Books I've read in 2010

* = Loved it
^ = Hated it
~ = Enjoyed it enough to mark in some way, but "love" is such a very strong word
____________________________________

1. The Thorn Birds by Colleen Mccullough
2. Stay by Allie Larkin *
3. Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch *
4. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann ~
5. The Help by Kathryn Stockett *
6. Half Empty by David Rakoff *
7. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott *
8. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (via audiobook) *
9. Forever by Judy Blume
10. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (via audiobook) ~

Brevity is rarely my strong suit

So. Wow. I got nothin'. A full week yet again, and no stories for you? Nope. No stories. Only bullets. Here we go.

• Saturday I participated in a pub crawl in my neighborhood. Except instead of being called a pub crawl, it was called a pub mosey. I'm still not sure what the difference is between a crawl and a mosey. A mosey would be faster than a crawl, right? I don't think it was any faster, but it did seem more meandery, go-at-your-own-pace than a typical pub crawl. Maybe that's the difference between a crawl and a mosey. Then again, I've never actually participated in an "official" pub crawl, so I may have no idea what I'm talking about and may have based that theory only on the fact that the last crawl I observed whilst out and about involved a "round-up and move on" whistle to keep everybody strictly on task. So maybe I'm just saying the pub mosey was not led by Captain Von Trapp. Is that the difference? Who knows.
  
  
• I really thought that for once my bullet points of randomness would be short ones. I'll work on that.
  
  
• Towards the end of said mosey, I may have made out with a stranger. In public. Because I am klassy like that. And also, apparently, 25. Well done, self. If I tell you he was Australian, that makes it all OK, right? Everything sounds charming and intelligent with an Australian accent. That's a written rule, right? Surely the Australian accent forgives all sins.
  
  
• I realize few things are less interesting than blogging about the weather, but if autumn were a human, I would be filing a Missing Person's Report. We went directly from 80-degree days to furnace-on, sub-40s. It has also snowed two out of the past three days. Snow. In the first half of October. Even for Minnesota, that is absurd, and I am not handling it well. Frankly, I am cranky and depressed and would very much like to hide inside in my yoga pants until the sun comes out again. I am being a petulant four-year-old about it, crying, "No fair" every time I go outside. Fall is my favorite, and early winter is ruining it. Boo.
  
  
• Goodreads informed me via email today that I have been reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas for 83 days now. I should probably notify Goodreads (and my sidebar) that I have actually all but completely abandoned Cloud Atlas because it has all but completely bored me nonstop. Has anyone else actually read that one? Can someone tell me why it's gotten such favorable reviews? Because I have given it more than a fair chance, and it has not delivered. Time to listen to Nancy Pearl and move on.
  
  
• Yet another long nearly forgotten member the class of '92 has decided to Facebook-friend me. This time it was my first serious crush of high school, the boy I am a little mortified to remember crying over while I listened to Phil Collins's Groovy Kind of Love on constant repeat. What I neglected to mention when I wrote about him in that "Five songs..." post was that I actually ran into him at a bar in our hometown about ten years ago, at which point I laughed about my ridiculous unrequited crush and he countered by asking me out. For real. As in, "You're not getting out of this bar without agreeing to a date with me." His confidence was almost admirable, given that he was, at the time, working at a factory and still living in his parents' house, but shockingly, his brown eyes didn't have the same hold on me anymore. If his Facebook profile is any indication, his brain wouldn't either. You know how sometimes people say things both happen and don't happen for a reason? How maybe sometimes the greatest gift is an unanswered prayer? Without going into too much detail (i.e., without ripping apart his Facebook page), let's just say I'm really glad that one didn't work out. I'm glad that one never became my first love, or my high school sweetheart, or my first husband. I'm glad of that. Really.
  
  
• Remember how I said I was going to type short bullets? I was lying, obviously.
  
  
• I noticed in the gym locker room today that my kickboxing instructor has the same weird toe thing that I have. Shockingly, my mental goalie blocked something for once, and I did not actually say, "Hey! We're mutant toe sisters!" I am seemingly the only "regular" in that class whose name she does not know. I've thought perhaps I should remedy that with a casual, "I'm Stefanie, by the way" someday. Having her know me as "Stefanie" would be fine with me. Having her know me as "That crazy girl who was looking at my toes" is not.
  
  
• Speaking of classes and bearing toes in public, I am taking a trampoline class! I have been to only one at this point, but so far, it is exactly as fun as it sounds. That is, if jumping on a trampoline for an hour a week sounds fun to you (and WHY WOULDN'T IT???). This is actually probably the most interesting thing in this list so far (to me, anyway), and yet, I have no idea what you might want to know about it. Trampoline class questions, anyone? Let's have a Q&A.
  

What do Dexter, the Bible, and Library Boys have in common? Nothing, except they're all in this post.

I know I'm really late to the bandwagon on this Dexter phenomenon, so maybe the rest of you can help me out on this. If I need to stop the DVD after every episode before the end credits music rolls and that creepy string part comes in... If watching the first season finale tonight got my heart rate up more noticeably than my 30 minutes on the elliptical earlier today... Basically, if I am a big old 'fraidy cat who can't believe she even started watching an entire series about a serial killer... well, should I even queue up the remaining seasons in my Netflix list? Given some of the decisions I've made in my life (dating ones, in particular), clearly I am some kind of masochist, so perhaps now that I've started I may as well proceed. But season one wrapped up so nicely--a neatly contained story all on its own. Maybe that's enough? It probably gets better, but does it also get creepier? I live alone, you see. And there is no boy here at the moment in whose armpit I can bury my face (which is the only way I got through the final scenes of The Ring, mind you). So... I'm uncertain. Advice (sans spoilers, please), anyone?

Moving on to things that are too ridiculous to scare me, do you remember when I took a stab at writing a script for the Angry Alien 30-Second Bunny Theater production of Twilight? (Do you also remember that somebody was supposed to remind me to go look for that production in a couple months? No? Hrm. Then perhaps that's why I had to remember to look for it myself today!) Anyway, it is there now! Whee! And shockingly, my version is not so far off from their end result. Go ahead and go watch it. I'll wait.

Good stuff, no? Yes, friends, the Internet is filled with all manner of wonderful things. Also, all manner of frighteningly hideous and laughable things... like these pants, which have showed up in a sidebar ad beside my email at least five times in the past two days. I know that supposedly Gmail targets the ads its users see based on the content of their messages. I use Yahoo, however, which I can only hope and assume is not so meddling or advanced, because while I have typed the words "Roller skating always = fun" in an email recently, I am quite certain I've typed nothing along the lines of "let's all zip our shiny pants up to our sternum and party like it's 1978." Seriously, we may not all agree on much, but can we all agree the shiny, skin-tight, high-waist disco pant is a terrible idea? I thought so. Thank you. Ah, American Apparel. The great unifier in its absurdity. Naturally, I would expect nothing less from the people who brought us the return of hypercolor and the brilliant skirt-as-dress plan. (Note: If you're clicking through on that last link, go right ahead and skip to #2 of that post.)

