone's day and definitely to class up this blog:

Abigail Katherine Shachmut

Born December 12, 2008

Brighton, Massachusetts

Quick thoughts while dinner finishes cooking

2008-12-10T19:42:00.004-06:00

Insta-realization: I keep wanting to like ground turkey, but I just don't. Except in certain turkey burgers. Other than that, it just tastes like ground beef that's gone off. Which bodes poorly for the dinner I've just fixed of turkey mac (chili mac with turkey). But sometimes you just have to clean out the pantry and fix what you've got.
I wrote four articles today to meet my deadline. Wasn't as prepared as I should have been, but got 'em done. That's what I do. I feel better now and am temporarily resolute to do the next five in steps over the next week instead of all at once. We'll see.
Project Clunkerpool is going better the past two days. I've been busy, so have just stayed home. Amazing how few car problems I have when I don't leave the house. Starting to get a little stir-crazy, though.
When you're going stir-crazy in the house, walks with the dog are especially good. The weather has been cold and fairly icky, but I've found that if I bundle up everything but my face, it's just refreshing, not miserable.
My sis is still pregnant, hanging around in limbo waiting to meet the daughter she will know and love for the rest of her life. I think that must be an amazing feeling, knowing you will love this little person, always, more than anything, and no matter what happens, and yet not knowing anything about them except how hard they kick your insides and that they used to give you nausea. Love's neat that way.
I can only imagine the deluge of emotions she's going to go through between now and the end of the month. We're an emotional people, we Armstrong/Brooks clan, deeply in love with family and friends and holidays and carols, Hallmark commercials, and random sweet moments and bits of beauty. Having a firstborn child this time of year, wow. That's intense. Good intense, I hope, and nothing but happy.

Needing Some Hail Marys

2008-12-08T09:21:00.004-06:00

The saying absence makes the heart grow fonder is true for cars as well people, I can now report.

Ben and I are facing the prospect of sharing one remarkably unreliable car for the next two weeks while our one good car, the Scion, is in the body shop. It is finally its time to get the extensive hail damage from April repaired, and it may be in the shop for two weeks. Believe it or not, this is actually earlier than expected. Because of the thousands of cars in Fort Smith damaged by the golf-ball-sized hail here in that giant April storm, the body shops have been booked solid through well into next year. Our appointment was scheduled to be in February, maybe March (nearly a year after the storm), but Ben called a few days ago to see if there was an opening sooner, and they actually had one.

That, plus the fact that the detailed estimate they gave us was lower than the insurance estimate, so we likely (fingers crossed) won't be out of much from our pockets for the repair, is the good news.

The bad news is that during this very busy holiday season, for the next two weeks we have to share Ben's 17-year-old Honda Civic. Ben, always the noble one, drives it most regularly, and lets me drive the Scion XB we bought new just before I lost my job. The Scion is comfortable, cute, safe, reliable, spacious. The Civic is none of these, and though it drives passably well for Ben most days, it has a propensity for dying at inopportune times. Particularly, any time I drive it.

This morning, for instance, as we were (no joke) leaving the body shop and casting an eye towards a major wreck that had occurred minutes before a few hundred feet from where we were, the car died as we were pulling out on the street. The full length of it blocked two lanes of oncoming traffic just over the crest of a small hill as we attempted to get it started, had the gearshift lock up on us, then get it started again and try to keep it going as we dodged the oncoming traffic from two directions and the emergency vehicles already blocking traffic from the other direction. It was a minute or two of panic, topped off with almost getting hit by a firetruck rushing to the scene. It all worked out, of course, and though the car died exactly seven more times on the way home from dropping Ben off at work, I did in fact, get home safely.

I will not be going out for lunch today.

Insurance reimbursement for car rental is not very much, so a rental for two weeks will get pretty pricey pretty fast. We're trying to see if we can finesse our scheduling so we can just share the Civic until the Scion is ready, but Project Clunkerpool did not get off to an auspicious start.

I'm not Catholic, but considering the nature of the storm that caused this problem, a few Hail Marys for Ben and me seems in order. We need all the help we can get.

Habit of the Month: Straightening the Living Room before Bed

2008-12-02T12:02:00.002-06:00

Hello, girls and boys, it's that time again. Time for another of Jennifer's crowd-pleasing Habit of the Month posts!

[waits for cheers of applause and exclamations of joy]

Seeing as I have successfully mastered the fine art of keeping the bathroom clean every day for the past month and a half (YAY!), it's time to move on to the next domestic challenge. This one will make an even bigger difference in our household happiness, since it involves significantly more square footage, and that square footage directly connected to our front door.

Ben and I are each independently and even more so together, clutterbugs. Stuff just accumulates around us and then breeds more stuff. I think I get this from my Armstrong side. Not sure about Ben. Anyway, the living room--being the room in which we do much of our living--is ground zero for daily clutter.

So for the next month, I pledge to straighten the living room every night before I go to bed, so it is fresh and inviting every morning and no matter who drops in unannounced during the day, there will never be more than a few hours worth of clutter.

Since much of this month the house will be decked out in Christmas decor, this ought to be fun. And since I usually do holiday mess-spreading things like wrapping presents and leaving random packages in the living room, it ought to be something of a challenge this month, too.

Anyway, that's the habit for this month. If it gets too hard or scary, look for me in the bathroom. At least it's staying clean.

A Sharp Insight, Unbidden

2008-11-26T09:25:00.005-06:00

I meant to write about this a couple of weeks ago, but I'm still thinking about it, and in light of the upcoming holiday it seems somehow apropos.

There are certain odd moments that are for whatever reason permanently seared into my memory. I'm not talking about the important Kodak moments--birthdays and graduations and getting married. Those are supposed to be there. But others just remain, and remain forever associated with certain triggers. For instance, whenever I'm driving around a curve on the highway at enough speed, I always think about my aunt Y telling me when I was about 11 and she was driving me around a winding road to Camp Tanako that she'd finally figured out the secret to those curves was to slow down a little bit on entering them, then speed up at the end. Now, Y has told me many a memorable thing in my life, but I can't go around a curve without remembering her voice saying that. Every time, it comes unbidden, even though I long ago figured curves out myself. It's a little irritating, but at least that particular memory is fairly useful. They aren't all.

The first time I remember noticing this phenomenon I was about seven and sitting on the front step of our house in Little Rock, kind of picking at the grass and mulling over life. Ironically, I don't remember what I was remembering at the time, but I thought to myself, "OK, if something doesn't have to be important for me to remember always, can just be anything, I'm going to test it by trying to remember the most boring thing possible for the rest of my life." I then tested my theory by staring at a nondescript section of my blue corduroy pants for about 30 seconds until my eyes glazed over. Of course it worked. That diagonal pattern of fuzzy cornflower blue is what first springs into my mind whenever I think about these random memories and associations. I'm pretty tired of that particular image after thinking about it regularly for the past 27 years, but it's here to stay.

