...he normally would have said no, would normally have said no that it looked too hokey to have a hatchet on your belt.

Gary Paulsen, Hatchet, p. 9

I'd never met him before. Or knew he existed. The boy who started reading Hatchet and got bored near the end. Gary Paulsen's adventure tale is like the holy grail of books you hand towards "reluctant readers." Once they've read that, you can branch out into the sequels, the rest of Gary Paulsen's books, and then My side of the mountain...its sequels, and voila! you have a reader.

True confessions? I've never actually read Hatchet. Like Bunnicula in my bookselling days, it is a book that I know is a winner, so I hand sell it by plot. (It's about a bunny who is a vegetarian vampire.) Or, in the case of Hatchet, it's about a boy who gets stranded and all he has to survive is his hatchet.

So I seriously need to bone up on my books for reluctant sixth grade boys. He wouldn't take Hiassen's Hoot, and I forgot about Lupica. (Heat is an amazing book, fun, so much that you wonder why it's in with all the angsty YA books.)

And about that. Why aren't there more fun books for boys going into 6th grade? Must it all be Crutcher (his Chinese Handcuffs was the most requested to be banned book of its era) or Christopher Pike (king of horror). And honestly, would you hand sell Christopher Pike to a kid whose mom is hovering, saying "We have to find a book so we can tell her what you're reading." Her. I wonder if it's a teacher, or just a nosy aunt. Probably a teacher. There is so much more I could have recommended if I could have gotten the boy to shed his tough guy exterior, which with hovering mama there, wasn't going to happen. So I gave him Crutcher's Athletic Shorts. Saw the red dot (our code for more mature YA books) too late. WHY didn't I remember Lupica???

He wanted a book about hockey. But I couldn't hand him Matt Christopher, not after I found out he was going into sixth grade. Bruce Brooks wrote that series back in the late 90s, but the books are short (91 pages!) and most libraries don't carry paperback series that are ten years old. (We don't.) (Oh, unless it's R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, or the Boxcar Children.) None of which I would have gotten away with recommending to this tough guy almost 6th grader and his hovering mama.

Which is not to say that hovering mamas are evil--if it weren't for her, I doubt he would have stepped foot into the library yesterday.

But it's frustrating. So off I go, to find the Notables list and the Reluctant Readers lists, bone up on my "what you recommend to a tough guy 6th grader who got bored at the end of Hatchet."

Oh, and I have a copy of Hatchet on my desk. I think it's about time I read it.

"My job is to choreograph chaos"

Mira Nair, director of Monsoon Wedding (Spoilers, beware)

Movies move me. If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know that I will spend money to go see a movie in the theatre, more than once if I really like it.

Often I will watch a movie many times over, to get to the essence of it, or to get again that feeling of aaaaaah! one gets from watching a wonderful Cinderella, told again and again, on the big screen. Last weekend, it was Confessions of a Shopaholic. Fluff, to be sure, but good fluff. It was colorful, it made me laugh, it taught me about shopping. It would be a stretch to say it taught me about personal finance, but it did, a little bit.

Monsoon Wedding, on the other hand, is a movie I've seen once and will probably watch again, but I could only watch it that one time, there was so much chaos that you needed a break. It was not something I could pick up and rewind, watch again right away (although DVDs have taken away the need to rewind...)

Our church has had somewhat of a baby boom. We have had seven babies since January, and one is about to pop, and one is wearing her "bump." That's a lot for any church, but especially one with about 75 adults in attendance each week. (It's a 10% population increase!) I have been for the past two (at least) years wondering why people want babies, or more importantly, why I don't. Yesterday sitting in church, I saw kids running around and I thought, ack! Why would someone want to carry one of those for nine months and then have to discipline it for 18 years? (You see how I have separated love out, as if that part, which is usually the impetus to having children, making a family, doesn't exist.)

In the movie Monsoon Wedding, Ria Verma, the brides's cousin, is jaded. She doesn't want to get married, she wants to go to the U.S. and study Creative Writing. She reminds me of myself, she reminds me of Carrie, who's not sure she's the marrying kind. (I just recently re-watched The Baby Shower, where Carrie is seven days late and wondering if she could be a mother.) I don't see myself as a nun, or a monk, a person that has the "gift" of singleness. And yet, why do I not want children? Why is finding a husband before 40 not at the tip top of my goals?

Some of it, of course, is that the longer you are single, the more comfortable you get in that role. I mean, why bother? Then there is the alternate, what happens after you stop being single: people couple up, family trumps friends. Unless of course you are a couple and/or have kids too. This is a gross overstatement of what happens, of course. Of course your friend has less time, she now has a child to rear. And that is important. But it is hard for the one "left behind." No more long talks, no more coffee every week, instead it is phone conversations peppered with, "Mary, stop that!" or "John, I'm talking to my friend on the phone right now." (What is it about kids, they glom onto you as soon as you turn your attention to the telephone?)

