august break: day 16

Got to visit my favorite bookstore in the state recently. I seriously think I breathe easier when I'm in there. Any bookstore, really. But this one especially.

I'm doing The August Break. It's easy and fun. Join me, won't you?

scintilla day 7: I Got Life

(Weird title to the post I know. But as soon as I read the tribe prompt, I started to get songs from the musical Hair in my head. What?)

Today's Scintilla prompt asks: List the tribes you belong to: cultural, personal, literary, you get the drift. Talk about how the experience of being in your element with your tribe.

You totally know when you’re with your tribe, don’t you? You feel looser, happier, energetic. You feel surrounded by love. Support. You feel right.

This is another Scintilla prompt that reminds me how lucky I am, because I am card-carrying member of some pretty amazing tribes.

My family. The only person in my family I speak with (or really, email with) several times a week is my mother. I usually see my brother once a week, maybe, and exchange some texts and FB messages. My two sisters, every once in a while, my nieces and nephews, on holidays and birthdays…you get the drift. It’s not like we’re all coming together for Sunday dinner every week. But what I know is this: they are there for me. I am there for them. Whenever something hard hits our family – and it has, it has – we are there for each other, hardcore.

My friends. Well. I’ve talked about core group of friends an awful lot on this blog, haven’t I? My tribe I’ve been besties with for over 30 years now. I might as well have put them up there with my family, for how close they are to me. And am so lucky to add so many other fabulous people to my friend tribe – from work (present and past), my fellow happy-hour loving moms, from college, etc. I am lucky lucky lucky.

My book club: OK, OK, so my book club is also made up of my friends. But I love it, OK? We’ve been going for well over two years now, and one thing that I am always excited about is my next book club meeting. We take it seriously, y’all. We theme the snacks around the book, we have printed out lists of questions, an order in which we answer them – oh yes. It’s nerdtacular.

My theater peeps: I mean, really. Can I even express how much I love doing shows? I think I expressed myself best about it in one of my favorite posts ever here – and the fact that another show is brewing next month has got me very excited. I have a need to be with my theater peeps sometimes. If I don’t address that part of myself, I start to get itchy.

I love the idea of tribes, and I feel extremely blessed to be included in my own

reverb11 day 27: in which I don't really answer the question

Today prompt asks: Share with us the title and inside jacket cover of the book you’d most like to write.

And here we are, day 27, and I don’t have an answer. I really don’t. Here’s why: I don’t think I have a book in me (I am answering in terms of a fictional book; but I won't be writing a non-fiction book either. That's for the experts of....things, which I am not.)

 Unlike so, so many of you talented bloggers, I am not a creative writer. I enjoy writing about my life, and about pop culture, and my various and sundry opinions (educated or not) about just about anything, but as much as I loooooove to read fiction – and plow through dozens and dozens of books a year – I don’t have a great, unwritten or unfinished novel in me.

 I’ll leave that to you guys.

bookstore!

Now that Borders has failed us all, we are spending more time at Barnes and Noble. It's almost as good.

Amanda Day.

So I declared today "Amanda Day" and took the day off from work. Here is my recipe for a great day off:

1) Fan-freakin-tastic weather. Sunny and high 80s today. Gorgeous.
2) Solo boat time. I went down to our boat and just hung out and read for a few hours. Got some vitamin D the all-natural way. Ate some lunch.
3) Visited my favorite bookstore. I love, love triple-love this place.
4) Got an iced mocha and sat on a bench in the shade outside the bookstore and read the beginning of my new book. The past two books I've read have been for the book clubs I am in, so it was nice to choose something for myself on my own. (Note: I did pick The Weird Sisters for one of my book clubs - and I completely loved it. We have the meeting at my house on Friday.)
5) Sang loud and proud to my new favorite Broadway soundtrack on the way there and back. With the air conditioner on in the car AND the windows open!
6) What is a day off without a trip to Target? Hollow and empty, that's what it is. Somehow I spent $84. I was literally second-guessing the cashier. But no, really, I did spend that much.