I've been thinking about these because of a small thing that happened a couple of weeks ago when I was tutoring the girls down at the jail (I still really love the tutoring, even if me teaching math is scary for all involved). I had two students that day, and we were working out geometry problems when one of the girls broke her pencil lead in the middle of something I was explaining. She looked startled and said, "Oh, my pencil lead broke! Am I in trouble?"

I said, "Of course not, we'll just get you a new one," and proceeded to try and finish explaining the volume of a cylinder formula to Girl #2, but she was no longer paying attention. She was staring at Girl #1 in horror.

"Where did it go? We have to find it!" she cried, and got on her hands and knees, searching the ground.

"What's going on?" I asked, as Girl #1 joined her on the floor and looked like she was about to cry.

Girl #2, who had been incarcerated longer, explained that a sharp pencil point could be used as a weapon, so if you broke a pencil and didn't find the lead, the guards would have to strip search you to make sure you weren't concealing it. Then they would have to search your cell from top to bottom as you sat naked on the bed and another guard watched over you.

"Just me, or all of us?" said Girl #1, tears suddenly streaming down her face as she stopped the search for a moment to ask.

"Both of us!" her friend said, in a hushed, urgent whisper, "but not her, of course," indicating me.

I spent about five seconds looking for the stray pencil lead on the speckled concrete floor, then told them to just call the guards and it would probably be fine. The guilty girl got a guard's attention through the glass that looks into the control room, and a female guard came to see what we needed.

Before I could explain, the girl said, her voice shaking, "I broke my pencil, and we can't find the lead, but we've been looking for it really hard and can't find it anywhere and I didn't mean to get in trouble."

The guard, a nice woman who had let me in earlier, looked at me and at the terrified girls, shook her head and said,"What was it, just a pencil lead? That's OK this time. Do you need me to get you a new pencil?"

And that was that. The girls said they were lucky, that they were OK because I was in there supervising them. Maybe there would never have been a strip search for something as tiny and un-weaponlike as a pencil lead, but the girls fully believed there would be, a consequence of being incarcerated in a place where security is necessarily top priority and likely of a life's worth of getting in disproportionate amounts of trouble for anything they did wrong.

I realized how little I understood about their daily lives, both before they came here and while they served out their sentences. To me, a broken pencil lead has never been more than a nuisance. To them, it was terrifying.

And thus, I know that I will remember that incident every single time I break a pencil lead, or perhaps even look at one. I take my freedom for granted, I know, and my privacy, too. It's not something that--despite my teenage complaints to my parents--has ever been an issue in my life. For many, though, a life without freedoms is the reality, perhaps all they know.

Thinking about tomorrow, Thanksgiving, it gives me one more thing for which to be thankful. And it's one thing I'll not be sorry to remember, time and again.

Happy Birthday Laura!

2008-11-19T12:49:00.004-06:00

Today is my little sister's birthday. She turns 26, a great age, in my opinion. I was thinking about what to write, and--as it so often does in our family--a little rhyme spilled out. (There are better and more sophisticated forms of poetry, but we're not a very sophisticated family, so this is the kind that comes most naturally to all of us. My apologies to the aesthetically sensitive.)

For Laura, with love. Thanks for changing my life 26 years ago, and every day since. Happy birthday!

My World, With Laura In It

The first years of my life

Were an only-child treat

Yet somehow our family

Didn't feel quite complete.

So I began asking for a sister,

Pleading year after year,

But until I was nine,

None did appear.

I wanted a sister to dress up like a doll

A best friend to teach about diaries

And take on shopping sprees to the mall.

And then she arrived, one night in November,

And everything changed, all I remember.

For all the sisterly dreams I had erected,

The actual sister was not quite as expected.

She took up space, took up my time.

The toys I outgrew were no longer mine.

She cried and fussed and filled diaper after diaper

(And whenever she'd soiled them the worst

Seemed to be when I had to wipe her).

She broke my things, then wet my bed.

Yes, having a sister was quite different instead.

It was different, yes, but

Though it took a while to unearth it

Having a sister was entirely worth it.

As a baby, she'd smile and look up at me

With eyes filled with wonder,

She'd laugh at my silly faces

And cling to me during thunder.

She'd hold onto my finger

Because her hand was so tiny

And gradually she became

Markedly less whiny.

She grew and she grew

Getting more fun each year,

A daily joy

Though far or near.

We look nothing alike,

Not one single bit,

But even so,

We're as close as sisters get.

I call her all the time

And she even calls me back.

We have keen sister-sense,

A kind of psychic knack

For feeling what's up with the other

Or knowing when something's down,

For thinking the same crazy things

In our two very separate towns.

I both adore her and tease her,

But she gives as good as she gets,

And though I got a nine-year head start,

I'm no match for her wits.

She's someone charming and funny,

But simple and true.

She likes finding little happy things

And making them, too.

Now she's making another small, happy thing,

A new daughter (and niece!)

So as my baby sister turns again older and wiser

I'm wishing her new family a world full of peace.

I wish her a world of surprises

A world of motherly delight,

A world of sweet joys

And a future that shines bright.

It's the beautiful world I know,

Made more beautiful still,

By the sister I've loved from the start

And the hearts that she fills.

Movie Alphabet Meme

2008-11-12T15:01:00.002-06:00

This is one of those memes that's making its way through the cinematic blogosphere. While this isn't a movie blog, I haven't started one of those yet, so this will have to do.

I tag Laura, Melisser, and anyone who wants to play along either on their blog or in the Comments.

THE RULES

Pick your favorite film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of the film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The. No legitimate films are named A or The, so don't try it.
Movies go by whatever name they were known by for their theatrical release. For example, Return of the Jedi belongs under "R" not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy. Same thing with Raiders of the Lost Ark--it goes under "R," not "I" for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all the Lord of the Rings films belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. Confused yet? Don't worry about it; it's not like you're going to get fined.
Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. Thus, 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
These don't have to be what you think are the best movies ever made, just the movies that if you had to watch a movie that started with that letter, you'd never mind watching. Thinking of it as Movies I Could Watch At Any Given Moment, Regardless of Mood or as Movies I Always Get Sucked Into Watching When They Are On TV is a good rule of thumb.
Any feature film counts, as long as it's on imdb.com. Docs, dramas, comedies, horror, whatever. TV and mini-series and made-for-tv movies don't.
You have to have actually seen the movies and be able to recommend them.
Select more people to play along.
Change the rules if you don't like them.