To prove that I do still leave my house on occasion for entertainment that isn't displayed on a screen, I should tell you that I went to the Central library last night to hear David Plotz talk about his new book, Good Book, based on the Slate series he wrote detailing the "bizarre, hilarious, disturbing, marvelous, and inspiring things [he] learned when [he] read every single word of the Bible." OK, that Slate series was housed on a screen, of course, but Plotz's appearance at the library wasn't, so the first sentence of this paragraph still stands. I haven't actually read the related Blogging the Bible series, but I very much enjoyed Plotz's talk. And now I am curious to read the Book of Ruth, which is, apparently, like a subcompact Jane Austen novel, a perfect story that encapsulates everything that matters in life and yet can be read in ten minutes flat. I'm also curious just what sort of jabs Elijah made to have Plotz deem him the original insult comic. Plotz's experiment in general is an intriguing and tempting one, and maybe I should try it myself, but he also assured us that if we don't know the Bible very well, his book is a useful and entertaining substitute, so perhaps I'll just read his instead.

My library venture entertained me even before the main event got on stage, though. I seated myself directly behind and to the right of a quiet-looking, 30-ish nerd/hipster hybrid with short dark hair, a scruffy beard, and black-rimmed glasses. He scribbled something in his Moleskine, and a few minutes later, looked up and then shifted himself to let another library patron slide past him into the row. I looked at the two of them sitting on either side in front of me and had to stop myself from laughing out loud, wondering if either man realized they were, essentially, the exact same man. Short dark hair, scruffy beard, black-rimmed glasses. Charcoal pants. One in a muted-tone sweater, one in a similarly colored hoodie. Both jotting notes in tiny books. I surveyed the rest of the crowd. Quiet-looking, dark-haired, bespectacled men were everywhere. Not a one of them wearing a color more vibrant than maroon. A while ago, my friend Carrie wrote about searching for Cafe Boy. I didn't realize Library Lecture Boy was just as specific a type. Usually, he is even my type (minus the quiet part, I suppose, though in a library, quiet is to be expected, of course). In case you are wondering, though, no, I didn't actually talk to any of the Library Lecture Boys. It may have been a "kid in a candy store" sort of scenario, but this kid has a stomach ache, so I'm steering clear.

As if I'd ever really consider gnomes "optional"

I've realized that ever since I started a blog, I almost never write in a private journal anymore. It's just as well, I suppose, because when I page back through the journals I've kept over the years, I find that nearly the only thing I ever wrote about was this boy or that boy and the sorts of emotional roller coasters each one put me through. It's valid in some way to get that out, I suppose. Perhaps it does help to make sense of things a bit, or if not that, at least to purge thoughts from such a place of immediacy in my head. And while it makes me feel like a vapid high schooler, I do think I'm probably not alone. I remember Liz Gilbert writing in Eat Pray Love about Cambodian refugees, who talked to the therapists they met with not about torture or starvation, but about relationships and lost loves. "This is what we are like," Gilbert said. "Collectively, as a species, this is our emotional landscape.... There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? and Who's in charge? Everything else is somehow manageable."

Right now the only things I feel compelled to write about are things best kept to a personal journal, rather than one that anyone on the Internets can see. It's not even about privacy so much as about committing thoughts to finality. Typing something in a public forum makes it so; it's harder to change my mind the next day. The problem is, I don't even want to waste the pages of a private journal on the mess that's in my head, because the things I need to write about are things I already filled a full journal with eight years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.

I hate when people vague-blog, so I'll stop that soon. My point, it seems, is I got nothin'. Or, nothing I'm ready to type about here just now.

Meanwhile, then, let's talk about books and movies, shall we? (Answer: we shall. What, you thought you had a say in this? Ha ha.)

Perhaps my favorite thing about a beach vacation is the luxury of spending essentially an entire day doing nothing except lounging in a chair reading a book. Yes, yes, I know I could do this at home as well; it's certainly not as if I do anything more productive than that every Saturday of my life. The point is, I don't do that. Instead, my reading is typically relegated to a half hour or less before bed, which is why it takes me a month or more to finish nearly any book I start. (Yes, even crazy Mormon teenaged vampire books. Which I am finally DONE with, by the way!) Not so with vacation reads, though! When I was in Mexico last week, I had the luxury of plowing through Who By Fire in its entirety in a day and a half, which is exactly how Lara (who originally told me about this book) would have wanted me to read it. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a highlighter or my Post-it flags to the beach chair, so while there were several passages I had to stop and read twice, pondering why I've never crafted a sentence quite so spot-on or beautiful, I can't actually share any of those passages with you right now. In fact, I don't think I'll even try to summarize just what it's about or why I enjoyed it, as Lara already covered that in her initial review and her follow-up interview with the author. That's right. Lara totally takes the train into The City and has wine with authors like it's no big whoop whatsoever. Then again, I have had wine with Lara. It is a good time, if you ask me. Who wouldn't want in on that? Anyway, thumbs up on Who By Fire is what I'm saying. Even though I'm saying it three months after this book made the rounds in the blog neighborhood.

While I'm recycling other people's reviews in place of my own, how about I let Metalia tell you what she thought of Revolutionary Road? It's fair, you see, because she covered pretty much every single comment my friends and I made over wine after our budget theater viewing of it last night, as well as a few comments we didn't. (Vinnie Delpino was in it? Really?? How did I miss that??)

Revolutionary Road was one of three movies I saw this weekend, actually, and while I didn't hate it, I can't decide if it was my least or second-least favorite of the three. It's a toss-up between that one and Lovely and Amazing, which Netflix assured me I would enjoy but which had me rolling my eyes and yelling at the TV for nearly the full hour and a half. Rotten Tomatoes' 85% "Fresh" rating will have you believe it is a "finely observed comedy," but I found very little to laugh at throughout. They also say it is a "smart and perceptive female character study," but I'd rather not study those particular characters. If I wanted to watch insecure, self-sabotaging women drive every person in their lives away from them, I would watch... Hmm... Actually, I don't know what I would watch. No one I know in real life actually lives their life as a constant stereotype of everything that is wrong with the way women interact with men (and with each other). Exactly where do these stereotypes come from, again?

And that brings us to Wristcutters: A Love Story, which was a strange bright spot by comparison, given that it's actually about an alternate universe inhabited solely by people who've killed themselves. (Cheery stuff, no? Maybe I'm not in a funk about some silly boy. Maybe it's my weekend's movie viewing I have to blame!) Anyway, it starred Patrick Fugit, who you probably remember from Almost Famous, and who was almost likable enough to make me forget I sort of hate Shannyn Sossamon. (All right; maybe I don't actually hate her. Maybe I just hate the impossible-to-remember way she spells her name and the fact that she named her son Audio Science. Yes, really.)

Except wait! I nearly forgot! I actually watched four movies this weekend. Saturday was the latest in the series of "Foreign Movie Night" gatherings my girlfriends and I have begun as a way to pretend we are getting some culture in lieu of forming a book club. (The real point of a book club is just to chat and drink wine, right? We decided we can do that just as easily at a foreign film night without any requisite prep work first.) Anyway, this month we decided to pull out a familiar favorite and re-watch Amelie. I'm sure you've likely all see it, but I nearly forgot how charming that film is. It is even more charming when you preface it with brie and prosciutto on baguettes and cheese-filled, berry-topped crepes. And more charming still when you bring your very own garden gnome as a centerpiece to set the scene for the evening. In fact, I recommend you re-watch Amelie at your earliest convenience, crepes and gnome optional.

Weekend update on a Tuesday (but fully bullet-free!)

So it seems I'm on the one-post-a-week plan now, which I suppose would be fine, if I were spending those several days between posts mulling over amusing little anecdotes to share on my next login. Instead, in the intervening time it seems I not only forget I have a blog, but also forget how to write. Maybe it's not entirely my fault. I am still reading that damn Twilight series, after all, so maybe Stephenie Meyer is to blame. Maybe I could craft clever, poignant sentences, but thanks to Bella Swan, the only adjectives in my head are "impossibly beautiful" and "dazzling," and unless I am writing about eternally 17-year-old vampires or Julia Roberts's teeth, neither of those do me much good.