Fin.

PS I am noticing all the book talk here. I am such a nerd.

how I became a famous novelist

Well...not me, exactly. Or, at all. However, that is the title of my latest book club book - "How I Became a Famous Novelist" by Steve Hely. Unfortunately, because of my crazy rehearsal schedule, I can't make this Friday's book club meeting, so I will share my opinion here:

I completely loved this book.

I literally laughed out loud. A lot. And as a "writer" type of person (big quotes), I thought it was really interesting to get a look at the publishing industry. And the other day, when I realized I only had about 20 pages left, I put it down, because I just didn't want it to be over. That's when I knew I had to recommend it to you peeps. Check it out!

(PS Sorry for my light posting - have I mentioned I'm doing a show? And that it's next week? True fact!)

say whaaaa?

So there’s this book.

And it looks all cute and sweet, right? And it is. I was reading it to Jane last night, and she’s really enjoying “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Hush, Little Baby” and "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear" and then we get to this:

Goosey, Goosey, Gander

Whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs,

And in my lady's chamber.

There I met an old man,

Who wouldn't say his prayers,

I took him by the left leg,

And threw him down the stairs.

Are you effing kidding me with this? I TOOK HIM BY HIS LEFT LEG AND THREW HIM DOWN THE STAIRS?!!? Nighty night, Jane! Sleep night! With visions of being tossed down the stairs by one leg dancing in your head! Sweet dreams! WTF??

So I had to Google that shit. And it turns out, this so-called nursery rhyme has some nefarious undertones, as so many seemingly innocent children’s songs and stories do. This is what the internets told me:

Zealous Protestants & Secret Priest Holes
Goosey, Goosey Gander is a rhyme with historical undertones - an attention grabber for a nursery rhyme which uses alliteration in the lyrics designed to intrigue any child. The 'lady's chamber' was a room that once upon a time a high born lady would have her own chamber, (also referred to as a solar). The origins of the nursery rhyme are believed to date back to the 16th century and refer to necessity for Catholic priests to hide in 'Priest Holes' ( very small secret rooms once found in many great houses in England) to avoid persecution from zealous Protestants who were totally against the old Catholic religion. If caught both the priest and members of any family found harbouring them were executed. The moral in Goosey Goosey Gander's lyrics imply that something unpleasant would surely happen to anyone failing to say their prayers correctly - meaning the Protestant Prayers, said in English as opposed to Catholic prayers which were said in Latin!

So it’s basically – you better get your prayers right, bitch – or you’re going to need crutches! Nice. I think I’ll be skipping over that page next time this book comes out of the bookcase.

And thus concludes NaBloPoMo. I cannot believe I actually posted every day. Yay me! I now get about a 12-hour break to refocus my brain and dive into reverb10 – hope you’ll stick around!

Special thanks to my friend Dwayne, who has managed to, as promised, comment on every post I’ve made this month. Now get your own blog!

we’re off to see the wizard

So, it seems like there is a very important movie coming out this weekend. Well, midnight tonight, to be more specific. And I’m not talking about Russell Crowe’s new movie that I won’t ever see, The Next Three Days. (What is this, anyway? Aren’t we over Russell Crowe at this point?)

Yes, it appears that the new Harry Potter movie is set to hit the big screen tonight, and from what I understand, it is going to be a very dark, terrifying, sad dramatic movie. No wonder all the kids love it! But I will not be one of the people in the multiplex for this one. I haven’t seen any of the Harry Potter movies, and I’ve only read one of the books. I think it was the fourth one – Harry “Half-Blood” Potter and the Sorcerer’s Chamber of Phoenixes, I believe it was, and it was an assignment at the newspaper where I worked at the time. But I read it. All 7,000 pages of it. It wasn’t my thing. I don’t like fantasy, I don’t like wizards, or magic, or dragons, or sorcery or death eaters or snapes or whatever the hell is in these books and movies.