JENNIFER'S LIST:

Annie Hall

Blade Runner

Chicago

Departed, The

Eight and a Half (8 1/2)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Godfather, The

Harold and Maude

In America

Journey of Natty Gann, The

King Kong

Lives of Others, The

Mary Poppins

No Country for Old Men

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Pan's Labyrinth

Queen, The

Ratatouille

Shawshank Redemption

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Usual Suspects, The

Vertigo

Waiting for Guffman

Xanadu

You Can't Take It with You

Zorro, the Gay Blade

Odd Moment of the Morning

2008-11-11T13:10:00.003-06:00

After doing my tutoring this morning at the detention center, I decided to stop by the grocery store for a few ingredients for supper.

I was walking towards the entrance, and this heavyset-but-perfectly-fit-looking middle-aged black man was walking out of the store carrying two or three bags of groceries.

He saw me and said, "Would you put these groceries in that car over there?"

I looked to see what he was talking about. He didn't look old or frail or really in need of help, but maybe I wasn't seeing the whole picture. I probably looked bewildered, but said, "That car?" and pointed to the old Pontiac he was heading towards.

Then he just laughed.

"Aw, I'm just messin' with you. This is America, that's what you gotta do. You gotta mess with people in this country, have some fun. It's what we do here."

And then he walked off, laughing and laughing and laughing.

And I walked into the store, laughing myself, so maybe he was right.

Things I Learned This Weekend

2008-11-09T22:02:00.002-06:00

Papa's pizza is even better after just meeting a big deadline and writing for 10 hours straight.
People at the next table who throughout dinner repeatedly rock the opposite side of the booth you're sitting on by pressing back on the seat to wiggle their fingers into their too-tight jeans pockets over and over despite me angrily and unsubtly, pressing the seat back towards them really make me mad. It's just rude and unnecessary.
When ordering a custom omelet with everything...don't. Just pick a couple of ingredients or so. Otherwise you'll end up with cheese, onions, tomatoes, peppers, olives, bacon, ham, sausage, jalapenos and a few other things, wrapped in a thin layer of egg. Not good.
No matter how incredibly good the coffee is, if Ben has the equivalent of about 8-10 cups of it, he's going to regret it later.
When shopping for a baby shower for a little girl, it's almost impossible to resist the urge to buy something pink.
Someone in Fort Smith makes incredibly good cupcakes with incredibly good lemon icing that I am just going to have to learn to make.
Baby showers are mostly all the same, except when you are related to the baby of honor or except when they have incredibly good cupcakes with incredibly good lemon icing.
Walking the dog on a late autumn afternoon is the best.
I still like the movie Castaway a lot, perhaps because I only saw the last hour of it.
The Nazis were way more into art than I ever realized and the story of the massive numbers of masterpieces that were stolen or accidentally or purposefully destroyed during the war is pretty fascinating, even though the documentary "The Rape of Europa" about it could have been better.
Starbucks' new gingersnap lattes are not as good as the gingerbread lattes were, and the shreds of real ginger in them are kind of weird.
It really is best not to discuss politics over lunch with opinionated mothers-in-law who completely disagree with your views, but if you have to, best to do it as you are already on your way out the door and telling her you love her and appreciate her cooking.
Ben finds it hard to relate to films about French teenage synchronized swimming girls coming of age.
When soaking a cotton shirt in bleach, don't forget it and leave it in your best stainless-steel bowl overnight and expect your bowl not to be corroded almost completely through in the morning..
When washing something that has soaked in bleach all night and corroded your best bowl and gotten a nasty rust stain on it as a result, don't then try to wash it in the washing machine, even on gentle cycle. It disintegrates.
Peanut brittle that you bought from an eager volunteer outside the grocery store promoting autism awareness tastes better than other peanut brittle.
Dexter is a very well-written show, if creepy as all get-out and even if it is about a serial killer. It's interesting and not gratuitous.
Mountains of clean clothes don't fold themselves any more than dirty clothes do and can be equally overwhelming.
Slipcovers are so named because they slip and they will be my forsworn nemesis until the end of time. Or maybe just my frenemy.
Weekends are wonderful, whatever minutiae they entail, when I spend them with Ben.

Yes, We Did

2008-11-04T23:32:00.004-06:00

I am so proud of my country tonight. Ben had to work the newspaper's election coverage, so I had to stay home watching the returns come in by myself. I was tapping away at my computer, trying to convince myself I was calmly following the election results, taking nothing for granted, keeping my emotions in check, Obama-style. Then from across the cacophony on the TV a phrase broke through: "Barack Obama has won the presidency. He will be the next President of the United States," and that was that. I became a bawling, shaking, flooding ball of unmitigated joy.

Then the scenes that followed on the TV: shot after shot of people hearing the news, breaking down like I just had, young people cheering, old people crying, black people doubled over in euphoria and disbelief at the historic moment. This is history, I thought. This is one of those defining moments in the history of the world and I'm experiencing it, I'm part of it. It was as intense as 9/11, but with joy and hope replacing that day's fear and despair.

I've been an Obama supporter from the beginning, and by that I mean from about two seconds after I first heard him speak, the day after the 2004 Democratic Convention, when the morning NPR show was all abuzz with this amazing new keynote speaker. They played clips, and I was enchanted. That morning, I thought, "This man has greatness about him (with some people, you can just feel it). He could be President someday." The thought gave me chills.

The more I heard about him over the next couple of years, the more excited I got. He was everything I wanted in a candidate--smart, articulate, thoughtful, respectful, self-made, engaging, inspirational and on the right side (mine) on almost every issue. Plus, his personal story and his melting pot genetics seemed to me just the thing the country needed to bring us back together and make some big changes. Other than giving him a sex change and making him an avowed Academy Awards buff, it would be hard to design a candidate I'd like more.

Curious about digging a little deeper into what this guy was about, Ben and I listened to his audiobook of The Audacity of Hope a few months before he announced his candidacy. We were wowed by his writing, his positions, his ideas about what this country could do and how we both needed to and could bring everyone together to effect real change, not further divide us. I was officially hooked, in for the long haul.

So of course, feeling this passionate about a first-term senator I'd never met from another state, I was also convinced he was too good to ever be elected, ever do more than be a "what if?" It would never happen. When he announced his candidacy, I couldn't decide how I felt. I was excited, but he was such a longshot, it seemed rash. America needed him, but wouldn't recognize that yet. As much as I wanted him in the White House today, I didn't trust the American people to put him there. They're the ones who twice elected George W. Bush, after all.

But they did recognize that greatness about him. Over and over, people chose to believe in Obama, just as I had, despite the relentless smears and overt bigotry that dominated too much of the campaign. Tonight, enough people chose him to make him the 44th President of the United States, the first African-American ever elected to the nation's highest office.