Fear not, however. I am a mere 200 pages away from saying goodbye to the Cullens for good, at which point I plan to cleanse my mental palate with something of substance. Or at least something more charged with the pointless, light-hearted frivolity we've come to expect around here. Maybe some Jane Austen, so I can have my light-hearted frivolity under the guise of heady literature. Win-win!

Meanwhile, I could at least try to tell you what I've been up to lately without resorting to the quick and lazy bullet-point form... Let's see. Last night, I listened to a Presidential address without heckling for the first time in eight years. The night before that, I scored a prime, two-feet-from-the-stage spot at a surprisingly sparse Rhett Miller show, putting me in clear, up-close view of one of my very favorite imaginary boyfriends and his not-so-imaginary shiny rock star hair and ever-bendy rock star hips. We were close enough for him to sweat on us (though if you've ever seen Rhett perform, you know that you could probably be a good fifteen feet from the stage and still make that same claim). It would have been even better if the very sloshed girl and her even more sloshed husband in front of us hadn't thought the fact that they got engaged at a Rhett show two years ago entitled them the right to command Rhett's attention for the duration of his set, but hey, there's one of those at every concert, is there not?

Working backwards, that brings us to Saturday. And what did I do Saturday? Oh, nothing special. Just watched a couple of dear friends get engaged in a snowy, candle-lit downtown park. In all seriousness, it was magical, which is only fitting given that the man who was doing the proposing is the one I long ago referred to as The Magical Boy. He wanted to propose to his lovely girlfriend at Peavey Plaza on Nicollet Mall, and he enlisted me and Carrie to set the scene for him while they were at dinner. We arranged ice luminaries around the frozen fountain and placed flickering candles inside, then queued up a stereo to play a love song from La Boheme when the couple arrived. She said yes, of course, after which Carrie and I (and The Buddhist, who, though he'd never met The Magical Boy, was happy to come along for the ride anyway) popped out of our hiding spots on the other end of the park and joined in an impromptu dance party on the skating rink.

If we are keeping track of checkmarks in The Buddhist's "plus" column, by the way, we can add two more to the list. First, that he was fully OK with changing our plans for the evening when I told him this very special task had come up, and second, that, after meeting The Magical Boy and his new fiance', he summed up his first impressions with, "It's hard to say which one of those two is cuter." My thoughts exactly. They truly are the most non-sickeningly adorable couple I know. So congrats, Aaron and Colleen. Can't wait to attend the undoubtedly fun, creative, and uniquely environmentally friendly and socially responsible party you're sure to throw when you tie that knot.

Books I've Read in 2009

* = Loved it
^ = Hated it
~ = Enjoyed it enough to mark in some way, but "love" is such a very strong word

____________________________________

1. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
   
2. Who by Fire by Diana Spechler ~/*
   
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby ~
5. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
6. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach ~
   
7. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith ~
8. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (re-read)
9. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
10. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (abandoned out of boredom, but only after reading 3/4 of it, so it's still going on the damn list)
11. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
    
    

You Lost Him at Hello

It really wasn't intentional, but obviously somewhere along the line, Stefanie Says must have become a dating blog. I suppose it's good to have a niche, a theme, but still, I can't help but wonder what I'll write about when I finally do start dating someone for any length of time again. (I am going to start dating someone again at some point, right? Maybe? Hmm.)

Anyway, given the number of dating-related phrases I see in my search engine hits, I suppose it should be no surprise that I was contacted a while ago to be part of the virtual book tour for Jess McCann's You Lost Him at Hello. Today is the day the tour stops here, so it's my turn to tell you what I thought of the book.

While I was compiling my thoughts, I decided to swing by the previous stops on the tour to see what other bloggers thought of this book. A lot of them started with a similar sentiment: "When I was asked to review this book, I was hesitant." It seems we're all a little leery of the self help genre, at least where dating is concerned. I'm glad I wasn't alone in my leeriness and skepticism.

I was probably predisposed to dislike this book, but I tried to go into it with an open mind. As with probably most self-help books, I knew not all of it was going to resonate or apply. But it never hurts to put yourself in a place where you're forced to think about what you're doing or not doing, to examine your own behavior and reflexes and try to look at your history in a different light.

The central premise behind You Lost Him at Hello is that the same tactics that work in sales will work in dating as well. From prospecting, to pitching and promoting your product, to ultimately closing the deal, what you do as a single woman trying to land a boyfriend or husband shouldn't be all that different from what you'd do to land a lucrative new account. It's an idea that actually makes some amount of sense. To sell something, you need to be confident and assured. You need to believe in your product (or at least successfully convince people that you do). You need to know when to apply pressure and when to back off. You need to frame your pitch in such a way that the customer doesn't feel "pitched to" at all.

In dating, of course, the product is you, and the most successful daters naturally are the ones who've mastered the art of presenting themselves in a way that keeps prospective boyfriends continually wanting more. The question is how to harness that sort of self-assuredness to use when you need it most.

Throughout You Lost Him at Hello, McCann offers numerous tips culled from her sales experience for finding prospects and keeping them interested. As with many self help books, a lot of it is common sense, but I recognize that for many of us, common sense goes straight out the window when we meet someone we're interested in, so seemingly obvious whacks on the head like, "Don't drink and dial" and "Don't give up the goods too soon" can be helpful and valuable reminders at times. She does offer some useful tips, such as casual icebreakers to use as opening lines so that a guy who's receptive to you can consider it an opener while one who isn't will simply take it as an innocent, innocuous question. And I did mark a few passages I found myself nodding in agreement with solidly. Passages like these:

"What makes a person like you has less to do with what you say and more to do with how you make them feel."

and

"The constitution of marriage is like a mixing bowl. People make the mistake of thinking that if they can just get the bowl, they will automatically get a cake. They don't realize that what you put into it is what you are going to get out of it. If you have the right ingredients, you will come out with a cake. But if you have the wrong ones, all you will get is a bucket of mess. The bowl itself doesn't matter."

Ultimately, though, I'm not convinced I'm the target audience for this book. In addition to the insightful passages I marked while reading, I also littered the margins of my copy with terribly thoughtful and intelligent comments like, "Duh" and "Who DOES this??" McCann talks a lot about women who get invested in a relationship too soon--who go on one date and decide they've found the love of their life, and immediately thereafter smother him or scare him away. Maybe there really are many women who do this, but I don't know any of them, and I certainly can't think of any recent time I've been one myself. My problem the past few years hasn't been finding a man who wants to keep dating me. Much more often it's finding one who *I* want to spend more time with. I suppose this only confirms what I've said numerous times in certain circles: when it comes to dating, I'm the guy. Perhaps I should read a self-help book on dating aimed at men. Maybe that would be the key for me. Wait. Do they even publish those? If so, where do I get on that tour?

"Perfectly": adverb of dating doom

Just out of curiosity, did anyone else pick up and read Rachel Kadish's Tolstoy Lied after I recommended it last year? I've been thinking lately that perhaps I want to read that one again. (You know... after I read the book I'm supposed to be reviewing for the virtual book tour and the one I planned to read for the next Books and Bars event and oh yeah, after I finally get Christopher Moore's Lamb out of my sidebar as well. In my defense, I have read two other books during the time I've had that one in progress, but as they were ridiculous teen vampire books, I'm not sure that redeems me at all.)

