Standing on the Platform…

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For those of you in the know, you know that’s the beginning of a line from the movie Sliding Doors, one of my all time favs. The scene cracks me up.
But, back to the platform. That’s me. Standing on the platform in Indecision City. A really nice author friend likes my book reviews. She’s said as much. Like I said, really nice. But, and it’s a big but, she’s not so wild about the ranting. She gets a little squeamish when I mention the bullsh!t. Especially when it relates to my life. TMI! “I like what you read. I like how your brain works when you read. Your heart…well, it’s more than I need to know.” Odd. I say odd because most people classify my “reviews” as dry, without substance…the stuff they mutter “yeahyeahyeahwhatever” about as they scroll to the juicier bits. Hmmm. Here’s someone on the other side. A first!

So, this got me thinking. Do I split hairs with topics and separate my blogs? In truth, I’m already doing that. I “journal” my workout sessions, running miles, eating habits and yoga (dis)graces in another blog, just around the corner from here. It gets like two hits a day, but I’m okay with that. I just needed another space to fill up with “My shoulder keeps popping during overhead presses. This is NOT normal!”
So. Do I weed out the writing about reading and put it somewhere else? Start a fourth blog? Seems kind of excessive, right? Well, not if I would be writing those things anyway…Each blog would have more relevance to one thing. Maybe the BookLust Challenge blog would end up on someone else’s “review list” or something…

Or do I embrace life as I know it? Keep running&yoga where it is. Keep books&blatherings together in an unlikely (but surviving) marriage? There is no doubt I was hurt by someone stealing my creativity and passing it off as her own. I’m not flattered. But, I’m also not deterred. I will not stop using these spaces as creative outlets. Write on I will. But, here’s the question – how?

ps~ this was supposed to be the real  blog of the day!

Sorry for That

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You are an azzhole. Royal sh!tface fukc-up.

There. Got that out of my system. I feel better. Much. To my friends: sorry for that outburst. But, to the person I am swearing about:
I am sorry that you don’t have an original thought in your pee sized brain. I pity you and your need to take MY words and use them for your weak-azz porn site. Obviously you can’t string two sentences together so you have to steal other people’s intellence to pass it off as your own.  Your slutty picture just adds to the offense. You say you have a blog. I say you have a sh!t filled bog. I’m just sorry my words had to end up there.

Fukc you.

Nice Guys Never

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Power Hungry

I think I’ve said it a billion and one times. Today makes a billion and two. I always root for the underdog. That doesn’t mean I like the self-professed Homer/Family Guy; the guy who is proud to be life’s class clown fukc-up. Kisa, when I first met him said “I’m dumb.” But, that didn’t mean he was describing his whole IQ in a nutshell. He meant when it comes to meaningful relationships he’s not Mensa. I like that honesty, that soul-baring GiveMeAbreak mea culpa. I’ve Never Done This Before kind of virginity.

Let me clarify one thing. Underdog doesn’t mean under-confident, under-powered, under anything. Really.
I think I speak for every woman out there when I say tough is attractive. There’s a reason why the bad boy wins and nice guys finish last. Sometimes. Confidence is kickazz. Awkward is…well…awkward. Daring James Dean trumps goofy Gilligan every single time. Why am I saying this? Well, I’m tired of that guy saying he’ll never find someone. I know why. He knows why. He sells himself short. He takes pride in being a punching bag, the punchline to someone else’s joke. Meek is murder on meeting people. It’s frustrating when the personality has flat lined five minutes into the conversation. The underdog is scrappy, a fighter, a face to be reckoned with – not walked over. I was telling a friend about Kisa and she exclaimed, “but he’s such a nice guy!” Yeah, he’s nice, but not exactly innocent when it comes to trouble.

I came across someone’s Woe Is Me-ness the other day. If I had a remote I would have changed the channel. No, if I had a remote I would have hit the mute button. No, no, no! If I had a remote I would have shut the whole thing off. Here’s a tip, boyfriend: you are smart, you are funny, you are even cute to boot. Stop whining about what wasn’t or what was at one time and wonder what could be. Stop telling me how everything about your life falls short. Do something about it. Do something about you. Really. Be a man for fukc’s sake. Or, if you can’t be a man, be a bad boy.

Culture Crisis

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Fly High

I don’t know how to say this. Well, I don’t know how to say this without coming off as a cultural snob, but there is no refinery in my life right now. I wanted to see two nights of Natalie at the symphony. I was willing to pay someone’s way just to have a second night w-i-t-h someone (and not just sharing a table and maybe a bottle of wine with a complete stranger). Call me generous but my motives were selfish. Call me selfish but I would have paid the way. The whole way. The problem was I couldn’t think of a single person who would sit through orchestral music. No offense, but I’m having a culture crisis.