Over the past two years, I've become an incorrigible political junkie. I live online and have followed this election with the intensity of a bloodhound tracking a leaky meat truck. It's been an intense experience, this roller coaster of an election that brought new twists, new highs, new crises and world developments, new outrages, and new encouragements every day. It's changed me, I'm sure, though I'm still figuring out how. As disheartened and sick as I was over the past eight years, as cynical as I was becoming about the political process, I am sure it was and is and will remain change that I, at least, need to experience in myself.

Tonight, though, I am just proud to be an American, tired, euphoric, overcome. Here, now, in this moment of profound grace and beauty, it's an amazing time to be alive.

My Halloween Scare

2008-11-04T10:54:00.007-06:00

Don't you hate it when you screw up something months before and only realize it too late? That happened to me this morning.

I used to have a problem with deadlines. Deadlines set by me arbitrarily just didn't seem very important--if I set it, then I should be able to reset it, right?--and I regularly missed mine. Then I started having deadlines set by others, others who paid me to get the project done on time and didn't pay me if I didn't. Suddenly, it was a whole different ball game and I got pretty good at it. I make my deadlines now. It's a point of pride.

So, I've been working towards a deadline for Friday for a publication I edit, where the deadline schedule is set for the year by the national company that owns this publication and several others like it. I manage several freelancers and gave them the Friday deadline, too. But, there's a problem I found out about in my e-mail inbox this morning: the deadline was actually last Friday, on Halloween.

I got a nice e-mail from the national editor this morning asking me politely if my stories might be ready soon. He's pretty laid back, but the e-mail woke me up in a flash. What? Stories ready? Why would he be asking me that now? With an impending sense of dread, I opened up the editorial calendar for all the different markets, and looked under the December issue. Yep. Arkansas deadline: Oct. 31.

Several months ago, when I was transferring all the dates to my calendar, I managed to look at the wrong line, the one right below it for some of the other publications, which were to be due Nov. 7. Agh!

Whoa. Not only had I missed my deadline, I and all my freelancers were going to miss it by a week! I sent back a quick and profound apology and explanation, asked for further direction (Get whatever we could scrambled together today? Turn in stories tomorrow? Hide my head in the sand and think about changing my name and hair color and never surfacing again? Give up my first-born child?), e-mailed my freelancers for status updates on their stories, and generally found myself in problem-solving mode, on turbo.

Meanwhile, I amped up my efforts this morning to reach all the contacts I needed for my various articles. These people, mostly doctors and healthcare administrators, are notoriously hard to reach and take days to return calls. This morning, however, someone sent them the memo that I needed a break, and I've gotten a hold of pretty much everyone I needed, and more. I think I've already interviewed or set up interviews with 10 people, and it's not even noon.

In the end, it turned out OK. My editor said to go ahead with the Friday deadline, and we are all on track to meet that. I still feel awful and guilty and irresponsible, even though it was an honest mistake, but at least I'm running on adrenaline now and getting all kinds of things done.

See, I even got a blog post written.

Most Disturbing Family Picture Ever

2008-10-28T16:19:00.005-05:00

First of all, I do not know that this is actually a family picture. I rather hope not. But when one is perusing an old box of random pictures of one's family through the ages and one comes across this loose, unidentified gem, it gives one (okay, enough with this "one" stuff, let's just say me) pause:

I mean, seriously. What. The. Heck.

Foreground: Innocent baby on a blanket. Birds chirping. Peaceful winds blowing.

Immediate background: A maniacally ruthless, hungry, mouth-frothing, possibly bedeviled or otherwise malevolently empowered likely undead alligator looking at said infant.

Babies are some of my favorite things. I was once one myself, actually, and my little sister (also once an infant) is having her own this year, a much-anticipated event here in Jennybeeland.

Alligators, though, are something else entirely. In my subconscious, they are the embodiment of all evil, dread, threat, and general badness. When I have nightmares, I almost always find an alligator (or crocodile, same difference when their big snapping jaws and infamous death rolls are upon you in your sleep) in there somewhere. Sometimes the nightmare has an actual alligator, sometimes it's a sign with something about an alligator, sometimes it something as simple as Dream Me realizing the shoes I'm wearing are alligator skin just before everything starts going wrong. They're insidious, I tell you. Creepy, creepy, creepy.

At any rate, alligators are not on my friends list. So, to find this picture inexplicably mixed in with the photos of my ninth-grade piano recital and my family riding carousel horses at Libertyland and my once-toddler brother gnawing on a remote control was a little startling.

I suppose I should ask my parents for an explanation. Maybe there's glass in front of the child? Maybe it's a stuffed alligator at a natural science museum? Maybe it's the sacrificial first child that came before me? (I haven't read the entire United Methodist Church's Book of Discipline, so no telling what's actually in there.)

Any theories? Explanations? I'm a little afraid to ask.

Today I Went A-Tutoring

2008-10-28T12:33:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was writing a bunch of profiles of women in the community for a special advertising section--Today's Woman--in the Times Record, the local newspaper. I wrote six profiles, but my favorite was of a woman who directs the county Juvenile Detention Center here, an ex-police officer. I didn't know what to expect, but I ended up being bowled over by how much good she and her team were doing for these kids, kids who society usually just gives up on. She realized that having these delinquents in juvie for several weeks or months was a golden opportunity to turn their punishment time into a time for growth, change and empowerment. I won't go into all of the creative ways she has managed to involve the community in becoming catalysts for their rehabilitation, but there were plenty and the state Department of Education had named the school there the best non-traditional classroom in the state.

As soon as I got home from the interview, I went home and gathered up three bags of books to donate because she had mentioned how spare their library was and how the kids gobble down anything they have to read, since they have few other diversions outside of the classroom. Then when the director called to thank me for the article yesterday, I decided to mention that I'd be happy to volunteer there sometime. A few hours later, one of the teachers called me about tutoring some of the girls. By the end of the phone call, I had committed to coming in this morning to work on 10th- and 11th-grade math skills with two girls studying for their GED.

Now, first of all, I've never worked with incarcerated people before, and second, it's been at least 15 years, really longer, since I did much in the way of math, which was always my weakest subject. I was a bit wary this morning, but eager to see if I could help.

It's kind of intimidating down there. Before I did the interview and got the tour, I didn't quite realize that the kids would be in prison stripes, live in cells in a genuine jail and when going to and from court or anywhere else they may be taken, wear handcuffs and leg irons. I guess juvie's always so dismissively mentioned in those crime shows that I didn't realize just how much it really is prison.

The kids adapt to their environment, though, and for many it's an extreme improvement over their home life, cell blocks and armed guards and all. The girls I worked with today seemed like just normal 17 girls in prison garb, concerned that they weren't grasping the math skills they needed for their GEDs and trying hard to learn.

