Saturday, October 31, 2009

"It might have been easier and more sensible to..

..have met and fallen heavily for some glamorous unattached stranger, but the one thing love never did have was logic." - Dick Francis, Banker

Friday, October 30, 2009

"for the record, I am going outside in my pink penguin pants." - gretzky

Wallace sometimes needs to go out at times that are inconvenient to myself. Being already in pajamas is one of those times.

It was so chilly this week we finally turned the heat on, and I brought out the flannel pink penguin pants, my favorite winter pajamas EVER. They are a tad bit - okay, a LOT - ridiculous looking - and last night I took Wallace outside while wearing them.

Thankfully only Natalie and Finn the Irish wolfhound were walking down the street, and Finn said hi to Wallace while I said hi to Natalie. Natalie likes to walk Finn in her pajamas too, fleecy ugly brown sweat pants, and this makes me feel better, since she's one of those 110 lb, blond haired, blue eyed women who look great without makeup, the kind of woman that makes me feel like I've eaten too much ice cream just by looking at her.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the pink penguins will make another streetside appearance at some point, since I'll wear them all winter long and Wallace has to go outside a lot.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

i like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework - lily tomlin

I think we always need teachers, no matter where we are in life, and Ann Patchett does too. She talks about this in her little commencement speech book, What Now?. She thought she had written a great speech and then asked one of her old teachers to read it..he told her it wouldn't work, and she needed to do it over again.

"This was not a situation that called for a rewrite. It was time to let the whole thing go gentle into that good night. I sat on my couch for a long time and stared out the window. I had no interest in starting over again, but there are some people we grant the role of oracle in our lives and when they speak - rarely, gravely - we are well-advised to listen. When I had written my new speech (a shorter version of this book), I did not send it back to Allan. I didn't need to. After all, I am a good student. I had done everything he told me."

(page 90)

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

"the secret is...

finding the balance between going out to get what you want and being open to the thing that actually winds up coming your way. What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance....It takes discipline to remain curious; it takes work to be open to the world - but oh my friends, what noble and glorious work it is....Make up some plans and change them. Identify your heart's truest desire and don't change that for anything. Be proud of yourself for the work you've done. Be grateful to all the people who helped you do it. Write to them and let them know how you are. You are, every one of you, someone's favorite unfolding story. We will all be anxious to see what happens next."

(pages 76-80, Ann Patchett, What Now)

Isn't that last sentence just gloriously sappy and sweet and true all at the same time? Love it, love it, love it.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

the he's just not that into you debates

are many, and i will not spend much time on them here.

I will say, though, that the red flag exercise is HILARIOUS (page 58), and also that Greg is funny: "I think you should lose 175 pounds - in the form of your loser boyfriend - not the twenty you're talking about" (page 62).

Monday, October 26, 2009

"You know, get out there. You'll have higher standards right now. Get right back in it." - P.J.

The day after I broke up with someone earlier this year, this was P.J.'s advice.

I don't usually follow my little brother's dating suggestions (see previous posts about his Seahawk-jersey-wearing/bar-hopping advice if there's any questions about why that might be), but I did listen to him here - it seemed in a similar vein as the get-right-back-up-on-the-horse theory. Which most of the time I'm not known to endorse, but sometimes it works out alright.

So I listened to P.J...which has led to several nice dates with several nice guys, and then one which included a series of unfortunate events, which I will relay here.

We started at a used bookstore, which you'd think would be great, since I love books, and want to be a librarian. Also, I was giving him points for suggesting a bookstore instead of the ubiquitous coffee first date. One of the first books we spied was Dates from Hell. No joke. This should have been my first clue. But conversation was flowing, he was amusing, all good. Actually, by conversation flowing, I should have said, he was talking. A lot. About himself. I learned that he worked in a marketing department for a fast-food chain. Happily worked in said job. This was enough to end the date right there, let's be honest. But then I thought to myself I was being snobby, and should give him a chance, even if his job involves encouraging kids to eat horribly every day.

We then decided to walk around Green Lake. I got into his car, a new model, with a computer screen in it in the middle of the dash....On said computer screen was a computer generated image of a scantily clad - read: almost naked - woman under the title "Sally Mae."

Gretzky: "What's up with the picture?"

SM: "Oh that? That's my car's name, Sally Mae."

Gretzky: "Did the picture come with it?"

SM: "Oh, I picked that one out."

Gretzky: "Hmm, my cars haven't had pictures attached to them."

SM: "Really? Do you know which street I turn on next?"

At this point I wanted to open the car door and leap out, but I was wearing boots and tights and figured if I had to make an Alias-style roll, my tights wouldn't make it in the event my knees touched the ground.