I need people in my life who want to look at art from the back of the room. The kind of person who not only sits and stares at art, but collects it as well. Cherishes it rather than chucks it. Someone who doesn’t get their wall decore from A.C. Moore. I want to know people who hear a cello live and call it an experience to remember. Music that moves them beyond screaming teenage fantasies. I desire people who would rather savor their food than chew, choke and swallow it. Can close their eyes and say, “cilantro…with a hint of lime” rather than, “there’s something funky with this rice…”

Show me someone who reads poetry, watches documentaries, understands fresh basil, and can handle a song without words. Show me someone who reads biographies, goes to the theater, knows a good Alfredo sauce, and hears the protest in folk music. Show me because I’m tired of Cosmopolitan magazine, Dumb & Dumber, dried oregano, and Hannah Montana.

*Edited to add: When I voiced this angst rather than post it, a friend took me to the theater. Another friend said, “I’ll go with ya!” I guess all I had to do was ask. I don’t know if that would have worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but now I know…It doesn’t hurt to ask!*

Boy With Loaded Gun

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Nordan, Lewis. Boy With Loaded Gun. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2000.

Lewis Nordan celebrates a birthday in August. I am pleased to have started off with his nonfiction/fiction memoir, Boy with Loaded Gunas my introduction to Nordan’s writing. I think it will bring insight to everything else I read of his. While this may or may not be a good thing, I am looking forward to it just the same.
Boy with Loaded Gunis heartbreaking and humorous at the same time. Pulling the reader down into sadness, lifting him or her back up with laughter. I found myself comparing the reading experience to that of a fast moving, slightly rickety, out of control rollercoaster. At times I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I didn’t know what was real or an exaggeration. But, I did know one thing, I loved every minute of it; page by page.
Nordan’s memoir begins with the chapter called “Voodoo” and Nordan’s inexplicable love for a voodoo practicing woman. It is at this time Nordan professes, “In these lonely backwaters and days of grief my memory begins” (p 7). We are then taken on a journey through Nordan’s young life while he struggles to love his step-father and escape the confines of small town Itta Bena, Mississippi. Later, it’s coming-of-age encounters with sex and marriage. Babies and buying houses. Alcohol and writing. Down and outs, ups and accomplishements. At times you want to love him. Other times you have to hate him. Just like real life. In other words, human.

Best quotes: “Two men got into an argument about whether a tree was willow or a weed. It was a small knife, and not a deep wound, so neither of the men went home, they just didn’t talk to each other for a while. Then they seemed to forget all about it, and before long they were talking about something else” (p 49).
“Eventually I tried to kill my father, of course” (p 69). Nordan does address the “of course” part of the statement, but it struck me as funny the first time I read it.
“I could scarcely tolerate standing in my own skin, let alone being strong” (p 188).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Lewis Nordan: Too Good To Miss” (p 172).

Lie in the Dark

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Fesperman, Dan. Lie in the Dark. New York: Soho Press, 1999.

 I can remember this intense sadness when the civil war in Sarajevo broke out…the second time. It seemed like yesterday the Olympics were held there & it was a city of promise, of dreams come true.

Lie in the Dark is an interesting tale about life in war-torn Sarajevo and one police inspector’s fight to win his own private war. In the beginning of the conflict Vlado Petrics’s wife and infant daughter were allowed to escape to Germany. Vlado, as with all men of military serving age, stayed behind. He escaped being drafted into the military because of his employment as a policeman.
While investigating a murder Vlado is confronted with a much bigger scandal than he bargained for. Not knowing who to trust he works alone, unraveling the mystery while the civil war continues all around him. Woven into the plot are the harsh realities of what war can do to economics, politics, families, the landscape and the human spirit.

Right away I knew I would like this book. Fesperman does a great job describing the absurdity of investigating a murder in the middle of a war. As Fesperman says (p 2) “Vlado’s task was that of a plumber fixing leaky toilets in the middle of a flood.” It makes you realize that people will grasp and struggle for normalcy even if it doesn’t make sense.

Favorite lines: ” They never stopped retreating, ending up at the bottom of either a bottle or a grave” (p 5).
I found this next line profoundly sad: “It had taken the first few weeks of separation to rediscover her as lover, as something more than the wife and mother she’d become” (p 83).
“He felt himself beginning to deaden, to go numb and cold and dreary as he left the truth behind” (p 86).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Crime is a Globetrotter” (p 59).