We worked through a few pages of their GED math workbook, mainly on fractions, which thankfully I still mostly remembered. A couple of times I kind of faltered when they'd ask me questions ("Do we need to multiply the bigger denominator or divide the smaller one to get the common denominator in this first step?"), but we managed to muddle through, and when in doubt, I let them each try a different method on their own to see which one would work. By the end, I think we all understood fraction problem-solving better.

I was going to commit to maybe an hour every Tuesday, but one of my girls has a GED pre-test Thursday afternoon and still has trouble with a lot of sections, so I told her I'd come back tomorrow and help her with geometry.

Now, all I remember about geometry is that I was good at it and I like the colored pencils and a couple of random Pythagorean theorem type things. So, I'm going to go buy a GED math book this afternoon and brush up on my skills to help them tomorrow.

It feels good to be able to help someone so directly. It's gratifying. And, actually, it's great practice for me because I've been trying to study for the GRE and was astounded at how rusty my basic math skills had gotten. I think teaching a concept to someone else is one of the best ways to make sure you really understand it yourself, so I had the girls go over the lessons they had just learned by teaching it to each other.

Towards the end, when I was about to leave, one of them said she was worried because she still had so much to learn and said she tended to forget what she had learned after she went to sleep. The other girl told her, "Don't worry. I'm here all day every day for the next seven weeks, and I'm always happy to help you if you'll help me. I'm not going anywhere. We can beat that GED together."

I never thought I would have so much fun working out math problems in a correctional facility. Life sure is something.

Habit of the Month: Clean Bathroom

2008-10-27T14:12:00.003-05:00

It's been too long since I've posted anything; regular posting is a habit I'll have to develop. It's not the only one.

I tend to be a wee bit self-critical. OK, not a wee bit. Better stated, there's a wee bit of the time I'm not self-critical. Lately, I've been feeling even more so, especially as the economy slumps, our savings trickles away and the number of job postings (to which I've been applying unsuccessfully for years) dwindles more by the week. I've been basically hanging out at the house in my jammies living online in a kind of haze of politics and news and movies and DVD.

But now it's fall. I can tell, because I'm watching two squirrels scamper amidst the falling orange oak leaves in my yard right now and everyone has mums and pumpkins on their front porches to show how festive and stable they are and because I'm beginning to need a sweater or a coat when I go out at night or in the early morning.

That's a good thing. I love fall. Autumn is my favorite of the seasons, with spring a close second. It has a sense of purposefulness about it and yet a letting go of all the concerns of summer. The world is a different color, overnight. It's a new start.

And so, I've decided to embark on a gradual self-improvement plan. Discipline has always been a weakness of mine (see the rambly and unfinished reading list of a couple of posts ago, exhibit a), but I think it's correctible.

I've read somewhere different stats on how often or long you have to repeat something before it becomes a habit. The lower estimates are something like seven times (for the highly disciplined, I assume) and 51 times for the utterly unfocused or more difficult tasks. I figured I'd assign myself a habit a month, one thing that I want to do more consistently. It's something of an experiment, but I don't see how it could hurt.

Last week I cleaned my bathroom. We only have one and it's small and has only small amounts of storage, so it gets dirty and/or cluttered quick. Plus, my cat likes to go in there and hunt for the ants that randomly show up every eight weeks or so, and the dog likes to chase the cat out of the bathroom because either he doesn't think he should be there or he's worried Ashes may be walking into a bath-trap, so we end up getting more pet fur in the corners and crevices than Martha Stewart recommends.

It had gotten worse than usual, so I gave the bathroom the works: Pinesol, Swiffering (wet and dry), washing the window and mirrors, scrubbing and Tilexing the tub, cleaning the toilet, getting the Q-tip into the icky parts you can't really see behind the faucet, everything I could think of. It was a lot of work, sorely needed, but it looks great. Plus, the whole house smelled like cleaning products for about 48 hours, a rarity here.

"Can we just hang out in here tonight?" Ben said, taking it all in when he got home that day.

This past week, I've made a point to keep the counters clean, pick up my towels and clothes, put the meds back in the cabinet, rinse out the sink, all those things. So a week later, it still looks nice.

This, for me, is revolutionary.

"I could make this a habit!" I actually said to myself aloud in the bathroom. And thus, an idea was born. I usually try to improve too many things at once (I'll diet! I'll exercise! I'll organize my socks! I'll bake fresh bread every week! I'll cut back on TV! I'll stop embezzling millions!) and of course, they all end up flopping in on each other. This time, baby steps. One good habit a month. With the hope I can build on the previous success, rather than just being good at one thing at a time.

So while the rest of the house is still a cluttered den of somewhat interesting things mixed with junk mail and magazines, the bathroom--the place, other than the kitchen, it's arguably most important to have clean--is a haven of cleanliness, order and serenity. Sure, the wallpaper the landlord picked out is all kinds of awful and the storage is still an issue, and the map of the world shower curtain is getting pretty old, but it's clean. And it's staying that way, for at least the next 30 days.

My Itty Bitty Baby Brother

2008-10-18T14:37:00.010-05:00

Today, you'll be happy to know, is my 24th anniversary. No, not of being married to Ben (that's three years next month), but of having another fella in my life, my itty bitty baby brother Michael. Yes, 24 years ago, I was sitting in Mrs. Parkinson's class in the middle of a spelling test with a couple dozen other sixth graders when the school secretary's voice came over the loudspeaker to our classroom.

"Mrs. Parkinson, is Jennifer Armstrong in your class right now?"

"Yes, she is."

"Please inform her that she now has a baby brother and to come to the office to find out all about him."

That's how I heard about my brother. I had a two-year-old sister already, so she was old news. This was something else, though, especially since my whole class squealed with glee (I think they just liked the interruption in the spelling test) and congratulated me. I think there was clapping. At any rate, I was a celebrity. I had both a new brother and a hall pass.

Mrs. Parkinson made me wait until after the test--I was bouncing in my seat, ready to pop--before I could excitedly fast-walk my way to the office to find out more. The secretary happily told me that my mom and my new brother Michael David were fine (my sister had been an intensive-care case, so this was actually something of a relief to me), that he was born at 2:03 p.m. , that he weighed something liek 8 pounds, 3 ounces and that I was to go home with some friends and Daddy would pick me up later.

I think I actually skipped back to the classroom. I'm glad he was born late afternoon because the rest of the day was a blur. I'd never had a brother before. I wasn't sure what to expect. I met him the next day. It was neat.