So I stayed in the car, and learned a few more things about SM. At one point he asked if I was a lesbian. I think he was trying to be funny, but I'm not exactly sure how this train got started.

I think I murmured something along the lines of, "I'm here with you, right?" and then SM went back to talking about himself.

Also, it should be noted that in previous communication with SM, he had mentioned he hated profanity. Now, we all know Gretzky's mouth is not the cleanest - I once again said "fuck" this weekend in church - and I don't really care about profanity either way from someone else as long as they not cursing at me specifically. I can clean it up when I want to. But he was cursing the whole date long. And I just thought it stupid, to have a double-standard, that he gets to curse but others don't. WTF?

So I thought I was speechless after this date, but there it all is. Where does Earth get these people?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

wallace will work for food

Love takes off masks

that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. - James Baldwin

(via Runyan.)

James, how I love thee. Let me count the ways:

1) Go Tell it on The Mountain
2) Jimmy's Blues
3) The Fire Next Time

I'm sure there's more, I just haven't gotten there yet.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

"I thought our story was epic.."

Veronica: "Epic?"


Logan: "Spanning years and continents, lives ruined, blood shed, epic. But summer’s almost here, and we won’t see each other at all. You’ll leave town and…it’s over. I’m sorry about last summer. If I could do it over...


Veronica: C’mon. Ruined lives, blood shed? You really think a relationship should be that hard?


Logan: No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.


(Season Two, Episode 20, Alterna-prom Scene.)


Oh, Logan. How I hated you at first, but since then, I have come to love you as much as Veronica does.

Friday, October 23, 2009

"I just said made or broke it. I don't think you can use that phrase in the past tense." - nj

Grammar thought of the day:

Make or break.

In past tense, does it work?

Somehow, "made it or broke it" doesn't seem to have the right ring to it.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

amen.

that's all I have to say about danielle's thoughts here.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

all the single ladies

from The Night of the Iguana (1964):


Hannah: There are worse things than chastity, Mr. Shannon.

T. Lawrence Shannon: Yes - lunacy and death.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

the quoteless book

When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka.

I can't pull anything out of it, because it would be taken out of context in a terrible way, and you just need to read the whole thing. For real.

It's starkly beautiful, which I know is cliche, but it's true. This novel was a beautiful, beautiful telling of a very difficult story that we seem reluctant to talk about - the Japanese internments during World War II.

Monday, October 19, 2009

oh, sophie, how sweet are you?

check it out: Missed Connections Interpretations.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

"All your dilemnas about which Wilson brother to like are solved." - k8

"Luke. Always Luke." - gretzky

"No, Andrew, the oldest." -k8

"Isn't he married?" - gretzky

"Does that matter in the scheme of things? We're not talking reality here..." - k8


Andrew Wilson is in Whippet, the roller derby movie directed by Drew Barrymore. It's on my list of things to see, but that list is growing as the schoolwork pile grows....


According to k8: "Dialogue lacking. Story good. Also, I was delirious, so..."

Saturday, October 17, 2009

g-chattin' it up - evs takes the cake

evs:

[sung in Paula Cole voice] "Where have all the straight guys goooooooooooooooooooone??"

AND


evs:
My manager's way of describing our team strategy for the next 2 1/2 weeks: "In the words of my students who once set the copier on fire and rolled it down the hallway and into the girls’ bathroom at beautiful Southwestern High School: 'Let’s burn this bitch down.'”


AND

evs:
just received a facebook message from an actor on the West Wing asking how we know each other. It's probably inappropriate to write back and say "We don't. I'm just a stalker."


Friday, October 16, 2009

"people love each other for all sorts of different reasons," Roxanne said....

"Most of the time we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are. It's not such a bad thing, being loved for what you can do."

"But the other is better," Gen said....

"Better. I hate to say better, but it is. If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them."

( Bel Canto, Ann Patchett, p.224)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

"It's no good trying to fool yourself about love.

You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. And if you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul, you' better give up the whole idea of life, and become a saint. Because you'll never make it as a human being."

- Jimmy to Helena, in Look Back in Anger

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

"I can't imagine how anyone would get to know you and see how great you are and then decide not to date you."