So what I am about to say might shock you: I love the whole Cult of Harry Potter. I love when a new book comes out, mostly. I adore looking at pictures of the crowds lining up at the bookstores, and the kids (and adults) dressed up at their favorite characters, and everyone plopped down immediately after they make the transaction so they can start reading right away. Love love love it all.

I am a HUGE reader. I was an English major, for God’s sake! Being a book nerd is required. I absolutely love reading and think it's so important and when something like Harry Potter or (gag) Twilight*comes around that turns young people AWAY FROM THEIR VIDEO GAMES AND COMPUTERS and on to reading and books, I think it’s awesome. Reading books can very easily get lost in the shuffle of the overwhelming choices we have to entertain ourselves, especially with so many of them technology-based. (And I will never succumb to the Kindle or any e-reader, never ever ever. It’s not the same as reading an actual book. There’s no “new book” smell!)

And I’m happy to report that my faithful commenter Dwayne will be guest-posting on this blog tomorrow or Saturday to write a (very, very thorough, I imagine) review of the movie! Because “completely and totally and beyond-all-reason obsessed with Harry Potter” doesn’t even scratch the surface of his feelings for the books and the movies. I'm super-psyched! Get your reading glasses out, people! It's gonna be a long one!

*I am NOT equating the Harry Potter series to Twilight. Because while I might entertain the idea of reading Harry Potter, I will never crack open one of those Twilight books. I am not on Team Edward or Team Jacob - I am on Team PLEASE MAKE TWILIGHT STOP.

weekend: potty edition.

If you've had the unfortunate experience of talking to me in person over the past couple of weeks, you are more than aware that I plan to cold-turkey potty train Jane this weekend. As in, no diapers, just pants, and what I am sure will be excessive puddles around my house, not to mention other messes. I in no way expect her to actually be completely potty trained by the end of this three-day weekend; in fact, I fear she will not care at all when she is sitting in cold, pee-soaked clothes (see, the wet clothes are supposed to make the kid want to pee in the potty. Jane has never really cared if her diapers are soaked to the max, so I am afraid wet pants will be nothing to her.). I do plan on using the tried-and-true-by-other-people M&M reward system - an M&M for every potty success. What I think will end up happening will be me stuffing fistfuls of M&Ms in my mouth and crying out of sheer frustration.

So, as you can see, I'm very excited.

We won't be leaving the house this weekend, so I'm not even going to pretend like I have a lineup of fun stuff to do. However, tonight I am going to my book club meeting, and, suffice to say, I expect it to be the highlight of my weekend (unless, in fact, Jane does get even moderately potty trained). We will be discussing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and will be joined by our newest member, Alan. Oh yeah, Alan used to have a blog, but he has appeared to unceremoniously stop posting. Apparently he has trouble with goodbyes.

Have a good weekend!

project small joys: my book clubs

Continuing my exciting series of things I love in life, I present: my book clubs. I belong to two. One is made up of former/current co-workers; it's a very small but persistant book club that meets on an irregular basis but is always reading something (or supposed to be reading something). This book club has been around for probably five years or so. The rules are lax in this club. If you don't like the whole idea of the chosen book, you don't have to read it, but you can still give your opinion about it (or maybe that's just a rule I came up with myself, because lordy, I don't like reading super depressing books but I sure love giving my opinion about them). We also talk VERY LITTLE about the book when we meet (which is usually for lunch during the work week). Instead we spend 80%-90% of the time gossiping and talking about what a douchebag Jon Gosselin is (really!).

My other book club is newer - our second meeting is tonight. This is made up of my core group of friends I've been tight with since I was 8, along with some of their associated girlfriends, boyfriends, what-have-you. So far, the books this club reads tends to be a little more serious, Pulitzer Prize-winning and what not, and so far, the two choices have been great. The last one, which is about a traveling circus in the 1930s, is definitely not something I would have read on my own, since it talks about the abuse of the animals in the circus, but I really liked it. And I guess that's the whole point of book club -reading stuff you normally wouldn't. This second book club takes itself very seriously, with prepared discussion questions and themed snacks. It's kind of hilarious.