Here's me with my new brother:

I couldn't have known. Being a big sister to Michael has been one of the great joys of my life, even when I was a cranky teenager who didn't want to babysit or a self-absorbed college student or a thirtysomething who lives too far away to see him very often. He's far from done yet, but so far, and despite my best efforts (convincing him that a ghost lived down the drain, reading him bedtime stories about gangrene from a medical book I found, that sort of thing), he's turned out great.

My little brother is smarter and better looking than he likes to admit, hard-working, amiable and uncomplaining, funny as heck, one of the most relentlessly imaginative people I know and probably the single kindest person I've ever met.

He's completely deserving of a roomful of sixth-grader cheers, then and every year. Whether he deserves to have to put up with a bothersome big sister like me is a much tougher question.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!

Look, if he only had a birthday every three years, it would be the 8th anniversary of this picture:

Just What the Doctor Ordered

2008-10-12T21:39:00.003-05:00

After a couple of weeks of almost non-stop work and deadlines and all kinds of harriedness, Ben and I got to enjoy a wonderful, lazy weekend with absolutely nothing on the agenda.

It was great.

We did a little shopping and scoping out the big new shopping center in Fort Smith--complete with our city's first-ever and much-anticipated (going on about 10 years now) Target store and highly improved spaces for Books-a-Million, Best Buy and some others. Watched a couple of movies at home (a Dutch WWII Jewish drama called Black Book that came out last year and a documentary, Up the Yangtze, about the personal consequences to the Chinese farmers affected by the flooding of their homes by the Three Gorges Dam project--which was better than it probably sounds), spent several hours reading books at a cafe (including some of those listed in the previous posting), took Marlowe the Wonderdog to the huge dog park here, and just hung out at home doing this and that and enjoying each other's company. No social engagements, though we ran into a few people around town. It was utterly low-key, unstructured, and wonderful. At last, a weekend that felt like a weekend!

Plus, to make it all better--on Friday I finally bought new pillows for the bed. Nothing fancy, just the best quality pillows K-mart carried. Wow, what a difference that has made! Normally, I build what Ben calls Fort Jenny out of many carefully arranged pillows, which must then all be rearranged in my sleep and restructured any time I turn over (and I'm a turner, practically on a slow rotisserie) during the night. Since getting the new pillows, I've needed only one tiny pillow for my legs and the new one, and I've been sleeping like a log. If logs sleep. Anyway, soundly. A good night's sleep, like a good, lazy weekend, cannot be underestimated. Yay for new pillows!

Now, off to savor them again...

Book Me.

2008-10-11T10:03:00.007-05:00

As I wrote before, I was always quite a reader. Still am, and I read at least a little bit (bookwise) most days. The problem I have is that I am an incredibly undisciplined reader. If a book catches my imagination in that way the right book at the right time, I'll plow right through it in a matter of hours, barely stopping for food or bathroom breaks, often staying up all night if that's what it takes to get to the last page.

Otherwise, though, I'm a bit of a scattershot, with at least a dozen books at any time that I am in some stage of reading. I pick them up as the mood strikes, put them aside when one of the aforementioned types strikes page-turning gold, and return to them or not as they catch my attention. I do finish many books, but I have to admit to starting many more before leaving them to fend for themselves. When someone asks me what I'm reading, I'm likely to give a deer in headlights look as I try to recall exactly what books I've been picking at most recently.

We have several large bookcases in our home, filled to capacity and starting to spill over onto the surrounding floor. Besides these, though, my main book repository is my nightstand and the few feet of wall next to it. Ben and I bought new nightstands a couple of years ago specifically because they were for readers--dark wood with several levels of horizontal shelves perfect for reading materials, from novels to newspapers. Although it looked like a lovely organizational, simplifying kind of piece at the time, both of ours are of course completely cluttered. Mine, hidden away in the corner, is the worst.

Sometime back I happened across a little book by author Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, A Long Way Down), who had a similar problem as I have in that he was always buying more books than he was reading each month. I do that. Bad. But Hornby's idea was to write a chronicle of his book-reading for a year, with lists of what he'd bought, what he'd read, and what he thought of those books. Of course, being me, I didn't actually finish his book--reading about somebody else's endless pile of reading while ignoring your own has some inherent flaws, I think--but I do think of it from time to time.

Besides any reading we do during the day, Ben and I often read for a time before going to sleep. It usually takes me a couple of minutes at least to choose what book is next as I peruse my growing Mount To Be Read in my nightstand. Sometimes as I look through the piles, I find books I didn't even remember abandoning months before.

So here, just because, is a list of what I'm currently "reading" or at least that I keep meaning to read. From my nightstand (not counting the many unread books still in my bookcases):