I still have friends that are single and in their late twenties, early thirties, who say things like "well, my husband will be like x" or "when I have kids..." And listening to them, I wonder what has happened to me. That I have lost that dream, that I really only want to get my M.F.A in Creative Writing?

Some of it may stretch from heroine worship--Madeleine L'Engle had her first book published before she got married. But most of it is callouses on my heart. I've been hurt before and I don't believe that there could be a man out there that I could stand to spend longer than six months with. It's easier to go to work, go home, watch re-runs of SATC, and live vicariously through movies like Confessions of a Shopaholic.

But every once in a while, I watch a movie that cracks that callous a little bit, revealing to me a tiny nugget of truth. Monsoon Wedding is one of those movies. Ria Verma, we eventually learn, doesn't want to get married because she had been sexually molested as a child by a relative. And in the movie, she sees this relative, an uncle, begin the cycle again, with one of her younger cousins. In an amazing moment, the father of the bride shuns this uncle, sends him packing, saying, you are no longer welcome here. And by the end of the movie, Ria is making flirtatious eyes with one of the wedding guests. Ah. Of course healing from childhood abuse doesn't happen in the course of 15 minutes of screen time, but we get the point. Ria is on her way to healing, because her uncle stood up for her, because she was seen as valuable and worthy of protection, and because she helped to protect the next generation.

I am also on my way to healing. What a long road it is... When I was seventeen, I dated a man who was dangerous. A man who didn't pack guns or ammunition, but who numbed my heart, took away my innocence and made me distrust men. Twenty years later, I am still numb. My dating life has been a graveyard of spending time with men who weren't good for me, men that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. There was maybe the one who got away, but it seems that in the end he was just in the closet.

So I'm 37, and there has been no great love. And why not? Because when I was 17, I let a boy kiss me, and it started something that I'm still untangling today.

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

More movies to un-numb your heart:

The quiet ones that make you think:
Broken English with Parker Posey. (Watch all the "making of" bits too, this is the director's first movie.)
Before Sunset (sequel to Before Sunrise, which is NOT a first date movie, nevertheless I did see it on a first date on Valentine's Day. ICK. I imagine my view of it now would be different.)

Fun movies that are a little more than fluff:
Just Sex and nothing else (Hungarian--you have to be willing to do subtitles)
Once (Dublin!) (and the music is amazing)
The Family Stone
Wedding Bell Blues (which I just noticed came out on DVD! Woot!)
Caramel (more subtitles, it takes place in Lebanon)


Total fluff (but we all need that sometimes):
While you were sleeping
You've got mail
Confessions of a shopaholic
How to lose a guy in ten days
Failure to Launch

(if I linked everything I'd be here forever, and you know how to use Google.)

As a movie lover, I always wonder why there are so many book sites, like Goodreads or Shelfari or Library Thing, where one can talk about the books they love, and not so many where you can talk about the movies you love.

(So, Cuileann, I blogged. Without my laptop. We writers just need a little encouragement, non?)

I wanted the poem electric...

(mismatched lines from a poem in Writer's Digest, eons ago.)

Two friends asked this week if their RSS was broken or if I had merely stopped blogging. Neither is the case, I've just taken a long break. Life broke in, my computer is breaking down, and excuses abound.

But driving to work this morning, I was determined that if I arrived before 9 am (I DID) I would spend the first few minutes composing a little something bloggy.

So readers, if you're out there, a big HIIIIIIIIIIIII from Sarah Louise.

So much has happened while we've been apart. And this summer will be full full full.

What has happened:

• I went to Austin and didn't see Badger. (Please forgive me--it was familyfamilyfamily) I did, however, see the Bat Bridge (pictures forthcoming) and eat lots of great food. I was having my lady troubles, so I spent two days in pain and napped every single day but overall it was a great trip and I'm sad that my brother no longer lives there. (He and my dad are driving back to Virginia as we speak.)

• I have jury duty on Monday. Which meant I had to cancel all my Monday dr. appointments. FUN. (not.) This is our busiest time at work as we prep for the kids to get out of school, so I really hope I don't get assigned to a case or however that works.

• I've read lots, of course. For my Austin-cation, I read two of the Dailsy Dalrymple mysteries, which are fun "cosy" mysteries that take place in 1924, in between the wars in Britain. I'm returning the third one today since they really are vacation reads and I'm back at brass tacks. Currently listening to Leif Enger's latest, So brave, young, and handsome. (Going to airport bookstores helped me to see what is in vogue.)