Tonight, it's my turn to reveal what book I've picked for our next meeting (we had to pick numbers to determine the order of the picking). I'll let you know what I picked tomorrow! (Because I know you are desperate to find out.)

so I got up on time.

And now for the exciting conclusion to my previous post - yes, I got up on time. I woke up at about 2:30 a.m. in a complete panic that I missed my alarm, and then proceeded to wake up every 10 minutes after that until 3:45 a.m. when I threw in the towel and got up five minutes early. I hit the wall at 1:30 p.m. and left work. I went to the library and then read a whole bunch of a book I'm reading for one of my book clubs, A Confederacy of Dunces. Have you read this? It's hysterical. And slightly insane. More than slightly. Anywho.

Tomorrow my department (such that it is) is going on a retreat that will take me far and away from my desk. Which is magnificent and lovely and all good things.

Hope you're having a good week.

Rattled!

Lisa recently asked me to chat about what I’ve been reading. So I thought I’d let all y’all know about a very quick, entertaining and insightful book I just plowed through last week – it’s called Rattled!, and it was written by Christine Coppa who writes the Storked! blog over at Glamour.com (I have a link to it over on there side there too).

I started reading Storked! at some point after Jane was born, so completely obsessed with parenting blogs was I. Chrissy’s son, JD, was born about a month after Jane, but her experience of having a child was much different from mine – while I was married and actively trying to become pregnant, Chrissy – who was living the young and fabulous life all Sex and the City-style in NYC (jealous!), found herself “storked” just a few months into a relationship. Her boyfriend (she calls him “A” in the book, and as far as I’m concerned, A = “Ass”) had ditched out of the scene completely by the time JD was born in August 2007, so Chrissy found herself in a position she never expected or planned for - a 26-year-old single mom living back home in New Jersey.

This was all information I knew from reading her blog, but the book goes into so much more detail. And while it’s a quick read and earned a lot of head-nodding from me (some pregnancy/parenthood experiences are oh-so-universal), it truly made me think about some things.

In her blog and in her book, Chrissy talks about being judged as a single parent - and, well, here’s the thing. I never judged single parents in a negative way, but I certainly never gave them the credit they deserved until I had my own child. I will hang my head in shame when I say I may have had a “what’s the big deal?” mindset when I was younger.

Oh, how I know what the big deal is now. When Greg is away and I’m on my own, or when Jane and I are sick at the same time, or when I want to – God forbid – do something for myself, I will often say, out loud, “I don’t know how single parents do it.” I still don’t. They don’t deserve negative judgment – rather, they deserve gold medals for doing the hardest job in the world solo. And when someone like Chrissy is a single parent unexpectedly – and does it with grace and humor to boot, while maintaining a writing career – they deserve a gold medal sprinkled with diamonds. With a cherry on top.

Something else I loved about the book was the relationship that Chrissy had with her grandmother, who passed away about a year ago. They were so very close and it made me wish I had known my grandmothers - and how much I hope that Jane has a strong bond with hers as she gets older (now she pretty much associates my mom with ice cream. Which is pretty awesome, obviously). It seems like such a special relationship to have, and one I’ll never experience.

I loved this book – I think partially because I’ve been reading Storked! for so long I feel like I “know” Chrissy, and it was so exciting to see her book come to fruition - but I know anyone who has been on a particular path, and been diverted so much that you start asking yourself “how the hell did I end up HERE?” – will love it too.

read this book now.

You guys know how busy I am these days. And as much as I love to read, it took me three nights last week to finish the article about John McCain in New York magazine (perhaps it was the subject matter? I digress..) So when I tell you that I read a book (a real book, not Snuggle Puppy or Clifford's Peekaboo) in 24 hours this weekend, please take a moment to be duly impressed. The book in question was Schuyler's Monster.