"...You're great. Who's better than you?" ~ Mom

Shortly after college, when my heart was deeply broken by someone I thought about spending the rest of my life with - the kind of young, head-over-heels lust/love you think you'll never get over, and in fact it takes a long while to do so - after that, when I was so distraught, my mother told me I shouldn't tell her about anyone I even thought about dating. She said unless I was engaged to them, she didn't want to know. She said I could call them "Mr. X," she just didn't want to meet them and know them and start to care about them if they weren't actually going to officially join the family. She's since become less neurotic and rescinded this policy, but I have followed it religiously. I usually never tell her about anyone I am even remotely interested in. She did know about the 28 dates, but that was because I had to tell her about one really atrocious, ridiculous date I knew she would laugh at. And she did.

For the record, I'm not the only one in the family who doesn't tell her about dating. One of my siblings has brought 2 significant others home and both afterwards broke up with him. Their loss, really. He's amazing and so are the rest of us. (We're also crazy, but amazing nonetheless.) It's kind of become a family joke - don't bring them home, don't tell mom about them, or it'll be bad for the relationship.

But I broke the silent policy last month, to tell her about someone who did not, in fact, want to date me, and it made me so glad to have her for a mom, because what she said above did more for my self-esteem than just about anything in the world. And then she gave me a navy blue corduroy dress, saying, "I got you this. You're the only one in the world I can tell just by looking at the dress if it'll look good on you or not. "

Wow, I'm lucky. I heart mom.

Monday, October 12, 2009

"But will he love me like Calvin loves Alice?" - from a young woman's letter to writer Calvin Trillin

After reading About Alice, I know what this woman means.

You could read it in about an hour, it's just a little snippet of a thing. It's a lovely homage to Alice - wife, mother, writer, and teacher who was much beloved.

The first book Trillin published after her death is inscribed: "I wrote this for Alice. Actually, I wrote everything for Alice." Trillin speaks of wanting to impress Alice, of wanting her to laugh if he was trying to make something funny. And there's a lovely vignette about Dick Francis, one of the best English mystery novelists of all time, who spoke about his wife, Mary Francis, helping him write. After her death, he didn't think he could publish another novel.

It's effing damn stories like this that screw me up in the love department. Just when I think I'm ready to settle for any nice young man whom my mother would adore, I have to read a book like this, and start to wonder along with that young woman - Will he love me like Calvin loves Alice? Or like Dick loves Mary?

Saturday, October 10, 2009

return of the Sonics saga

I believe I've discussed growing up with a rabid Sonics fan for a father and watching Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, and Detlef Schrempf play, and I really hope I've mentioned how great Kevin Calabro is, because I have many childhood memories of listening to CAlabro's voice while watching the games - Dad hated the tv announcers and only listened to Calabro. There was a point in my young life when I owned approximately 900 basketball cards, believe it or not. I'm pretty sure I traded them to one of my brothers, but who knows where they all ended up.

Anyway, multiple people have documented the heartbreaking move of my team to a horrible place that will not be mentioned. I thought I was getting over it, although I haven't seen a decent basketball game in forever..I think I'm still in the denial phase of grief.

Well, they've made a movie. Be still my heart: I think I have three new crushes: filmmakers Adam Brown, Jason Reid, and Darren Lund.

You can see it tonight at the SIFF and then on the Internet: Sonicsgate.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

continuing banned books week

You might or might not have known that last week was Banned Books week.

As in, read a banned book, it's good for you.

The following, according to the ALA, are frequently challenged books. There's a lot of good ones on here, go read them if you haven't. I've highlighted my favorites from this list:



1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E. M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Monday, October 5, 2009

"there is a holiness for the heart's affections..." - John Keats

I love the Romantic poets. Quote me Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, and I swoon.

I've never been a huge Keats fan, although you have to give him credit for things like "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." I mean, really, how many people know that's Keats?

But the real star of Bright Star is Fanny Brawn, played beautifully by Abbie Cornish.

Keats sends her a love letter, the first one, I think, and Fanny grabs Toots, her little sister, and says, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

That's the thing about love, real love, that is: The more you get, the more you give. That's what's so amazing about it.


From one of Keats' letters to Fanny:

"My Mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it. I never felt my Mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment - upon no person but you. When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window: you always concentrate my whole senses."

Sigh.

Be still my heart.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

"There's nothing sexier than a competent man." - k8

I was at the dog park this morning, and two dogs decided they really didn't like each other. All of a sudden, they started fighting.

One of the men there (Side Note: There seem to be more men on a Sunday. I should keep this in mind.) broke it up. Jumped right into the middle of it without thinking, and grabbed one of the dogs, which was enough to stop it.

Now, I suppose some might say he was stupid, but from where I was standing it just appeared very competent.

Be still my heart.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

can we all find k8 a dietitian job in Seattle? Please?

I forgot people read this blog who might have connections. So if anyone knows of anything, e-mail me so k8 can move back to washington!