• Twitter takes up a lot of my online time. I like the 140 characters, the fact that at a glance I can see how all my librarian, Presybterian, Pittsburgh, hockey friends are up to.

• What else? Well, this summer, NH Sally moves to Michigan, probably for keeps. Her DH got a job as a professor at Calvin College (the arch rival of the college my parents, grandparents, and brother went to, Hope College.) So a 30 minute from home, 5 minutes from work drive to see her will be a 8 hour drive or a trip on the airplane.

• I might be moving in the fall, into a community house. I feel that right now I need community, since Sally is moving, I'm not finding enough of a community at the OD where all the babies are popping or have popped. (Childless, single woman here.) This will be an adventure in its own right, woman who has lived in a garrett for about ten years on her own, moving into a house with about nine other folks.

Well, my time to blog is up, I gotta go get my tea or coffee and start working.

Oh, and tonight I'm going to an NHL Tweet-up for the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Go Pens! (and pencils.)

let it snow...

Well, okay, I'm not saying snow should pile up in April, but it sure gave Pittsburghers something else to talk about today.

Especially after the past coupla days: 3 police officers killed on Saturday, a house invasion in East Liberty on Monday, a wife shoots a ex-husband on Monday, oh, and there was the guy that drove into the Subaru dealership. Literally.

Calling all angels??

So, yes, I'm glad we had something else to talk about today. And I'm glad the Penguins WON! Woo hoo!

I'm in and out and around (it's called vackay) !!

To bed so I can wake at the crack of dawn...later I'll tell you about egg decorating and the day SL thought her vackay was a goner b/c of jury duty.

Keep smiling...

mental health: it's not for wimps

This was one of my tweets this morning: "a mental health tip: if you've been morose for weeks and all of a sudden you are giggly, watch out. (tired of monitoring moods) #moods.diva"

Yep, I flipped. (It's a my non-medical terminology for I was grumpy/depressed and now I'm not.)

I can feel my skin. It's time for a bath. (I thought I wanted a walk, but that would be WAY too stimulating.)

So, movies to see if you've had the WORST day ever: I love you man. It is highly inappropriate from minute 5, so don't go with ANYONE you don't know real well/aren't comfortable with. But it was hysterical, exactly what I needed.

okay, got to go monitor the bath. Be healthy!!

another tweet: Apparently the pea soup fog is so bad that 1 car hit utility pole, another went into a creek. Blech. #glad.i.work.@.10.a.m.

finding things...

You never know what you'll find when you're not looking for it. Today, looking for my favorite poem (I need to get a hard copy) I typed "love pitched tent excrement" into Google and got this manifesto for a theatre in North Carolina. Wow.

Here's the poem, found when I put "crazy jane and the bishop" into my own search of this blog:

Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.’

‘Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart’s pride.

‘A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.



After it, on a former post, I wrote: "I love that bit. Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. Love, not flowers or candy on Valentine's, but Love that holds the bucket while you wretch."

I have to go now, or suffer being late to work.

Spring has sprung! (some random thoughts)

So Friday was the first day of Spring, and it cracked me up that the Today show had an actual "countdown" with Vivaldi's Spring playing in the background AND that it was snowing in NYC, where the show is recorded.

Today I took a walk to the Seminary and there was literally a herd of red breasted robins. At least twenty, just poking around on the main lawn which is really just dirt, no grass.

Earlier in the afternoon today, I went to see Duplicity, with Julia Roberts and Clive somebody. Very good, spy stuff. You have to pay attention, not a chick flick, but very fun.

Elliot (my car) likes to tell me when there is ICE POSSIBLE. So it cracked me up, on the way to the movies, when it was 53 outside (that's Fahrenheit) that Elliot reminded me ICE POSSIBLE and didn't think it was above 35 until I was already in Aspinwall (close to 5 miles from my house.) The temperature thing is the least important working part of my car (in my mind), but if it's not working and it's attached to the whole computerized thing...I fretted. And then it went up to 38, 41, and kept going until it was at 54. (Whew!)

I guess that's it for now. I wanted to just move on from the last two posts which were a little drama queen-ish. I'm adjusting to the fact that Sally NH is moving, and I plan to go visit Sally EE and baby tomorrow. (Plan being the operative word since I still need to call her.)

In the meantime, I'm still humming that Jason Mraz song.

Oh, and here's something that someone you might know is working on--it's a Mother's Day bookbuying holiday here in da Burgh. That Suzi W. is a good friend of mine, if you live in da Burgh, it will be a fun event. Stay tuned.

"It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk."

Sally NH might be moving two states over. Need I even say more?