I first came across the writing of Robert Rummel-Hudson in Wonder Time magazine, which is a fairly cool parenting magazine that I read every now and then. There was an excerpt of his book, Schuyler's Monster, in the issue, pegged as a story about how parenting can affect marriage. I quickly realized that while this excerpt did talk about issues that Robert and his wife Julie had in their marriage, it wasn't the typical new parents scared shitless issues. It focused on the problems they had after their daughter Schuyler (pronounced Skyler) was diagnosed with an extremely rare neurological disorder, bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, which is caused by a malformation of the brain.

Well, you know me. The moment I find out there might be a sad story in my entertainment, especially health related, I put down the magazine or book, turn off the TV, return the movie. I like my entertainment light with a side of frothy. However, there was something very intriguing about his story, and when I found his blog, Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords, I was instantly hooked on the stories of the punky, adorable Schuyler and her Monster (which is what Robert calls her disorder).

I don't mean to candy coat it. In his blog and his book, Schulyer's Monster, Robert details the horrifying journey that began when his 18-month-old daughter's pediatrician asked him and his wife if Schuyler had begun speaking yet, and ended with the ultimate diagnosis of bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, which affects a large portion of Schuyler's brain. Thie malformation primarily presents itself by robbing Schuyler of the ability to speak.

The story will break your heart in about a million different ways. Robert's love for his daughter is palpable - which is what makes her diagnosis that much more painful. It is brutally honest - the aforementioned marriage problems are explored, the deep, dark fears he has for her future are mentioned often, and his conflicting feelings about God are woven throughout, never to be completely resolved.

But there is humor, lots of it, and a wealth of love and devotion for a child who he refers to as a "little rock star." And by the end, you will feel the same way about this engaging little girl. I swear, you'll want her autograph. More than that, you'll want to her hear speak with her Big Box Of Words.

Oh yes, Schuyler finds her voice, just not in the typical way. But she's definitely not a typical girl.

I know I sound ridiculously gushy, but as a parent, this book hit me hard. Because whether your child is diagnosed with something you've never heard of, or has a learning disorder, or is the most popular, straight-A kid in school, you're going to worry yourself sick. This is something I've learned over the past 10 months. Parenthood is great is all kinds of ways, but the primary feeling you have is worry. I felt for Robert and Julie as parents - and I will root for this little family every day, because, in short, they rock. And you'll root for them too.

Go read Schuyler's Monster. NOW.

Harry Potter and no, I didn't have the baby yet

Strangest post title ever, huh? First things first. No baby yet. Every day, everyone I see is completely shocked that I'm still at work, or doing my thing, and still pregnant, and not in the hospital birthing. But, you know, I'm not due 'til Tuesday (remember 'Til Tuesday? The band? I think they sang the song "Voices Carry"? That is going to be in my head all night). Anyway, no baby yet. But man am I exhausted. And man, do I think it might have been a bad idea to work until the end. But man, am I also glad I'm not home just waiting for the contractions to hit. So ultimately, although it's completely wiping me out, I'm glad I'm still working, because otherwise I think I'd just be freaking myself out about childbirth even more than I already am.

Anyway, hey! The new Harry Potter book comes out Friday at midnight! What is it called again? "Harry Potter and the Wizards of the the Deathly Hollows" or something like that? You can probably tell I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. Well, let me put it this way - I'm not a fan of reading the books. I'm not into fantasy and wizards and s*** like that. But I am a HUGE fan of how excited people get over the release of the books. Seriously, I think it's awesome. I think it's great that stores have big parties to celebrate the release, that kids make it their weekend goal to finish the 700+ page books, that, in general, for one day every couple of years, it's super cool to be a nerdy reader.

So have fun, Harry Potter fans! My prediction for this book - since, seriously, I just about guessed the ending right last time, so obviously I have some sort of gift - someone major dies. But it's not Harry. No way.

Let me know how it turns out.

good read

For those of you who like chick lit, but you are looking for something that isn't cheesy, then might I suggest The Hazards of Sleeping Alone by Elise Juska. I read the whole thing this weekend and it's the best book I've read in a while. In full disclosure I must admit that the other book I'm reading is What to Expect in the First Year, which, although not categorized as a horror book, is scaring the holy living hell out of me.