I actually think about Tolstoy Lied a lot. I think of it on my way home from every mundane and uneventful date I go on. Specifically, I think of this passage in particular...

Dating emptied me out. One evening, returning from a tepid dinner with a perfectly nice man ("perfectly": adverb of dating doom), I turned on my TV and stared bleary-eyed at a nature special about the tropical rainforest. There, amid platter-sized dasheen leaves and aerial roots... were the hunter vines: stout branches that sprouted from the forest floor, hitched onto the nearest tree, spiraled halfway up its trunk, then--a dozen feet up--groped out into open air to find another, likelier trunk, around which they grew for a dozen months or years until switching to another tree and then, finally, up in the canopy, leafing out into golden sunlight. I thought: I know people like that.

"Perfectly nice man." Oh, how I can relate to that. I'm not a hunter vine. Never have been and likely never will be. I want more than just any old branch to latch on to. And dating is, indeed, emptying me out.

I had brunch with the latest in the long string of perfectly nice men today. And it was... fine. Pluses for being friendly and well-dressed and using the word ethereal properly. Possible minuses for doing 85% of the talking and for not even pretending to reach for the check first. But it isn't about pluses and minuses, of course. It's the overall feeling, post-date. I know it might be too much to expect what Chandler's whiny, nasal-voiced girlfriend Janice called movie love, but shouldn't I once in a while leave a date smiling, feeling giddy with the idea of seeing this person again? Is that too much to hope for? I don't want to believe it is.

As I so often say, the jury is still out on today's date, I guess. If he contacts me again, I'll give it another go, but if today was a first date that was also an only date, I won't be upset either. What's bothering me is that I actually had a good feeling about this one. I may go on entirely too many dates and may be prematurely dismissive and jaded as a result, but every now and then, I still muster optimism. I've done the first-date-prep routine so many times that generally I give it barely any more thought than I do getting ready for work. Every so often, though, I feel an extra surge of anxiety; I have to steady my nervous hand as I bring the mascara wand to my eye, because the date I'm getting ready for is one I've somehow convinced myself might be different. I let myself believe it might be the day I meet The One. I entertain the lofty idea that magic will strike, that I'll finally know what all those people who've found love at near-first-sight are talking about. I want to think there is still hope for me, because I find myself still in that hopeful place now and then. Of course, when that hope falls flat, it leaves me lower and more pessimistic each time.

Am I being unrealistic? When it's right, I should feel something, right? When I've found it, I'll know? Isn't that how it works? Maybe not like a light bulb, but at least a few sparks maybe leading to a slow burn? I want to think it's as simple as that. As I recall, I think Rachel Kadish agreed.

Yeeeees, I've been broken hearted, bluuuueeee since the day we parted

You'll have to forgive me. I saw Mamma Mia! last night, and the hamster in charge of the soundtrack in my head has had ABBA on constant loop ever since. Of course, now more than likely YOU have that line on repeat as well. Don't you love it when I share the wealth?

Since often any mention of a movie is followed by some sort of review of it, I should say that despite what Rotten Tomatoes thinks, I liked Mamma Mia! quite well. No, it is not any sort of serious cinematic achievement rife with subtle character development or artful dialogue, but I am OK with that. It is a musical, people. A musical based on ABBA songs. You are to go with your girlfriends and have fun with it. And that is exactly what I did.

I thought the film adaptation was reasonably true to the original stage version, with the exception, of course, of Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth stepping in for lesser known but more vocally talented actors. I'm sorry. Pierce Brosnan may have that smoldering distinguished older gentleman thing going on, but that did not stop at least a fourth of the theater from creeping into a giggle loop when he belted out his first few solo lines. I think perhaps my favorite part of last night's movie-going experience was glancing at my friend Lisa during Brosnan's first song and seeing tears welling up in her eyes from laughter, crying, "That's James Bond!" But there's something to be said for range, you know? Kudos to 007 for taking on something outside his usual realm just for fun.

So. Two thumbs up for Mamma Mia!, with the appropriate caveats in place. It is hokey and contrived and ridiculous, yes. And neither James Bond nor Mark Darcy will ever get a record deal. But it is also lots of fun. You will smile. You will want to sing along out loud in the theater. Go with it. That is all.

As I'm suddenly in uncharacteristic reviewing mode, we should talk about Twilight, right? Despite the fact that it's still sitting over in that "What I'm reading" spot in my sidebar, I did actually finish that book days ago. Did I like it? Yes. Will it make any sort of personal "best of" list? Probably not. That's not always the point, right? In a way, Twilight is a bit like Mamma Mia!--enjoyable in its own way outright, even if it doesn't stand up to any sort of scholarly criticism in the more serious corners of its field. All things have their purpose. (Well, almost all things. Spats atop modern shoes is something I'll likely never understand.)

So. Twilight. Obviously I am not in Stephenie Meyer's target demographic, seeing as I am a 34-year-old single, childless woman and not a crush-struck 14-year-old girl. But Meyer is a 34-year-old woman, too. A 34-year-old woman with a similarly wacked-up spelling of the same name as mine. I am not a Mormon with three kids and a successful series of teenage vampire love novels under my belt, but there must be at least some similarities in her past, as her description of the mundane day-to-day details of high school life could have come straight out of the over-dramatic journals of my youth. So I reveled in distant memories of all of that nonsense for the same reasons I've enjoyed Dawson's Creek and Felicity in my post-high school and post-college years. Plus, Twilight has the added bonus of the stock standard (if wholly unrealistic) "they fell in love in a DAY" nonsense that even Shakespeare made a career out of. Except in this case, it's love at first sight with a vampire. Drama! Danger! Intrigue! Outpouring of teen angst! Seriously, what more could you want??

In all honesty, I don't even know why I got so sucked in to this book. Artful prose? Not so much. It's a young adult novel, after all. But the story clipped along nicely, with smooth transitions from each page to the next. I'd sit down, thinking, "I'll just read to the next good stopping point and then go to bed," and suddenly it was 45 minutes later and well past my bed time, still no satisfying stopping point on the page in front of me. I've been a slow reader lately, what with the Internet and Netflix and various other things to distract me, and I got through a 500-page book in well under three weeks. That may not be speedy for some, but it's a pretty good pace for me. There must have been something that grabbed me in there.

I never jumped on the Harry Potter bandwagon, but I'm pretty sure I'll go ahead and read all the Twilight books. Unfortunately, a lot of other people (likely mostly 14-year-olds) are on this bandwagon as well, which means my name is on a hold list at the library for New Moon. I don't like to be between books, and meanwhile, I have a rather large stack of books sitting here waiting for me, but unfortunately no inclination whatsoever as to which one I should read next. Internets, you are full of good advice and recommendations. What should I read to tide me over until I get my next fix of vampire love? Bear in mind that the hold list could take anywhere from six days to six weeks and my reading is, as I said, less than voracious these days. What say you? Which is my best bet?

More than a day late, more than a dollar short

I am well aware that all my end-of-year sum-it-up posting should have been done last week. Christmas trees are down (well, mine isn't, but I am a week behind, after all*) and we are solidly into January, so I really should move on to 2008 already. But since last week was one of those spans where I temporarily forgot I had a blog (and also because CenterPoint Energy actually came early for my scheduled meter inspection today, meaning I really should do a very brief post and get myself to work rather than leisurely wile away what I thought would be a few hours waiting for them), I am going to do one more end-of-'07 post anyway. And then maybe I'll talk about something equally timely--you know, like LiLo's** stint in rehab or Paris Hilton crying on her way to the pokey.