In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson--I always enjoy Bryson's books and usually speed through them. This one, though I actually like immensely, I've been reading off and on since May. Lately, I've been reading a few pages a night, determined to finish the dang thing.
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson--In exchange for reading a book of mine I recommended (A Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier), Ben gave me this one of his to read. So far it's kind of a high-octane humorous sci-fi romp, pretty different from my typical fare, but good. It does funny things to my brain.
The Sandman; the Doll's House by Neil Gaiman--After years of hearing that I'd love the Sandman graphic novels about the king of Dreams, I received in the mail the first three in the series from an online pal I've never met who wanted to share their goodness with me. The first one, though supposedly before Gaiman hit his stride, was great. I loved it, but made myself finish a couple of other books before going ahead with the second installment. I'm a couple of pages into it now. That online friend is quite the mensch, I gotta say.
Death and Nightengales by Eugene McCabe--I haven't opened this one since I bought it in the bargain bin at Hastings a while back. It's supposed to be good, but I've read too many Irish books lately, so it's on hold.
Breakfast at the Victory by James P. Carse--Another one Ben recommended. It's a nonfiction, anecdotal philosophy sort of book about the mystical that can be found in the ordinary, so I supposed it fits right in with the title of this blog.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte--one of my all-time favorites. I've read it so many times, I can just open in the middle at random and read a few pages here and there. I read it in its entirety every couple of years or so.
Several New Yorkers--The problem with having a New Yorker subscription is that it comes every week and there's always more I want to read than time to read it. I get through what I can and hoard the rest for a future date.
Man Descending by Guy Vanderhaeghe--Ben recommended this book of short stories. I've read a couple. They're pretty good.
High Profile by Robert B. Parker--My mother-in-law is a big Parker mystery fan and sent this one over, but I haven't been able to get into it. His dialogue is so terse. I may give it another try, though.
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link--This is not actually a magic book, but a collection of short stories. I read the first story in the library one day (about a tiny kingdom in a magic purse) and loved her whimsy and writing so much, I immediately went out and bought a copy. So far, the other stories aren't as good. I haven't given up on it, though.
Several issues of Allstory--Ben likes to buy me these, director Francis Ford Coppola's monthly magazine of short stories. I read something in every issue, though never the whole issue.
My Brother Bill by John Faulkner--I like Faulkner a lot, so when I happened across this bio by his brother in a used book store, I grabbed it. It's one of those old 70s-era paperbacks.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez--A classic I started reading last year, loved, put down halfway through, and somehow managed to forget about until I started writing this this morning. Will have to pick it up again. Yay!
Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson--Same story as #13, nonfiction version. Temple Grandin is the autistic Ph.D. animal behaviorist whose findings have revolutionized much of animal science and husbandry. Fascinating book. Must finish one of these days.
The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards--A book of short stories by the author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Haven't started yet.
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino--In Little Rock author Kevin Brockmeier's latest book, The View from the Seventh Layer, one of the stories in it is a choose-your-own-adventure story, the kind I loved as a kid, but a grown-up, literary version. In one of the story's many paths, the protagonist stays home and reads The Baron in the Trees, which he expounds upon at length as being perhaps a perfect book with romance and mystery and magic and drama and completely satisfying in every way. I figured that wasn't a random choice, so I had to buy the book for myself. I've put off starting it, though, so it sits in a stack on the floor.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera--This was good, but the momentum of it changed in Part II and I didn't get back into it. Maybe the title is a little too accurate?
A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel--Something light to read sometime, supposed to be good.
Like Being Killed by Ellen Miller--Another one Ben recommended for me, a novel, but I haven't started it yet.
The Goldbug Variations by Richard Powers--I vaguely remember buying this large book at a used book store a while back. It has many impressive blurbs on the back, but so far has only taken up space in my floor-stack.
March by Geraldine Brooks--I'm reading this one, an imagined chronicle of the Civil War as experienced by Mr. March, the much-absent father in Little Women. It won the Pulitzer, and it's very good so far. I try to always read the Pulitzer fiction winner.
Silence by Shusaku Endo--This novel about 15th-century Portugese monks being persecuted in Buddhist Japan is the source material for a future Martin Scorsese movie, thus, its presence by my nightstand. Otherwise, it wouldn't be. Curse you, Marty!
The Night of the Gun by David Carr--One of my favorite Oscar bloggers is David Carr, The Carpetbagger at The New York Times. Carr, a seriously talented writer who covers the media for The Times, this year published an autobiography of his years as an out-of-control junkie and abusive alcoholic, piecing together his many absent memories by interviewing hundreds of people who knew him at his worst in a painfully honest telling of his story and subsequent recovery. Haven't started it yet.
Aloft by Chang-rae Lee--I heard good things about this novel, but I really just bought it because a) the cover was a pretty sky blue color, b) it was in the bargain bin, and c) being about small-engine planes, it reminds me of my friend Ken who just built a runway on his property.
The Courage Consort by Michel Farber--a novella by an author I like. It's just sitting there waiting for me to start.
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks--A historical novel by an author I like. It's just sitting there waiting for me to start.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini--A best-selling Afghani novel by an author I like (The Kite Runner author). It, too, is just waiting for me to start.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman--After I liked the Stardust movie, my friend Donna let me borrow the even-better graphic novel. Good stuff, what I've read of it. I still have it. Guess I need to finish it or give it back soon.
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud--A library book I checked out last week, since I obviously have nothing else to read. I've read two pages.
The Stand by Stephen King--A second library book I checked out last week, since obviously I have nothing else to read. Of course it's huge. Been meaning to read it for years.
The Captain's Wife by Doug Kelley--A third library book I checked out last week, since obviously I have a problem. This one, though, was written by a guy I know in Fort Smith, and I really ought to read it. Actually, I ought to own it to accompany my growing collection of X's Wife books--The Pilot's Wife, The Zookeeper's Wife, The Time Traveler's Wive (love that one!), The Nazi Officer's Wife, Ahab's Wife.

So as you see, I'm a reader. Or at least a hoarder. I think I need help.

7 Things

2008-10-09T20:35:00.007-05:00

My sister tagged me in this 7 Things game, where you're supposed to list seven things that most people may not know about you. I'm trying to build a blog habit here, so why not? Here are my seven, prepare to be shocked. Your life will never be the same, once you know these things about me.

I don't like to be touched, kissed, or really even looked at underneath my chin. I'm likely to involuntarily squeal loudly in the ear of the person trying to touch me there. Be warned.
Sarah Palin brings out the worst in me, more so than anyone else I know. I have a slowly simmering rage whenever I think about her. I recognize that many people will not understand this because she is inspiring to them (including a number of people I love and respect), but not me. Now let's all get along and move to the much less controversial item #3.
I have an active presence online on a few key film and Oscar blogs and websites, where I'm very much part of the virtual community. On most days, I check them as often as I can, often hourly. Through that film community, last year I became one of about 20 selected "lay Oscar prognosticators" (i.e., not paid film critics or Hollywood folk) to be "Sultans of Bling" on one of the larger film sites (competing with the more well-established pros on "Gurus of Gold"). The Sultans were mentioned in the New York Times', LA Times' and Variety film sites. It's no big deal, and we collectively didn't prognosticate that well, but something a little different about me, I suppose.
I was an English major, but I failed Shakespeare. It was a depression/not-going-to-class thing. I really do love the old bard and regret that's on my transcript, though I took the class again and did much better.
Even though I have little or no experience with them, I am inordinately fascinated by ships, boats and especially submarines and nonfiction accounts about adventures on them. Similarly, I am also super-excited about accounts of adventures in snowy and icy conditions (Everest, Antarctica, etc.). If you combine the two, to say tell a true account of a submarine that gets lost in the Arctic sea ice never to be heard from again, I'm golden. Don't know why I love that stuff, but I do.
I married a direct descendant of Geoffrey Chaucer. He's Ben's 19th great-grandfather. Which is pretty darn cool.
My favorite all-time movie food is chocolate-covered almonds and cherry coke. I'm also a big fan of the pickles.

I'm supposed to tag seven other people, but since I don't know who will read this, and I feel a little rebellious about following the rules here, we'll just say that if you're reading this and you have a hankering, consider yourself tagged. You can blog your 7 things or just e-mail them to me.

Of Princesses, Queens, and Other Quite Ordinary Things

2008-10-09T16:26:00.001-05:00

When I was a girl, like many little girls, I was captivated by princesses.

I read voraciously, anything I could, but if the book had a princess in it, I'd read it at least a dozen times. I read the George MacDonald princess series--The Princess and the Curdie, The Princess and the Goblin, etc.--, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson tales, but my favorites were from the fairy books.