Oh, and Sally EE just had a baby girl, YAY. I haven't been over to visit, or even called to congratulate. (Bad friend.) I facebooked her husband, does that count?

_______________________
Harry in "When Harry Met Sally"

it's our godforsaken right to be loved loved loved loved

So if you've been here, you are right with me that life is just AWFUL.

But.

A big ol' Butt.

I have never had the universe open up so wide to want to make me smile. First, I finished watching "How to lose a guy in ten days" which is so chick flicky you never should watch it with anyone that isn't female, but it's great. (See link for the ten chick flick cliches.) (You really should go, I promise it's NOT a Rickroll. It is hysterical.)

Then I realized (tmi) that yep, I have a yeast infection. Ick. THE END.

Then I got two great funny emails from dear friends. One was from a dear college friend and we agreed to quit our day jobs for the day and "meet" at a beach near our alma mater. (If only.)

Then my cousin sent me a new theme she created for iGoogle. This is a talented lady, I'm telling you.

Then, while I'm uploading my new theme, my phone vibrates and it's a text from aintskeered, who I follow on twitter. "There is no fear in love." (Well, check the link, it's from 1John4:18)

This is all in the span of maybe 20 minutes.

So you know that joke, the one about the man who is on the roof waiting for God to save him and a helicopter comes, and a boat, and all these things and he gets to heaven and says, um, why am I here? and God says, um, didn't you see the helicopter and the boat and all those things?

I hear you!!

Oh, and the title is from Dani, who posted this Jason Mraz song to blip.fm. (Yes, she was also a part of the 20 minutes of love.)

It's my blog and I'll sap if I want to. I don't need to be poetic to say, love is all around.

I gotta go eat something. Catch ya later.

(I'm not saying life is perfect, just that it's worth it, n'at.)

Songs to sing

I know, I just posted. But this thought seemed incongruous with the (I can't believe I spelled that long word correctly) post below.

from Annie: "Just thinking about tomorrow....I love ya tomorrow, you're always a day away."

and the Mr. Roger's song: "And you'll have things you'll want to talk about, and I will too."

"You're so far away..."

I've been sick. And I'm sick of being sick, but my body still has a little bit of flu. THE END.

But what happens to "little miss introvert" is that all that time alone (sleeping, watching DVDs, sleeping) backfires. You get used to being alone. You don't call people, people don't call you. And it becomes easier to stay home and do that Google search you've been meaning to do all week.

(Yes, Sarah Jessica Parker had a nudity clause in her contract with HBO, that's why you never see her bra-less.)

So then the re-entry to life is harder, because if your social construct isn't strong, folks forget about you (or you think they have). And you internalize even more. And the longer you stay at home, the harder it is to get out there with people, because as an introvert, you long to spend time with people that really "get" who you are and if you've been gone so long...it's a really bad cycle.

I spent a few hours in tears (well, maybe it was 45 minutes) part of the time chatting online and when I realized I was creating more drama, I said, I gotta go.

This is the year of the bad smell in the hall. This is the year of the bait and switch raise. Yes, I got a raise. And then I had to buy tires. Which basically ate the entire raise. And then, because I make more, the membership to my professional organization went up. AND because we're in a downturn, the library isn't paying for national conferences, in this year where Twitter has connected me to some people professionally that I want to meet face to face in Chicago.

I do my taxes on Thursday. Hoping for a nice refund. Wondering, if I do get a nice refund, if I need to rearrange my withholding. Ay ay ay. Drama.

And yet, I keep a piece of paper in my calendar that puts things in perspective, big time: "If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world."

This is not the year to purchase a laptop. Oh well. My digital camera is on its last legs.

HOWEVER.

I have dirty clothes, which means I have more clothes than I can wear in a week. I have clean towels. When my mother (maybe!!) comes to visit this weekend, I have a bed where she can sleep.

I feel like this is one of those Psalms of Lament, where David starts out, oh, my bones are broken, everybody hates me, no one likes me, I guess I'll go eat worms, and ends with "Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."

What's the bait and switch situation in your life right now? What makes you want to sit on the front step (which is crumbling by the way) and cry? Or are you pretty content with things?

May you find a piece of peace today, tonight, tomorrow.

_________
*Carole King

Seasons change...

Some people mark seasons with the fulfillment of dreams. Some people read all the Narnia books every year. Some people open all their windows at the first sign of spring. And some people (Me!) know that there's a change in the air as she watches the last two episodes of Sex and the City.

I have finally come to "An American Girl in Paris" parts 1 et deux.

I thought I would have a lot to write, but maybe I used it all up in my mind and then the picture positioning, and the collage...enjoy.