That said, on to a one-week-late Friday Five.


My top five movies of 2007
(in no real particular order and bearing in mind that I didn't see half the movies I should have seen in '07, so Oscar will most certainly disagree with me on these)

1. Once
2. Juno
3. Waitress
4. Knocked up
5. The Simpsons Movie
6. Superbad

OK, that is actually six, but I can't decide which of those last four to switch to a tie or honorable mention spot, so six it is, I guess.

Next up, I was going to list my top five books of 2007, but I actually only read a sad, measly 11 books during the year, so it hardly seems fair to highlight damn-near half of them. So I'll just say the top spots go easily to Eat Pray Love and Tolstoy Lied and leave it at that. (Incidentally, I realize neither of those books were actually published in 2007. Everything about this post is late, so why should that matter?)

And finally, let's talk music. I could spend hours agonizing over my top five songs of the year, but that would defeat the purpose of knocking out a quick post and getting my ass to the office already. Also, it would put me in the same sad category as that guy in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, and really, nobody wants to be that guy. So off the top of my head, with the request that you please not hold me to all of these indefinitely, here are...

Maybe my top five songs of 2007

1. Band of Horses, No One's Gonna Love You
   
2. Feist, 1234
3. The National, Start a War
   
4. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (from the Once soundtrack), Falling Slowly
5. Lily Allen, LDN
   

See, now I'm already trying to revise my list, because frankly, much as I loved Lily Allen earlier this year, I'm feeling sort of done with her now, and I just heard Gomez's See the World on the radio and remembered how much I really, really liked that one, too (even if it did maybe come out in 2006 and not 2007, actually). And Rilo Kiley! Breaking up! I still dance around my living room whenever that one comes on, so how can I leave that out? Sigh. This is why I don't make Top Five lists. I give up.

All right then. Off to work. Happy Friday (and, of course, again, Happy 2008) to you all.



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* Also, I was raised Catholic, which means I can leave the little tree up until the Epiphany on January 6 and say it's for religious reasons.

** Note to Carrie, Jamie, and anyone else who lives in a world void of trash pop culture: LiLo = Lindsay Lohan. You're welcome.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Books I've Read in 2008

* = Loved it
^ = Hated it
~ = Enjoyed it enough to mark in some way, but "love" is such a very strong word

____________________________________

1. Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry
2. Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner
3. Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
4. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss ~/*
5. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
6. Driving Sideways by Jess Riley ~
7. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer ~
8. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer ~
9. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
10. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson ^
11. Lamb by Christopher Moore ~
12. The Stranger by Albert Camus
    

Because I'm a nerd who needs to archive this sort of thing...

Previous years' book lists
2009 Books 
2008 Books
2007 Books
2006 Books


Previous years' movie lists
2009 Movies 
2008 Movies
2007 Movies


Previous years' show lists
2009 Shows 
2008 Shows
2007 Shows

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library

I'm sorry, but as awesome as my anonymous guest poster's entry was yesterday, I just cannot let Leonard Nimoy be the "L" in my Encyclopedia of Me. I am going to pick another L word mentioned in that entry, though.

L is for library.

I love the library. I was going to try to type out all the reasons I love the library, but then I remembered that I already did that once before. In fact, if I type "library" into the search box on my blog, no fewer than 20 entries come up. And that's just using Blogger's less-than-stellar, unreliable search system. Surely there are a few more.

About a year ago, I did a meme requiring me to list ten "L" things that I love. I still cannot believe that I damn-near completely forgot to include libraries in that post. I have so many fond memories of the library. I could tell you about all sorts of them... about my mom taking me to evening story hour in my pajamas, about collecting stamps on my card for the Summer Reading Program every year, about how every kid in my hometown remembers climbing on the giant rock in front of our public library (and how every one of us has likely had a moment when we returned to that spot as a grown up and thought, "didn't that rock used to be a whole lot bigger??").

I remember being fascinated and overwhelmed by the amazing size of my college library (which likely really isn't so big as far as university libraries go, but was large enough to fit at least 23 of my hometown libraries inside and therefore was astounding to my 18-year-old self).

I remember walking past a library with some friends on a weekend trip several years ago and watching as my friend Dale opened the book depository and stuck his head inside. "It smells like books!" he said. And it did. I never realized libraries have a unique and distinctive smell, much less a smell that involuntarily makes me smile. Sniff a book depository next time you get a chance and I think you'll see what I mean.

Bad things never happen at the library. Or, they almost never do, anyway. Libraries are a sacred place, a perfect democracy, a free pass to a workshop on any topic you choose.

I just Googled the quote in my subject line to remind myself who said it (Jorge Luis Borges), and I found a long list of other excellent quotes that prove I'm not the only one with lofty opinions about libraries. It includes one of my favorites, from one of my favorite books (Hallie in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams saying "Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off"). But they left out another of my favorites, from a book I've read more recently:

"I have sort of a Christmas-morning sense of the library as a big box full of beautiful books."

- Clare, in The Time Traveler's Wife

I know what she means.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

On a completely different note, how about one last round of applause for -R- and the fantastic Blog Share she organized? Seriously, people, that was so much fun. I know I am not supposed to tell you which "anonypost" (TM 3Carnations) was mine, but the truth is I don't even care if anyone in Blogland figures it out. It was just fun to tell a story that was so screaming to be blogged about but which I could not in good conscious put on my own site. In fact, I almost wish I could put my name on my post on its host site, because when you read a comment like "I wish I knew who this was so I could read their blog" or "Tell us who you are so we can come over," I want to say, "Me! It's me! And I'd love if you come over!"

But then again, not every day is candid Blog Share Day, so maybe it's best those commenters don't know who I am after all. I'd hate to disappoint anyone who comes here looking for absurdity and scandal only to find a mundane post about the library or my grandma or the inappropriate things I tell my doctor.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next Blog Share Day, though. Start saving up your secret stories now, folks.

C is for...

...Calamity Physics ([comma] Special Topics in).

Is this one maddening book really significant enough to warrant inclusion in my letter-by-letter Encyclopedia of Me? Probably not. I sure as hell hope not, anyway. But I think this damn book has been in my sidebar ever since Paris Hilton was in jail, and my slow going in getting through it is greatly cutting into my average for the year. I mean, eight books? In ten months? That's really just plain sad.

Don't get me wrong. It's not 100% awful. If it were, I would have thrown it against the wall like I nearly did The Sportswriter at least 200 pages ago. No, it's really not all bad. It's got some clever writing and imagery. Fine passages such as these...

She emphasized what few wanted to accept, that some people did win Trivial Pursuit: The Deity Looks Edition and there wasn't a thing you could do about it, except come to terms with the fact you'd only played Trivial Pursuit: John Doe Genes and come away with three pie pieces.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As Dad once said, there were people who'd completely missed their decade... This kid was [born] some twenty years too late. He was the one with thick brown hair that flying-saucered over an eye, the one who inspired girls to make their own prom dress, the one from the country club. And maybe he had a secret diamond earring, maybe a sequin glove, maybe he even had a good song at the end with three helpings of keyboard synthesizer, but no one would know, because if you weren't born in your decade you never made it to the ending, you floated around in your middle, unresolved, in oblivion, confused and unrealized. (Pour some sugar on him and blame it on the rain.)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was one of those snapshots that seemed to have trapped not only an image but a grainy reel of life--their ponytails were full of static, strands of hair cobwebbed in the wind. You could almost hear their laughs twisting together.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dad was right. There was something riveting about the kid. It was his outdated earnestness, the way his eyebrows did the polka when he talked and his mountain accent, which made the words jut out like pointy, slippery rocks on which he might get hurt. It was also the thousands of copper freckles dusting him head to toe as if he'd been dipped in glue, then in fine, penny-iridescent confetti.