In the late 19th century, a fellow named Andrew Lang started editing books of fairy tales, starting with The Blue Fairy Book and continuing the volumes across a spectrum of rainbow colors. My mother had several of these as a girl, and two of hers--The Crimson Fairy Book and The Violet Fairy Book, hardback with a cover in that color--survived her childhood and made it into mine. The fact that these books had been Mommy's when she had (astoundingly) been a little girl like me, was special enough to ensure my interest, but the books would have caught my fancy on their own. Each book was filled with twisting fairy tales I'd never heard or read--many of which I still have not found anywhere else. They were full of majesty and beauty, with pages of exquisite pen-and-ink or full-color plate drawings of the lovely princesses, handsome princes, magic goats, sprightly mischief-makers and crooked old hags from the woods that populated the tales.

Not all, but most of these tales had princesses in them, and who wouldn't want to be them? To be a princess was to have been born into wealth and inevitable beauty, kindness and charm, grace and the ability to dance all night in magic slippers with the handsome princes who came from faraway lands to bid for your hand in marriage after only seeing your reflection once in an enchanted forest pond. There was a certain pattern to these tales. Younger princes and princesses were always the most clever, most handsome or beautiful, the ones who never missed an opportunity to succeed or to get a cryptic riddle right. The youngest princess, the loveliest of them all, was always the one the protagonist picked.

Feeding into my princess obsession, was a) Princess Diana, who married Prince Charles in a giant ceremony I got to stay home from school and watch when I was about 8 and b) around the same time, my dad and uncles wrote and produced a small musical about a kingdom in a faraway land where the enticing lead actress with the beautiful voice played a princess! Needless to say, I needed no encouragement, and for the next few years I happily sang the catchy tunes from their play off key to anyone who would humor me and made up countless tales set in that realm with many more happy endings of my own.

That Halloween, I got to use some of the leftover costume remnants from the production to make a bona fide princess costume--a ruffly pink dressing gown of my mother's hemmed and pinned to fit me plus a genuine, conical PRINCESS HAT, made of gauze-covered poster board with a translucent pink flourish of fabric trailing from its peak. I felt prettier that night than I've probable ever felt, before or since.

Then one day, when I was about 11 and starting to outgrow my enchantment with princesses (having by that time a new baby sister who I was sure was destined to be prettier, kinder, and altogether more wonderful than me in every way probably deflated some of the mythology's appeal, as well), my mother bought me a new book, The Ordinary Princess, by M. M. Kaye.

From the start, this book was different. It made me laugh out loud by subverting all the preposterous princess premises I'd read all my life. This Princess Amelia Somethingorother Somethingorother Somethingorotherevengrander, had been cursed shortly after birth by an old 3rd-cousin crone from the woods who felt slighted by not being invited to her christening and cursed the beautiful baby princess to be (gasp) ordinary! Instantly, the roses fade from the child's cheeks, the sparkle disappears from her eyes, her golden locks start becoming a sort of mousy brown color and her cherubic temperament erupts into a prolonged wail of angry baby noises.

I friggin' loved it.

As she grows older, Princess Amy (she needed an ordinary name, after all) is unremarkable in every way. Her sisters are older, beautiful, serene embodiments of royal blood, whereas she is more of a curious tomboy, running through the forests, making friends with the citizenry and displaying something heretofore unseen in my stories--a personality of her own. Of course, she goes on to have a compelling tale and narrative arc, a life lived to the fullest; it is just outside of the bounds of traditional fairy telling.

As I grew up, I thought about that book often. It still holds a place of honor in my home, nestled amongst my Narnia books, Fairy books, and other childhood favorites atop a bookcase in my office. Of all of them, it's probably the one I would not want to replace, though it's less valuable than some.

Then when I was in college, a friend who I did not yet know very well flattered me by calling me, out of the blue, The Queen of All That is Good. He probably called many a girl that in his day, but it worked on me. It was such a ludicrous thing to call me, with all of my overwhelming self-esteem issues. I beamed at him, laughed it off, and secretly treasured it in my heart. Over the years as we became better and better friends, it remained his pet name for me, and I never grew tired of it.

I was trying to think up a catchy title for this blog my sister (who, true to form, grew up to be prettier, wittier, kinder and more wonderful than me in every way--and I love her for it) has been badgering me to start. Part of me balks at the very idea of a blog--who would want to read what I would write? What do I have to write about? Who do I think I am? But immediately, I thought about calling it The Ordinary Princess.

That wouldn't work. First of all, that name was taken, and second, it didn't fit. "Princess" still connotes a certain girly, rhinestony pinkness that just isn't me, even with the qualifying modifier attached.

No, I'm all grown up now, or at least twenty-five years further down that path than when I was 10. I would have to be a queen. Queens have a certain imperiousness I'm not sure I feel, but my sister and brother tell me I'm quite bossy, so maybe that works. I hope I can be one of the wise queens, not the evil queens who try to have the pretty young princesses beheaded or turned into soup.

But what to be queen of? All That is Good sounds just a bit too much responsibility, and a bit conceited as well. That's not me. I'm just queen of my own small little life, such as it is.

When I was a child, my parents told me over and over that I was special, that I could do anything I wanted, that I was sure to do great things in life. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. One of the harder realizations I had growing up was that my life was actually only as extraordinary as I made it; the magic isn't built in, the citizenry doesn't automatically recognize my eminence (there's a design flaw there, I think). Honestly, there have been times a-plenty that I've been ashamed not to have done more with my life, not to have gone on to the academic heights, fame, wealth, and international success some of my high school and college friends have found (including, notably, the one who dubbed me Queen of All That is Good). There have been other times that I have felt proud of what I have been able to accomplish, becoming the person I am, overcoming a few hurdles and outsmarting a few tricky old crones from the woods along the way.

I'm not done yet, though, so we'll just have to see where my story goes next.

Meanwhile, I started thinking about those fairy tales. I live in a small, usually messy rent house in the second-largest town in Arkansas. It's no castle, but it's cozy. My treasures aren't golden balls or enchanted talking fish or a cave full of gems. They are the simple, ordinary joys that make up my days: my deeply colorful and entertaining family, my supportive friends who make me laugh, work that pays a few bills and is occasionally if not always fascinating, pets that are as companionable as any pets that ever were, my relative health and the prospect of spending many long years ahead with the love of my life, my sometimes-jolly and sometimes curmudgeonly husband, who is my best friend day in and day out and the sweet king of my heart.

So I guess I'm the queen of these few things, these quiet pleasures that are unique only the extraordinary happiness they bring me. It's of them that I'll try to write here in this blog, those ordinary things that make up my days. And maybe as I write about my unremarkable life, I'll find a bit of magic along the way.

Perhaps someday I'll discover there really is no difference between All That is Ordinary and All That is Good. Perhaps it's all just life, and that in itself, is all the good any princess could desire.