As for Daylight Savings--I didn't set an alarm, because it's Sunday. I woke up at 10:30! I am going to have a rude awakening when I have to wake up for an 8:45 chiro appointment tomorrow, and Wednesday I have to BE at work at 9, which means...

But I'm feeling better. I worked 5.5 hours yesterday, had dinner with a friend (where the mahi-mahi made my elbows have hives...isn't learning what your allergies are fun?) and came home.

Spring is in the air. This winter girl hopes it cools down a little, I'm not ready for spring...yet. But I am interested to find out when my crocuses are going to pop.

More later. Carrie Bradshaw awaits...

I will say this: you can tell that the SATC cast, staff, etc. love what they do. That it's not about "churning out another piece." Talking to Bird Friday night she said I should start a SATC fan page. I get so much out of watching it. And the commentaries. Well, first a trip to the WC, then I'll un-mute the TV and watch "An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux." oooh, I can't wait!!

Pink...dolphin!

Wow, this is so cool. And this is called microblogging on one's own blog. Kaithxbai!

10 things I love about you: The Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins

So.........it's been a long time coming. This book came in the mail for me a few days before it was released to bookstores, HARDCOVER, baby. That was January. And I have read the book at least twice now, so I had better come up with why.

1. It has a preview video! (Maybe you knew books had "trailers" but this was my first one.)

2. The cover is beautiful. It is bright and colorful. (As I look at my cover, I see that mine is well loved, it has been in my purse and is quite scuffed.)



3. I've been learning more about India, and how culture and status and caste really do affect life there, and this was another view into that world where it's not so easy. This is not the book where the boy who wants to play cricket professionally gets that dream. This is not even Cinderella getting her prince. Which broke my heart. But the reality of that culture means that stories are told differently. So on my initial read, I thought, blech! It didn't end the way I wanted it to. But here it was, this free book from a writer I respect and a person I'm growing to love. This seems to be the year of India, what with Slumdog Millionaire winning the Oscar for Best Picture, etc. etc.

4. Secrets: this book is full of secrets. And I love how the book is not JUST about Asha's secrets. EVERYBODY in this book has a secret (even Grandmother). And they don't all get told. But you gotta love a book that weaves a secret and a theme throughout. If I told you all the secrets, they wouldn't be a secret, now would they? You gotta read it! Go!

5. "The Jailer" is what Asha and Reet (the sisters) call their mom's depression. How can I relate. It is like being jailed, when depression comes and imprisons you. What a wonderful descriptor.

6. The kind of books I'm loving right now: the protagonist does not get married or get a man by the end. If she's married, she stays married. If she's single, she stays single. Well, in this book, our protagonist's dream is to be a psychologist, and by the end of the book, it looks like that dream may come true.

7. This book helped me to change how I look at "happily ever after." As a girl, well, I am so Cinderella-prone. This book turned that on end. There was nothing Cinderella about this book except for the hopes. But maybe that was the point. An undercurrent in the book was that it took place in the 70s, and Asha keeps thinking "What would those protesting women who burn their bras in America say about THAT, I wonder?"(30) Asha herself is trying to work through how much she loves fairy tales. So this book is an anti-fairy tale...sort of something that would come out of the 70s, sort of a literary response to Free to Be You and Me. This is a book full of female power, in a patriarchial society. Women helping women. It's subtle, but once you unravel it the thread, you find it everywhere in this book.

8. This passage:

In America, where women were burning bras and fighting for equal rights, they didn't need curves to snare a husband. Sixteen-year-old American girls could play sports, drive cars, win scholarships, keep studying, even think about staying unmarried if they wanted.
Asha Gupta, tennis champion.
Asha Gupta, psychologist.
Asha Gupta, forever. (18)

(That last bit took a bit to sink in. For those of you who know me in real life *IRL* my last name is unusual and long. Sometimes I can't wait to get rid of it, and other times, I think of the loss.)

Of course, this is also a fairy tale. "In America, everything is beautiful and women can do what they want." And so the book plays its own game.

9. So what is the book about? Two sisters, who must leave their home in Delhi just as their father, an engineer, must go to New York to look for work. The year? 1974, right after there have been riots and few Indian jobs for engineers. Their mother is prone to depression and off the girls go to live with their father's family in Calcutta until he sends for them. Add the fact that her father's family didn't initially want their university-educated son to marry Reet and Asha's village-born mother, and we already have uncomfortable family dynamics before we discover that the girls won't be able to go to school.

10. This book has great nicknames. I cannot keep up with Russian novels with their five names for each character. But Mitali does a great job at explaining each nickname, and they all suit. It adds to the flavor of the book.

So...I hope I haven't spoiled the plot and I hope you go run and get a copy of this book, Secret Keeper, by Mitali Perkins.

in the midst of winter...