...But I also have to agree with the Amazon.com editorial review, which had this to say...

Hunkering down for 514 pages of frantic literary exhibitionism turns into a weary business for the reader, who after much patient effort deserves to feel something stronger than appreciation for a lot of clever name-dropping and a rush of metaphors.

Amen, Washington Post. I do deserve that, don't I? I deserve, at the very least, a plot... particularly an interesting one that actually progresses reasonably steadily, without being buried in unnecessary detail. By page 315, I really ought to have some handle on what's going on. I also really ought to care about the characters--or at least be able to remember which is which. I ought to want to know what happens because the story has been compelling me to know more, not because I've invested so many reading hours and feel some payback is due to me for that.

After I heard Nancy Pearl speak at the Minneapolis library last year, I decided her "Rule of 50" wasn't a bad idea after all. Life's too short to read a book that doesn't grab me, when there are so many other wonderful books for me to devour. Right now, though, I'm sort of thinking a Rule of 300 applies as well. That is, once I've slogged through over 300 pages, it's a point of no abandonment; I have to charge through to the end.

What do you think... When you start a book, do you need to finish it? How far into a book are you still willing to chuck it aside? After 50 pages? 100? When you're past the halfway point? What is your rule on this? And if you agree with the e-mail Lara sent me last week, lecturing me to "give up on Calamity Physics already, Stefanie," then will one of you please sneak into my house and just steal this damn book* from my bedside table to free me of it already? I think an intervention is in order. It may be my only hope.


--------------------------------------------------
* Kidding! Only kidding, really! Please, please, PLEASE don't come and terrify me like this.
--------------------------------------------------

I really should Netflix "Entourage," so I'd have an appropriate reference to use here

I was going to start this out with some sort of commentary on the strange phenomenon of blogebrity--about how interesting it is that I spent an hour tonight waiting patiently for an autograph in a book written by someone not only my non-reading sister has never heard of (you know--the sister who once referred to that little-known and obscure author David Sedaris as "[my] story guy"), but whom most of my "real life" friends couldn't identify either. Crazy Aunt Purl may not be famous in some circles (apparently even her co-workers have no idea she is an Internet phenom and would be shocked to hear that she's written a book), but she is to bloggers and knitters what I can only imagine __________ is to Star Trek convention enthusiasts.

I was just about to go Google an appropriate name to put in that blank, but then I realized admitting my own indifference to and ignorance of Star Trek merely proves my point. You may have no idea who Laurie Perry is, but for the standing-room-only crowd at Barnes & Noble tonight, she's a bit of a hero.

She was also warm and funny and adorable, and that's actually what I decided I should talk about, rather than rattling on examining the very specific ways we all embrace our nerdery.

If you've ever read Crazy Aunt Purl, however, then you're already well aware that the woman is down-to-earth and hilarious, so I probably don't even need to talk about that.

Instead, then, let's talk about how -R- is a famous Internet phenom as well. Let me explain to you a little bit about how tonight's meeting with Crazy Aunt Purl went.

• -R- and I arrive at the bookstore a half hour early, just in time to grab the last two seats, in the very back row.
  
  
• We chit-chat to pass the time, taking advantage of the fact that we are not the only ones in earshot using the words "blog" and "comments" and "search engine hits." We are with our kind, and therefore don't have to speak in hushed tones to avoid being looked as though we've openly admitted to playing Dungeons & Dragons in our parents' basement every Friday night. Or so I tell myself, anyway. I may actually have been the only person to use the phrase "search engine hit." I care not. The woman in the row in front of us is writing down her own blog URL for the stranger she's just met, so I tell myself our conversation is completely normal in every way.
  
  
• Crazy Aunt Purl comes out to rousing applause, reads a few amusing passages from her book, and then wins us all over with Southern charm and witty responses during the lengthy Q&A. Well, wins almost all of us. I'm just going to forget about the guy who stood in line simply to tell her that he wouldn't spend money on her book, and I very much hope Laurie forgets about him too. So much for Minnesota Nice. That man? Just a damn fool.
  
  
• -R- and I wait patiently while an overzealous Barnes & Noble employee mad with power because he's holding a microphone corrals us row by row into an orderly line for autographs.
  
  
• -R- and I are the second-last and third-last in line, respectively. I hand Laurie my book, along with the Post-it that Mr. Microphone gave me upon which to write the correct spelling of my name. Laurie says that her best friend in high school was named Stefanie-with-an-f, so she's always careful to spell it properly. I thank her, say I very much enjoyed her reading, and ask if she wouldn't mind terribly posing for a photo with us. She doesn't mind at all. See?
  
  
  
  
• Next, -R- hands Laurie her book. On her Post-it, she's written [RealName]. She's ignored my advice to add "a.k.a., -R-, of And You Know What Else" below it. It matters not. Laurie looks at the Post-it, looks up at -R-, then back down at the Post-it, and says, "I know YOU!!" She jumps up from behind the table and gushes, "I'm so thrilled you came! It's so great to meet you! [Friend's name that I forget even though she's probably written it a hundred times] and I talk about your blog all the time!! You're so funny! You're an amazing writer! And you wear cute shoes!"
  
  
• OK, I may be paraphrasing (I may also be forgetting the point of bullets and the itemized structure they're supposed to provide), but I am not exaggerating. I swear, she mentioned the shoes. And the writing. And the talking about -R- with friends. Crazy Aunt Purl totally knows who -R- is. She couldn't care an iota less about me if she actively tried. In fact, I do believe she forcibly pushed me out of the way as she lunged forward for another picture. One with just -R-. And on her own camera. OK, so I am kidding about the pushing. A nice Southern girl would never ever do that. But seriously. Crazy Aunt Purl? Fan of -R-. Check it out.
  
  
  
  I assure you, that is not what my inscription said. -R- is special. -R- is a rock star. But we all knew that already, right? Maybe she'll at least let me be in her entourage. It may be a thankless job, but I'm certain cute shoes would be involved. And maybe even microphone-wielding.
  
  A girl can dream, right?
  
  

Two, two, two book reports in one

A few of you, upon realizing I was reading The Time Traveler's Wife (or, more recently, upon seeing that I had finished it), said you were interested to hear what I thought of it. Honestly, I actually felt a little pressure with this one. I mean, Metalia counts it as her favorite book ever, and I know it was much beloved by several others of you (not to mention presumably most of the 1,456 people who logged in to record their opinion on Amazon) as well. If I hated this book, I might have some explaining to do.

So what did I think of it? Well, I liked it. Quite a bit, really. The problem is, I can't entirely explain why. It was well-written, sure, but the prose was fairly straightforward. I was abruptly awed by a beautiful passage every now and then, but I didn't go through a whole stack of Post-it flags marveling over every page, the way I did with Tolstoy Lied. And the plot was compelling, but not in an "I can't possibly put this book down now; I simply must read the next chapter before I go to sleep!" sort of way. So mainly, I suppose it was just a good story, a clever premise, with a sweet love story and a sufficient number of vivid images woven within. In all, it was a lovely book.