August Is…

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August is a day late. Sorry about that!

It is awful to wish the summer away. To look forward to Labor Day…but I can’t help it. The time has (finally) come for me to go home. And I haven’t been there since last October!  August is all about going back to the island. I’m bringing a truckload of books:

  • All is Vanity by Christina Schwartz (in honor of Womens Friendship Month)
  • Boy with Loaded Gun by Lewis Nordan (in honor of Lewis Nordan’s birthday)
  • Far Field by Edie Meidav (August is the best time to visit Sri Lanka, believe it or not)
  • Dog Handling by Clare Naylor (August has a “woman’s day” so I’m reading what Pearl calls “chick lit”)
  • Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (National Language Month)

It seems traitorish to think that the island’s library won’t have any of these books, but I can’t take the chance by assuming they do…and here’s the funny part- I don’t leave until the latter half of the month. I’m acting as if I won’t read a word before then! I’m actually hoping to have All is Vanity and Boy with Loaded Gun finished and off my list before leaving.

I scored another LibraryThing Early Review:

Blackbird, Farewell by Robert Greer. I am excited about this new book for odd reasons. For starters, I love the title! There is something about blackbirds. I love how they are associated with something dark and ominous. Dangerous. If you ever get the chance, check out Jamie Wyeth’s art. He has some great blackbird paintings. I also love the song ‘Blackbird’ (Jerry Garcia’s version is my favorite). Nearly everyone who has ever made me a mixed tape has put that song on one for me. I don’t know why…Maybe they have insight about my broken wings and the need to fly? Anyway, this book doesn’t have anything to do with blackbirds….funny.

August is also a Police concert (awesome, awesome, awesome by the way – blog coming soon), more trips to see Sean Rowe, Swell Season in my back yard, maybe Rebecca Correia. Should be an interesting month! Speaking of flying, I hope it does!

July Was…

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July flew by. I hardly knew where the month actually went. Here’s how it went for reading:

 

  • Bilgewater by Jane Gardam ~ lovely young adult book.
  • Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman ~ a dark story set in the woods of Sweden.
  • Finding Caruso by Kim Barnes ~ brotherly love set against sibling rivalry.
  • Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein ~ Sci-fi story about a boy finding his way.
  • Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett ~ a young adult mystery.
  • Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro ~ short stories that center around women and their relationships.
  • Jackson’s Dilemma by Iris Murdoch ~ a muddled tale of twisted relationships with someone named Jackson in the middle…
  • Lie in the Dark by Dan Fesperman ~ whodunnit set in Bosnia.

For LibraryThing’s Early Review Program:

  • What We All Long For by Dionne Brand ~ previously published in 2003

Just for the fun of it:

  • Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill:Explosive Flavors from the Southwestern Kitchen by Bobby Flay with Stephanie Banyas and Sally Jackson. Made several recipes out of this and loved every one.
  • The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger. Meant to make more recipes from this, but every one I tried was amazing.
  • Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields (Introduction by Jack Wright). This is actually a two cd/book set published in 2007. Because Natalie Merchant contributed to the compilation I just had to check it out.
  • Kim Lyons’ Your Body, Your Life by Kim Lyons & Lara McGlashan

Taken Seriously

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There are some people you want to write off because they never mean what they say. Wait. Actually, I’m one of those people when I say I’ll call you. I hardly ever come through with dialing the digits. I think those kinds of short comings are okay, though. Those I’ll-Get-Around-To-It people who somehow never really do. They are okay. You chalk it up to they mean well, but don’t do well. If that makes sense. Manny being Manny kind of excusability.

Yet. And, yet. It’s different when it concerns the heart. Admitting emotion. “I care” when you or you really doesn’t. “I miss you” when you haven’t thought of that you for months or even years. “I love your….” when really, you find them and their [fill in the blank] annoying. Why is that? Why is it that I find a lie of emotion harder to swallow than a lie of action?
I’m trying to make sense of this. Really, I am. I find myself beating moi or me up because I mean well but don’t say well. It translates into not caring well, not feeling well. Being ill. Not nice. Or something.

I’m reading a book about someone who is self-centered and vain. She makes excuses for her superior attitude, like she has earned it, therefore can flaunt it. Wear it not so well. This character lies with emotion about emotion. Even that drives me nuts. Why is that? Why can’t what you say be taken seriously? Not by me, myself and moi, the listening, but youyouyou, the talking?