At Trader Joe's on Monday, they were selling daffodil stems. Stems, not bloomed or anything. I put them in water and today this is where they are. I would love to capture them on film each day, but at least I did today.

I am home, sick. Yes. You read that right. The fortunate thing is that the fever (low grade, 99 F) has seem to have gotten me out of my "funk." I find this--if I get a cold, my body decides that it can't take being depressed AND being sick, so it tells the mind to shape up. Not the best way to cure depression, but I'll take it. I'm home. I need to find out where my orange juice is. I think it might still be in the foyer.

Got the car warshed, and so now my car has a "Got milkweed?" bumper sticker, from my mom. (Milkweed is the life source for monarch butterflies in the mating and pupa stages.)

Okay, that's enough for now. ISO orange juice, then maybe a movie, and I might fall asleep.

I don't think it's a cold b/c it didn't respond to the Zicam daytime liquid I took at 9am and at 1pm.

TTFN...

What day is it?

Well, I was feeling better. I went to see Slumdog Millionaire--what a fascinating way to tell a story.

It didn't last long. So say a prayer--it is rare that I talk to my therapist during the week but after yesterday's session, she said, call me if you need to. And I did. I texted Bird (my sister) "I need a hug" and she called back right away. Now, I don't get suicidal (there's a blessing) but she said to me, "I talked to Jesus and he's not ready for you yet." She is such a dear one.

The good news is I made it to work. Late, but I made it. (After my shower, I crawled right back into bed, though.)

Last night the Monday girls (our small group) had a Girl Scout Cookie party. I brought my own bottle of Coke, and ate one cookie. K. was a gracious host (she always is) and fed me some mashed potatoes she had on hand. When my stomach settles, I have some cookies to enjoy in my purse.

So, since I really have nothing to say, I'll make this Poetry Tuesday and give you some Emily Dickenson that always makes me smile. Do you have a poem that always makes you smile?

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--
without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

What do I hope for? That this cough is not a harbinger of a cold. That I can remember to take care of some financial errands tomorrow (that I forgot today). That I can get out of this funk.

The Emily Dickenson reminds me of the hymn, How can I keep from singing.

I sure am a rambling writer today...

Gloomy on a beautiful day...

If I leave now, I can catch my dear friend and her hubby at Whole Foods for breakfast. Which is undoubtedly what I should do.

But I'm so tired. This is my latest tweet: wondering if I'm in the wrong profession. the wrong city. the wrong house. Also, soaking a new Britta filter.

I want a job where I don't have to think really hard about whether or not I can afford a gym membership. I want a job where I don't have to measure out my vacations. (I want to be able to take time at Easter, in the summer.) I want long conversations, face to face. I want companionship.

I love this city, but can it give me that job (which is surely an academic one?) Am I this beholden to this town?

I have always said that geography and relationships are crucial to me. But what do you do when you feel that both are failing you? That the geography you love you are not able to enjoy. That the relationships you cultivate cannot support your need for long conversations?

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

My mother is taking a class right now. It is on the needs of gifted and talented (GT) students. How their special needs are almost as needy as a child with autism, or another "special needs." It is interesting, as my mother talks about what she is learning, I am able to realize how lonely I was as a child. I finally was able to share with her how I longed for college, when in high school I sat at dinner and couldn't have conversation, because conversation had to encompass everyone and that included two toddlers. (Bird will forgive me. By the time I was fifteen, she was five and NOT a toddler, but as in her eyes I was the older sister, the additional parent figure, to me, she was the young one, removed from my life.)

All my friends are married, or getting married, or having babies, or had them. It takes a month and endless emails to arrange even one lunch date. Can I live on a diet of lunch dates?

When I was in my freshman year, by October, I thought, I have to transfer, I have to get out. I worked through and out of that, but by October the next year, I thought, I have to transfer, I have to get out. And by that time, I had enough stability to get out, to do what must be done. I wonder if now is that time again. Last year I went through a need to get out, to move on. It passed. But I wonder now if that time has not returned. And if in the stability of this year, having tried to make it work and seeing that it is not enough, what this city offers me, that it IS time to move on.

If I leave now, they will still be sitting there with breakfast, maybe. But I am ragged, and tears stain my face. Is now really the time to compose myself?

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

Back to my mother's class. So there are "special needs" that a gifted and talented child/adult has. But what then of the myriad of needs? I am special by many ways: I have a bright and quick mind. (And I long for people to talk to.) I am a TCK grown up (and I long for people who understand what it is to have grown up traveling, not to have to explain myself always.) And I am a single woman, not sure if she will find a mate, if she wants to. (There is a dual special need there: for companionship in the singleness, but also for discussion of what it is to be single.)