If you aren't familiar with this one, here's a brief synopsis. (I promise I won't give away anything that you won't also read on the book jacket or in the first pages of the first chapter.) The narrative alternates between Henry and Clare, who met when Clare was a child and Henry was a 40-something-year-old man. The two are actually only eight years apart in age, but Henry has a genetic defect that makes him spontaneously time-travel, so they meet over and over at various ages and times, often out of sync but always linked to each other in some way.

I am still trying to wrap my head around Niffenegger's approach to time travel, which I suppose is what kept the book interesting. I am probably not alone in saying that my understanding of time travel is culled almost entirely from Back to the Future, and with Marty and Doc Brown as my only reference points, a lot of how this story unfolded made no sense. Henry maintains that he can't affect the future in any way during his time travels, because everything has already been decided. His friend with HIV can't go back and "kill the fucker" who gave him the virus, because he didn't kill him back then. I read that, and all I could think of was Michael J. Fox's hand disappearing while he was playing guitar because he had affected the past in a way that made him not exist in the future. Audrey Niffenegger, didn't you learn anything from Marty McFly?? Sheesh.

Because of this logic (or missing logic), I couldn't make sense of the love story. (Again, I promise I'm not spoiling anything here; all of what I'm about to write plays out very early in the book.) Henry thinks nothing he does in his time travels can affect the future (or the past) from whence he came, but if that were true, the love story never would have taken place. When Clare sees Henry in the opening chapter (she is 20; he is 28), she throws her arms around him as a long-lost friend who she's been told since childhood she's going to marry. He, on the other hand, has no idea who she is. The first time Clare met him, he was in his 40s, so he has no memory of her yet. So, if he hadn't met her in the past, she wouldn't know him in the future. She wouldn't have nearly accosted him in the library, and they wouldn't have begun their romance. It's baffling; I can't get out of the circular logic of it. So quite obviously I need to let it go.

Instead, then, let's focus on some of those lovely passages I mentioned, shall we? Like I said, I didn't flag a whole lot while I read this one, but here are a few parts that struck me nonetheless.

[Clare]: I have never been in the Newberry Library before, and now that I've gotten past the dark, foreboding entrance, I am excited. I have a sort of Christmas-morning sense of the library as a big box full of beautiful books.

[Henry]: Mom had just gotten back from Sydney, and she had brought me an immense, surpassingly blue butterfly... I would hold it close to my face, so close I couldn't see anything but that blue. It would fill me with a feeling, a feeling I later tried to duplicate with alcohol and finally found again with Clare, a feeling of unity, oblivion, mindlessness in the best sense of the word.

[Clare]: I wake up in my bed, the bed of my childhood. As I float on the surface of waking I can't find myself in time; is it Christmas, Thanksgiving? Is it third grade again? Am I sick? Why is it raining?

[Clare]: I am having a hard time, in my tiny back bedroom studio, in the beginning of my married life. The space that I can call mine, that isn't full of Henry, is so small that my ideas have become small. I am like a caterpillar in a cocoon of paper; all around me are sketches for sculptures, small drawings that seem like moths fluttering against the windows, beating their wings to escape from this tiny space.

[Henry]: A nurse calls our names. We repair to an examining room. Clare gets undressed, and gets on the table, and is greased and scanned. The technician watches the monitor. Amit Montague, who is tall and regal and French Moroccan, watches the monitor. Clare and I hold hands. We watch the monitor, too. Slowly the image builds itself, bit by bit.

On the screen is a weather map of the world. Or a galaxy, a swirl of stars. Or a baby.

"Bine joue, une fille," Dr. Montague says. "She is sucking her thumb. She is very pretty. And very big."

Clare and I exhale. On the screen a pretty galaxy is sucking her thumb. As we watch she takes her hand away from her mouth. Dr. Montague says, "She smiles." And so do we.

When I was adding The Time Traveler's Wife to my list of Books I've Read This Year, I noticed that I never wrote anything about Prep, despite noting at least three times that I was going to do so. I guess that's why I still have it sitting in a pile of CDs and books and paperwork on my desk. Sometimes my cluttered disorganization has a purpose after all. Huh.

So. My flags are still in the book, and I can still try to call up what I liked or didn't like about it. My only problem with Prep, I think, was the timing with which I read it. When I started it, I was trying to hold on to the high of confidence and the strive toward self-actualization brought on by Eat Pray Love. The last thing I needed right then was to be reminded of the awkwardness and insecurity of high school. I wanted Lee to get over herself and just cheer up or at least speak her mind for once, but I likely wouldn't have felt that way had I read it just a few months earlier.

Was Prep an overall incredible and must-read book? No. Probably not. But I did marvel at Sittenfeld's keen, seemingly effortless memory of the small details of youth, of the same thoughts and experiences I have from high school and early college but which I've long since let slip from daily thoughts. Parts like these...

Classes ended that Friday, and ... in the dorms, some people had already started packing, which I hated doing--I saw the naked walls and cleared-away surfaces as unkind reminders of just how fleeting it all was, just how illusive the idea that any of it belonged to us.

I pursed my lips toward him; we were kissing. It was harder work than I had imagined, and less immediately pleasing. In fact, it felt intriguing more than enjoyable--the shifting, overlapping wet and dry parts of our mouths and faces, the mild sourness of his mouth (it seemed so personal to be tasting Cross's mouth), and also the way it was hard not to be conscious of the moment as it happened, not to want to pause and acknowledge it, even if only by laughing. I didn't find kissing funny, but it didn't seem that serious, either, not as serious as we were acting like it was.

Two days later, I picked up my first packet of birth control pills from the infirmary, which made me feel so unlike myself that I would not have been surprised, when I looked in the mirror, to see a forty-year-old divorced mother of two, a cowgirl, an aerobics instructor on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

...and also parts where Sittenfeld looks between youth and adulthood and compares what she's learned with startlingly accurate observations...

To play a great game of high school basketball--it was something I myself had never done, but I could tell--made you know what it was to be alive. How much in an adult life can compare to that? Granted, there are margaritas, or there's no homework, but there are also puffy white bagels under neon lights in the conference room, there's waiting for the plumber, making small talk with your boring neighbor.

There was plenty I learned from Dave. Later... I even saw Dave as practice for Cross, as preparation. He made me ready, as Conchita had made me ready for a friendship with Martha; there are people we treat wrong and later, we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships, and I would like to think it all evens out--surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people.

I wanted to be touching Cross and now I was; I could feel the rise and fall of his chest. And we matched each other well, our bodies fit. I didn't know enough then to realize that doesn't always happen--that sometimes you cannot settle on an angle with the other person, your weight won't balance, your bones poke.

And then there were the passages I just found funny, or true-to-experience, or simply notably original descriptions of the average and everyday. Here are just a few...

My self-consciousness... was something I'd anticipated, something I had to live with but could not acknowledge--a bride descending the aisle with an itchy nose.

I could hardly talk to my classmates, and I definitely couldn't dance. I had tried once at a cousin's wedding and I had not been able to stop thinking, "Is this the part where I throw my arms in the air?"

It wasn't that I suspected Mrs. Morino of lying, more that it seemed so hard to believe anything ever happened, or was happening. The big occurrences in life, the serious ones, have for me always been nearly impossible to recognize because they never feel big or serious. In the moment, you have to pee, or your arm itches, or what people are saying strikes you as melodramatic or sentimental, and it's hard not to smirk. You have a sense of what this type of situation should be like--for one thing, all-consuming--and this isn't it. But then you look back, and it was that; it did happen.