I think I have it figured out. A lie of action is excusable because it’s tangible. It doesn’t have to be an out and out lie. Something came up. Something always does. Then it’s not a lie, it’s a meant well statement. A lie of the heart is something completely and utterly different. Exposing an emotion isn’t necessary. That’s your call. You don’t have to say it. I never need to know what you’re feeling. Exposing an emotion when it isn’t truly felt is beyond inexcusable. It’s downright mean.

So. Don’t tell me you miss me. Because I can’t take it seriously if I can’t believe it.

Sunday Morning Routine

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Dressed in YellowDSCN0015

We have settled into some semblance of a Sunday morning routine. Catching up on myself’s shows first thing in the morning. Awake but not getting out of bed, cheating morning and waking and thinking for another hour. The Food Network. Coffee. Hot and fresh brewed. I’m up but not.

Later. House hunting. We map each address in order of distance and time. Open houses. That one doesn’t start until 1pm. Let’s save it until last. Go here first. So it goes. So many questions. How is the neighborhood? Is it a hood? Can I walk the walk or will they send me running? How far from the street is it? How many cars can fit in the driveway? What if we actually (gasp) have people over? Garage? Kitchen? Counter space? Gas or electric? Can I socialize while stirring and sauteing? Will my butt hit the fridge while standing at the sink? Fireplace? Ceiling fans? Ranch? Colonial? Cape? WTF? Basements finished or frightening? Security system or do we get a dog? Closets walk in or full of skeletons? Porch, deck or patio? All three? Lawn to mow? Dude room? Workout room? Laundry room? Indiana room? Mudroom? Guest room? Gawd forbid we want someone to actually spend the night! Bathrooms 1, 1.5, or 2? Central air? Central vac? Central to work? Hardwood or wall to wall? Marble or laminate? Grand or gross?

We walk through old house after new house, roomy room after teeny-tiny room. Agents follow us with the details: one owner, built in —-, new roof, updated kitchen, close to schools…I take notes to show interest but have no intentions. No set plan. Everything has something. Nothing has nothing, well, except Sanders. Can’t decide. Don’t want to decide. Not now. No rush to move. Kisa brings up another house. I shut him down. Let’s not go there. Literally or figuratively. I’m done with the red house on the corner. We’ll keep on looking. Keep on searching.

And so next weekend we’ll watch tv in bed to wake up and catch up. Coffee and the paper. A map. More open houses. New emails. New agents. New addresses. Keeping with the new Sunday routine.
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Not One Step

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I didn’t run on my last vacation. Not one step. In Vegas I seriously thought about it. The gym was hidden in the spa. Amongst the hair dryers and manicure stations were treadmills and elipticals. I told kisa, “when you gamble, I’ll run.” To make a long story short, he never sat down to a slot machine, never pulled up a chair for a hand of Black Jack, never spun the Roulette wheel, nor threw the die for craps. The only gambling he did was on the Celtics (and won). So. I didn’t run.
At the next hotel I got up early hoping to put in a quick 30 minutes in the gym. It wasn’t nearly as nice as Vegas’s setup but I was eager to try it out all the same. Just off the registration desk was a little gym. One bike. One step machine. One treadmill. Oddly enough, the “business center” was in the same room. Two computers, a fax machine and phone lined one wall. I guess the west coast likes to consolidate their tasks -run while closing the deal? Oh well. I figured I could ignore anyone who came in. Turns out, I didn’t need to. The treadmill was broken. Try as I might I couldn’t get the thing to stay on. Finally, I asked at the front desk, “Is your treadmill broken?” The manager just looked at me, bored, and said “yup” like I was supposed to know that before I got dressed and came over from my room. Stupid.
The third place we stayed looked more than promising for a run. They didn’t boast of their own equipment but shared space with a real, live, local gym. Hotel guests could work out for free at the area’s state of the art fitness facility. When Kisa and I toured the building I needed to put my eyeballs back in my head: olympic sized swimming pool, pilates room, two weight rooms, more cardio equipment than I could count, a yoga studio, racquet ball court, tennis court, you name it, it was there. They too combined their fitness center with a salon – facials, pedicures, manicures, haircuts and color…all in one place.
When Kisa and I finally changed our clothes and went back to the gym I was practically salviating at the chance to run. Until I saw nearly every treadmill in sight was in use. Upon further inspection I realized not only was every working treadmill was in use, but half a dozen were broken and I couldn’t compete with the wait list. I ended up on a bike for 40 minutes.
The final hotel was super nice…except it didn’t have a gym. Period. Not one machine anywhere. No running for me. I would have run outside but Southern CA was boasting of a heatwave like no other. I’m not that stupid.