So is there a balm in Gilead? Is there ever a way to have all one's needs met? (Outside of heaven, that is.) The answer comes back, a resounding no. But then how does one decide which needs are most important? What will continue to kill me slowly if I do not nurture it?

So, dear reader, what is it that is killing you slowly as this winter moves on, always snowing, never Christmas? Is it time to take an inventory and see if the pieces will form a whole puzzle, the sailboat that shines in the breeze? Or is it warped and missing too many pieces, water damaged from all the tossing to and fro?

Is there one thing that would stop the oozing out? Or do you have multiple oozing holes, each one crying out like that plant in the Little Shop of Horrors, "Feed me, Seymour, feed me!"

(Aren't I a cheery one this morning?)

This blog hasn't died, I promise

Helen just commented that she misses "new" content. I miss it too. In many ways, Twitter has become my blog, but in other ways, I am busiest now than I have ever ever been in my professional life.

I'm working on corralling the North region to choose Summer Reading programming--in a meeting that was an hour and a half, I still have to make phone calls!

I'm working on this project that was started in New England. I'm nuts. I have never planned anything bigger than my own birthday party and three Stuffed Animal Sleepovers. I actually have to go real soon and meet with a woman at Borders. And I have NOTHING to hand her, partially b/c we have nothing on paper... (look at the links.)

I am behind in that I promised Mitali Perkins I would review her new book, Secret Keeper. Tuesday, when I tried to compose myself and make some notes at my favorite bistro, the waiter was hitting on me, so I left as soon as I could. Drat.

The cat lady on the second floor has been of concern--the smell is sometimes in my own apartment and I have threatened my landlord that I'm considering moving.

The depression I had a week ago threw me for a major loop. But it only lasted about a week, YAY!

I'm feeling less connected to blogs because it's not where my friends are, so much. My friends are on Face Book or Twitter. I miss getting comments, which could be because I'm not writing.

I'm considering visiting my mom for her birthday next weekend. It might be a better on the bus trip, as I'm Tired.

I don't think this winter is too long. (I've been hearing this a lot lately.) If I haven't gone ice skating, winter can't be over yet.

I will work on being more witty n'at. Here, have a cookie. Have two.

Today in Twitters, n'at

I just wrote a "kitchen sink" post (everything but...) that I'd like to polish up, but I want something new up, so I'm looking at what I did today based on my Tweets.

• encouraged our Moderator that he is not alone, I don't watch Lost either. (It's good to know I'm not the only one.)
• I seriously need to read the Conspiracy of something by Dallas Willard. Everybody has read it. One of my twitter friends is about to read it for the 7th time.
• Alyssa and I are both cranky. She's probably crankier than I, though, as I only had myself to care for today, and she always has two kids and a hubbie, and now, two dogs.
  
• Due to my cold/malaise/whatever, I slept from 11 am to 3pm.
• I purged some folks, added some folks, ended up with the exact same number of people I "follow."

I also wrote some emails, answered some emails, and put some on the back burner. Marian the Librarian is under the weather again and I miss her!!

I watched this Hungarian movie again. I watched it yesterday before work. The title is Just Sex and nothing else, (Variety review). The title refers to the fact that Dora, the protagonist, just wants a baby. She doesn't want to have to deal with men anymore, hence the title. Just enough sex to get me pregnant and then goodbye. Which gets her into a mess of comedic relationships. Since it's in Hungarian, you have to watch the entire thing, reading the subtitles. Glad that I watched it a second time, some things made more sense (because if you miss a subtitle, well, you may miss a crucial detail.) It is a luscious movie: Central European architecture, lush interiors, the characters, the actors, it's a fun movie. A visual treat. It makes me want to learn Hungarian, because I can tell there is so much lost in translation. But what IS translated is great. Let's see if I can find another review. It reminded me of SATC, the same themes of what is a 30 something woman to do if she wants to settle down? Here's another review. I love that the librarian that buys movies at our library has a real eye for the odd-ball movies. Another one that I loved recently was Broken English with Parker Posey. But I'm tired now, and it's 10:30. And I have the faint suspicion I already told you about Broken English.

Tomorrow is my ACTUAL day off, as opposed to a sick day. I have 2 dr. appointments, but then the day is mine--maybe I'll catch an afternoon movie...

You'll be sleeping with the television on...