The wrongness of what had happened... I could feel it now. Not a moral wrongness, but a screwup, a thing that needed explanation: a bird in the grocery store, a toilet that won't stop running, that moment when your friend has come to pick you up and you open the door and realize it's not your friend's car at all; the person driving is a stranger, and now you must apologize.

I was wholly unafraid of getting caught; I have always believed that extreme circumstances protect you from ordinary dangers, and while I recognize my belief as illogical, I have not yet been proven wrong.

Our relationship... was about the irrelevance of words. You feel what you feel, you act as you act; who in the history of the world has ever been convinced by a well-reasoned argument?

So. That's two thumbs mostly up for The Time Traveler's Wife and Prep, belated though those thumbs-up may be. And although my "to get at the library someday" list is long (as is the stack of books-not-yet-opened on my own bookshelf), I'm still uncertain just what to read next. Tell me, what have you loved or not loved lately? I'd love to hear what's on your lists.

Flying pigs and other miscellany

My deepest apologies to anyone who read Monday's post and thereafter heard the little voice in their head singing The Violent Femmes' "Kiss off" on constant repeat for the remainder of the day. Nabbalicious in particular was apparently a bit peeved. Can't say I blame her, though I do maintain that there are plenty of far worse songs I could have embedded in your brains instead. (See GG today if you don't believe me.) Still, if I had simply added another bullet or two to the list, the whole incident could have been avoided, as I can't really imagine myself ever writing the sort of post that would warrant the title Nine for a lost god. Incidentally, I had to look that line up. I have never had any idea just what they were singing there. (Did you?)

By the way, I do realize I have probably just successfully planted the chorus of "Kiss off" right back in your brain again. Terribly sorry about that. I'll move on now, OK?

As it turns out, if I had included a ninth bullet in my weekend recap post the other night, it might perhaps have been a snack food review for your consideration. Frito-Lay has a new brand of "healthy" snacks that they deem so "Impossibly Good," they've chosen a flying pig as the snack's logo. (After perusing the ingredients list on the bag, I am actually not entirely sure just how "healthy" these snacks really are, but that is not the point of this paragraph.) Anyway, they are called Flat Earth crisps, and a team of smiling Frito-Lay representatives in matching t-shirts was handing them out at the Stone Arch arts festival on Saturday. I took a bag of the Wild Berry Patch flavor and examined the description and ingredients. I am not sure exactly what I expected a chip made from "a blend of rice, potato, and fruit" to taste like, but I definitely did not expect it to taste like Pop-Rocks. Do you remember Pop-Rocks? I have not had that weird fake-fruity, bubbly, exploding candy in years, but upon my first bite of Wild Berry Patch Flat Earth crisps, I said--out loud, I might add, because I am inappropriate like that, and I apparently want people in public places to see me talking to myself and deem me a lunatic (Is it really any wonder I rarely meet prospective dates in my normal day-to-day life anymore? I guess not.)--Anyway, I said (out loud), upon my first bite, "These taste like Pop-Rocks!" And then I smiled to myself and continued snacking on the chips because, hello, a rice-and-potato-based snack chip that tastes like an absurd candy from your youth? Tell me that doesn't sound weirdly delicious to you.

When I went to the grocery store last night, I saw that Frito-Lay's marketing efforts are in force there as well. The outskirts of the Natural and Organic Foods section featured a tremendous pallet of all six flavors. I decided to stay away from the veggie ones for now, because while they might be differently but equally tasty, I could not imagine anything but disappointment when compared to Pop-Rock Candy fruit chips. I bought the Apple Cinnamon instead. (They are reasonably tasty as well, though likely wouldn't have warranted any review or mention on their own.)

Incidentally, if you happen to try these and decide that the absurd berry flavor is anything but delightful, I do apologize. Many of us take blogger recommendations fairly seriously, but not every recommendation can be a hit with everyone. As an example, let's talk about Miss Peach (or, not Miss Peach herself, but a thing or two that she has recommended). By my assessment, Miss Peach is, in all ways, quite awesome. She is lovely and whip-smart and wrote some damn amusing blog entries before real life clearly interfered and took her away from all of us. I even met Peach last fall, and I can vouch for her being a charming and affable dinner companion off the blog as well.

So. Big fan of Peach. That's what I'm saying. Unfortunately, not everything that Miss Peach loves is really for me. College football, for instance. Couldn't give half a damn about that. And Lifetime made-for-TV movies. I thought I could enjoy the occasional guilty pleasure of a dreadfully contrived drama. I have, after all, sat with semi-rapt attention through both She Fought Alone (starring both Tiffani Amber Thiessen and Brian Austin Green, in an awesome pre-90210 pairing) and A Friend to Die For (also known as Death of a Cheerleader, starring Kellie Martin and the always-talented Tori Spelling). This past weekend, however, while I was immobilized in the heat coma on my living room couch, I decided to see just how many Lifetime movies I could sit through before I started wanting to make terrible things happen to the women in the movies myself. (Answer: two and a half. Likely less if they'd been consecutive.)

All of this round-about rambling is my way of getting to the explanation of why I had to abandon Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, despite my long-standing and rarely broken "when I start a book, I must finish it" rule. (Did you all read Metalia's cautionary tale about how writing a little outline before you start a post might be helpful? Yeah, apparently I am not taking that advice.)

Anyway, Miss Peach raved about The Sportswriter a few months back, and because I trust the woman's opinion (and I enjoyed the excerpts she included), I added it to my ever-growing "Get at the library some day" list. Shortly before my Austin trip, I went to the library in search of an on-deck book to start after Prep, and I found The Sportswriter met my requirements. (My requirements, by the way, were three-fold: I needed a book (A) whose title and author I could recall, (B) that the library actually had on the shelf at that moment, and (C) that was small and light enough to fit in my mid-sized messenger bag.)

Don't get me wrong. This book is well written. Unfortunately, it's well-written the same way The Corrections was well written. It contains some beautifully crafted prose, some passages that are awe-inspiring in their spot-on capturing of ordinary life in not-so-ordinary detail. But I didn't care one whip about any of the characters, and 80 pages in, I still had no idea when any sort of interesting or engrossing story might actually start.

I did make it past the point where the famous Nancy Pearl would say I could stop. Her Rule-of-50 (described at the end of this post, which I wrote after seeing her speak in Minneapolis last year) says I should give every book at least 50 pages before deciding if it's worth the effort. If you're over 50, you get to subtract your age from 100 and read that many pages instead. I actually stuck it out past page 67, which, at age 33, is the point I'd have to reach if following that alternate rule. On page 80, though, I read this line:

But that is not so much the point as a way of getting around to it.

And at that moment, I nearly hurled the book at the wall because it so aptly described the entire novel up to that page. I was tired of waiting for Ford to get around to the point, so I will be taking Nancy Pearl's wise advice and not finishing this one. Life's too short and there are far too many better books out there to read. Like The Time Traveler's Wife, which I am fully enjoying even if I can't really accurately describe why. Or Prep, which I might have enjoyed more had I not read it immediately after my favorite so far this year but which I thought was well-written and enjoyable anyway. I still want to write some sort of recap of that for my own records (and those of anyone else who finds that sort of thing at all interesting), and I realize I said I was going to be chronological and not mention The Sportswriter until I'd posted that last one. I just want to get The Sportswriter out of my house, however, so out-of-order will have to do.

Know what else will have to do? This abrupt and non-conclusitory* end to one of my most meandering posts to date. "Kiss off," Pop Rocks chips, Lifetime television, and aggravating novels. How else would you sum all of that up?

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* So totally a word. Or, not, really, but I am tired, so it's a word for now at least.