Jealous Again

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I’ve got the Black Crowes in my head. “Jealous. Jealous again.” Because I am. Of you. I have exactly 44 days until I can go homehome. 44 days to deal with being landlocked and loser. I always think of you when I hear the Black Crowes but this time it’s more than that. You were there. You could have bragged about it. You didn’t. Instead, you let me down easy. Talking more about the weather than what I was missing. I got weather here, too. I wanted to crawl through the phone and smell the salt in your hair. You were just there. What made me ask? Torturing myself with the wanting. How was the pizza? Where did you hike? Was it crowded? I stopped short of asking how the sea smelled, how the surf sounded on the shore, what was in bloom. Stopped short of being pitiful, but wanting all the same.

I reminded myself of someone I knew once. She would flip through fashion magazines and Victoria’s Secret catalogs and ask her boyfriend, “Do you think she’s pretty? Do you like her legs?” as she shoved the glossy near naked women in his face. “Well? Well?” What was she looking for? A lie? Could she handle the truth? What made her force the admission?

Funny thing about jealousy. It changes everything once it flares up and rages out of control. Like a fire, things get out of hand if not handled properly. People say stupid things when they are bit by the ugly green eye. Jealousy. Things become infected by jealousy. You lose things to jealousy. Things burn up in jealousy. Friends. Relationships. Things. Life as we knew it. Life period. I sort through the rubble, bits of charred emotions still smoking. Make my way through what I want to salvage, deciding what is worth keeping. Nothing. I decide nothing is worth salvaging. Let it burn I say. I’ll be home in 44 days.

Jackson’s Dilemma

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Murdoch, Iris. Jackson’s Dilemma. New York: Viking, 1995.

I hate it when I read a review that influences my way of thinking, my way of reading a book. This happened innocently enough. I was looking for more information about Jackson’s Dilemma. Was it ever made into a movie? Adapted for the stage? A musical? As a result of my searching I discovered Jackson’s Dilemma was Murdock’s last book. Not only that, but she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s right around the time of publication. Inadvertently, I read two reviews that seemed to blame the disease for the demise of Murdoch’s craft. In other words, Jackson’s Dilemma bombed. Because of the reviews I found myself wondering about the words. I will admit, the beginning was slow and the characters, curious, but in the end I didn’t think it was all that bad.

It starts off on the eve of Edward and Marian’s wedding. Edward is enjoying dinner with friends when he discovers a note under the door: an “I can’t marry you” letter from Marian. There is no explanation but the following day there is much hoopla about making sure people are “barred” from the church and from attending a wedding that won’t happen. All of Edward’s friends are absurdly devastated by this turn of events, so much so that I started to really question their sanity. Meanwhile, both Edward and Marian disappear (separately, of course). Enter Jackson (Just Jackson, no last name). Even his arrival is peculiar.

In the end the plot becomes a garbled mess. Everyone is trying to be in love with someone else, exclaiming undying devotion left and right. Even Owen (male) and Tuan (also male) have some kind of odd, unexplained relationship going on. Despite all this, I did have two favorite lines: “The moon was not present, being elsewhere” (p 22). Who actually knows where the moon was, but I thought that was funny. The other line: “After all, as Randall said, it’s the sea that matters” (p 100). Too bad Randall would lose his life to the very thing that mattered.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the chapter “Iris Murdoch: Too Good To Miss”. Leave it to me to read her last book (sorta) first.

Wasted on the Way

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Somewhere along the way I decided I wasn’t going to play the game anymore. Except, somewhere along the way I forgot to tell you. Consider this the open letter of I’m telling you now. I’m wasted enough to stop waiting.

I’m through with the games. We have been lying to each other for a while now. We play ping pong with promises. Bounce one to me and I’ll volley one back. But, really, they’re all lies. I have no intention of calling you. I have no intention of helping you out. The game is at the give up point and I’ve given all that I can. Now I’m just pretending. Now I’m just acting stupid because I can’t tell you how I really feel. Until now. I went from being your biggest fan favorite to feeling like the biggest fallout failure.

You used me to get somewhere else. That’s okay as long as you got where you needed to go. That’s only because I got something out of it, too. But now I’m done. There were too many other people involved and I can’t justify dragging them into this any longer. If there’s any dragging to be done it’ll be done by me – dragging my tail between my legs and admitting I was stupidstupidstupid.

Kisa has heard the rant. Time has heard the rant. I think everyone has heard the rant. The rant has turned me into a raving lunatic. Pass me the bottle. I want to poison myself enough to puke out everything vile, everything I thought I believed in. I need to get wasted to make you go away.