(Billy Joel, Glass Houses)

There are some nights where I cannot make it off the single bed in the back room where I watch TV to the single bed in the front room where I sleep from September to May. (I sleep in the back room from May to August because otherwise the sunlight would wake me at 6 am.) Last night was one of those nights. Fortunately, I did take my bedtime meds at some point, while I was watching ER. (ER is having a fabulous last season, btw. I stopped watching it ages ago, because all my favorite characters from the beginning were gone. Alyssa twittered about it last week and so I thought, ah, I'll see what it is. Now I'm hooked, and happily only until the end of the season which is the end of the series.)

Let's see if I can write that with out all the parentheticals. There are some nights I can't make it off the bed that is in the back room, where the TV is set up, to the bed in the front room, where I sleep most nights. Last night was one of them. I took my bedtime meds at some point while watching ER, and watched the news, watched Leno, sort of, as I was curling into fetal position amidst all the debris that is still on that bed even now as I sit here, morning.

I don't generally watch ER. Alyssa twittered about it last week, and I got hooked, and last night I fretted that sweeping the walk and salting it might make me late to watch it, but I made it upstairs just in time for the closing credits for 30 Rock. I don't generally watch the news. But last night I made sure I was back in the back room in time to watch the (I can't spit out the words) news about the US Air flight that is now being called "The miracle on the Hudson." And I watched all of the news, and then Leno. And I didn't turn off the TV, or make plans to get into my nightgown. I guess I didn't brush my teeth. I curled into fetal position, with the TV on, and fell asleep. So my dreams were peopled with people telling me that I should make sure my car battery was in good health, that I had a blanket and a first aid kit in my car, salt, all those things you should have when you might get stranded because of cold or snow. Which we have, in abundance. No, we are not at -53 degrees F like Schmutzie, or at 7.5 inches of snow like Jim Bonewald, but for Pittsburgh, we have enough. About three inches on the grass and the temp is -7 degrees. Our high, which will come at about 4:00, will be 7 degrees. Right now in my mind I'm going through whether I will attempt to refill my wiper fluid at that time or if I will run by the guys at the quick oil change on my lunch hour.

The TV is off now, after being on all night, and I instinctively want to turn around. The sound is just off, my monkey mind says. No, I didn't mute it, I did turn it off. I don't want to hear about the American in Italy who is about to start a murder trial for killing her roommate. I don't want to hear any more about how cold it is outside. I don't need to see all the places that are closed running on the bottom of the screen. You know it's a lot because yesterday, they stopped in between commercials. The news would go off, the commercial would come on, full screen. Then the news would come back on, framed in blue by the temperature (COLD) on the left and the scrolling schools and day cares scrolling on the bottom. This morning, every school district is closed. As much as I am a proponent for winter, today I will not be foolish and take my morning walk.

I had dreams about going to the Superbowl. It was in Pittsburgh, and it was cold. A friend of mine was waitressing, and she was wearing a uniform with a special red and white long sleeved t-shirt. Was the Superbowl in Pittsburgh the other times we played, my dream mind wondered.

And then I woke up to people talking about Sully, and getting out alive, and I opened my eyes, and sat up and watched. I watched and watched until they stopped talking about it and moved on to what they had probably scheduled at least earlier in the week, the American in Italy. I wonder what features were scheduled for today. People that got calls yesterday or last night--don't come in for your 7 am make-up, we're spending the majority of the show talking to the survivors of Flight 1549. And what a relief--that they were ALL survivors, there weren't any non-survivors, except for the plane, may it rest in peace. Well, pieces, now, and it will have to be brought up, they'll have to get it out of the Hudson to examine it, to retrieve the black box, to study what went wrong and what went right.

Last night I finished listening to Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Outliers. In it, Gladwell spends an entire chapter on pilots and crashes. He talked about the culture of the pilots and how that affected the way the pilot and the crew interacted. How changing the language that Korean pilots used in the cockpit to English allowed them to retain their culture outside of the cockpit, but that interacting in English made them safer. Blech, this paragraph stinks. But I know that there is a difference of 10,000 hours. Sully, the pilot of the US Air plane, had more than that 10,000 hours of flight. Yes, it was a miracle. But there was more to it than chance. Chance did not make this flight the only successful water landing, I think, EVER. Sully is described as a man who even when he travels in coach with his family, when they do the safety review, pulls the card out of seat pocket in front of him and follows along.

I wonder how many books will be born. I wonder if we will come up with a Dewey number to use for those books, just as we have Dewey numbers we use for books about 9/11. I wonder if there is a number for the Hudson river. Or will it go in aviation? Some of the books will go in Biography...I'm getting tired. I've been tired. It's time to check my email, my Twitter, maybe Facebook, and get a move on. I have to be at work in a little over an hour, and if I want a shower, I should do that now.

I'm hitting publish. There are other links to add, I know, but I need to decide if I want to get wet before going out into the cold. How grateful am I that I swept and salted last night.

STAY WARM!